Day 22: Arrival and gratitude

Day 22 began with us as sleepy as the little town of Armadillo where we awoke, deep in the crevices of those dry mountains of wild horses. The grey mist fattened into hovering droplets, then fell in a proper rain, adding to our sluggishness as we worked to change my rear flat which had appeared overnight.

We biked up and out and up, retracing our endless flight downward from yesterday. We were biking in a thick cloud, the road ahead eaten by grey mist with views completely unavailable. For being luggy and slothful, we were still celebrating ourselves for climbing for 1.5 hours.  This was our last ride of the trip, heading to our destination city of San Luis Potosí.

 The road consumed in the mouth of mist.

Wild horses in the mists. Like a story book. 

Before we entered into the clog of trucks and cars and taxis and potholes and dogs and street signs we prepared with some fortifying cookies. These were my Emergency Backup Cookies, and that I had been able to carry them for the entirety of the trip without needing to open them, was a joy indeed. For all that they symbolized, we ate them and celebrated.

 Ellie flies down the highway into San Luis.

From the mountains to the city, we had a gentle decline and a powerful tail wind. What a gift. We FLEW. 30 kph with little effort. Moments like these, the city lying ahead like a prize, and us buzzing with incredible speed, these are the times where I feel bigger than myself with all of it.

We chose an exquisite coffee shop to be our "final destination" in the big city. Unlike so many of our small town stops, this coffee was not brewed with sugar (very common, and frankly, an abomination), not burned, not Nescafé, not with powdered fake creamer. Real, true, upstanding unadulterated goodness. I waved my arms around as I sipped my cappuccino: so good. 

Celebration also continued with our very first and very last salad on the trip. Salads are as rare as unicorns here. "Look, I'm eating a LEAF!" we kept exclaiming to each other.

States of San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas, Querétaro. Region of La Huasteca, Sierra Gordas, Sierra Madres. Rainforest, dessert, flat gulf industry, cattle ranches, sugarcane, mountains mountains mountains.

742 miles. 40,800 feet of climbing. (good lard) That's 1.4 times up Mt Everest, or 8 vertical miles.

20 riding days. 2 rest waterfall days. 4 flats amongst us. 4 jars of peanut butter. 0 accidents. Countless gratitude for safety, for good people, for all those amazing roads and views.