Day 17: Eating cactus

Leaving the gritty big city of Ciudad Mante early this morning. On Day 16 we pedaled from El Naranjo to Ciudad Mante, and today, Day 17, we pedaled from Ciudad Mante to El Naranjo. We took different routes each day, for added variety, lest you think us completely uninteresting, dear readers. Once arrived and safely in our stately hotel there we got out pen and paper and calculated days left and kilometers needed and determined that Ciudad Mante was as north and east as we would go on this trip. Now we are heading west towards San Luis Potosi, where our trip must come to it's planned end.

 The flat grey hazy world before we reach the first hills separating the land near the Gulf from the mountain regions (Sierra Madre Occidental). We have discovered a green juice blend, made in Mexico, which hydrates us splendidly. It includes all the expected players of pineapple, celery, and orange, in addition to what is only a local speciality: cactus.

Sunday morning is the time for cyclists! A band of them passed us, making us jump in surprise and laugh hysterically at how foreign they seemed to us, all jersey clad and supremely fast and agile. Likewise, they all called out enthusiastic "hola"s and one even hollered a jubilant and self-satisfied "HELLO!" 

 Climbing out of the flat greys. The mountains, like veiled weighty secrets, blend with the distance.

 Stopping at a little comedor for some coffee. We asked the cook if she had "cafe olla", which ensures you will receive true coffee and not brown water Nescafé. She nodded affirmative and then immediately brought out two cups of brown liquid. Nescafé after all. But then after some time, once we were resigned to our weak fate she arrived with one more cup, the real liquid gold! She went next door and bought a carton of milk and brought it to our table. So many experiences in Mexico, like these three cups of coffee, I simply do not understand.

Riding between the mountains in a roaringly hot landscape of endless sugarcane. The afternoon is the pizza-oven heat of the day, when one has already been riding for half the day, when butt soreness sets in and stoicism must be accessed. I had to buy an enormous and terrible Gatorade, Red Flavor, to replenish some of myself which was being burnt and pedaled off in great sloughs.

At our most defeated point in the day, we could be found 80 baked kilometers into our ride: Ellie was discovering that her gatorade had leaked into her spare bike shorts shami, and I was sitting in the dirt in the paltry shade of some sugarcane, fanning myself weakly with my passport and sitting squarely in the path of many ants.

 But, oh how our road suffering was rewarded. The end of our ride gifted us with the beautiful waterfalls and swimming hole at El Meco. To submerge myself in that cool mermaid-teal water after so much heat and power-riding was a deliciousness that is completely unavailable unless prepped by some suffering.

All the red chairs! The sweet lady of this comedor was sitting in her empty dining room, until two hungry gringas approached and enquired what there was to eat. She cooked us plates of eggs and cactus, and the smack-smack of her palms on corn masa rang through the entire meal. She carried out a stream of single hot tortillas, one by one as each was done, held in the tips of her fingers, adding each to the already generous stack in a cloth on our red plastic table.

 This is cactus! Nopales. It is maybe the only green vegetable we can possibly hope to find, next to a rare bit of zucchini or the incompetent iceberg lettuce. Nopales are like a combination of canned green beans and okra, smooth, a little slimy. And exciting because, come on, you're eating cactus. They shine with chili and lime.