I was off to a flying start. 24 hours after I had illegally crossed the border (see previous blog update) into Tijuana, Mexico I had lost my passport. Thankfully, after a brief panic and trying to unsuccessfully think of any positives in losing my passport it was handed back to me the following day by an old man staying at the jujutsu club come hostel. I had left it on top of the windowsill in the toilet. Strange place to leave your passport I know. It seemed that every bloke in that hostel had taken a flick through that passport whilst taking a dump, including a Syrian plastic surgeon who was trying to cross the border to seek asylum in the US. I overheard his conversation to a lawyer in the States and had a chat with him. After a crush injury following a bomb blast which left him needing his lower leg amputated he had fled Syria, flown to Paris and was now on his second trip to Mexico. His first attempt he was refused entry and made to fly back to Paris so he had tried again, this time falsely claiming he was seeking asylum in Mexico. He had to spend 2 months in a detention centre but it did the trick. Now he just needed to get past that wall! The US lawyer told him he could hand himself over at the border but would have to spend 6 months in a US detention centre before he could try claiming asylum, whereas if he somehow managed to get into the States without getting caught he could claim asylum and skip 6 months in a cell. I was trying to help him think of ways to cross and told him I couldn’t believe he didn’t give it a go with my passport and some hair bleach!.... I couldn’t blame him if he did! It made me think how blase I had been with my passport when someone else like that would have done anything to have a passport like mine. Anyway, good luck to that man, I sincerely hope he makes it!
It was time to hit the road. The route I had chosen would take me south to the tip of the 1000 mile long Baja California peninsula before taking a boat across the sea of Cortez to join the mainland. What I had not taken into account was the temperature. It should have occurred to me before hand that crossing a Mexican desert on a bicycle in the middle of summer would be hot. Though it had not. Daytime temperatures hit highs of 45 degrees Celsius and I was melting, it was f'ing brutal! Research would have told me this but anyone attempting to cycle from Alaska to Argentina normally starts in summer so as to avoid camping in snowstorms and getting frost bite....which would make for a much cooler autumn arrival in Mexico. In Alaska I purposely would not awake from my frozen coma like state in my tent till around 9am when things started to warm up a little (well at least not double digits below freezing anyway!) 2 months later I was setting my alarm for 5am to avoid getting cooked by the baking sun! It was so hot sweat dripped from my fingertips and I had a few dehydrated wobblies where I nearly fell off my bicycle. And no, a sip of water did not do the trick!... My bottled drinking water was not just warm from the sun, it was as if you’d just boiled a kettle! Whoever said warm water is better for cooling you than cold water as its closer to your bodies temperature... Well that’s complete rubbish!!
Baja is essentially a thousand miles of desert sands and cactus with one main road going from top to bottom... and a few isolated towns. Though there was some nice scenery in the mix, a sea with the best colour water I've ever seen and some good camping spots along the way. Heading south, I hit the sizeable port town of Ensenada before opting to take the number 3 road which crosses inland over the mountains to join the number 5 on the remote east coast (known as the sea of Cortez - Gulf of California). This stretch of road starts of poor and gets worse! There are a couple of remote towns 50 miles apart. Though they look like something out of a madmax movie with 40 year old American mobile homes converted to make-shift houses sitting on the desert landscape. Eventually as I headed south the number 5 highway turned into into rocks and sand.. It was 45 degrees Celsius with head on wind and to top it off was becoming increasingly mountainous!
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| A photo cant show 45 degree celcius extreme heat - but this face does! |
At 5mphs and so drenched in sweat you`d have thought i`d been for a swim in my cycle clothes I was losing the plot a bit! I eventually reached a place called coco`s corner, a stand alone rundown cafe which is apparently a legenadary spot on the Baja 1000 off road race. Coco was nowhere insight but his friend was taking care of the place, nailing a teddy bear by its ears to the wall and womens knickers to the ceiling when i arrived. He had a bed in the corner of the room and a broken down truck he was trying to raise money to fix, which may explain the lack of selection, they sold only beer, coke and pot noodles, which did the trick! Cocos mate told me a girl had come the other way on bicycle last year and was so broken she was in tears when she arrived, I coud believe it! Cocos mate generously let me use the shower and I was on my way. After going over the top of a moutain this inhsopitable stretch of road finally came to an end and I could see the tarmac of the main number one road infront of me at the T junction. This would have been a wonderful moment, but out from the shack/house dead opposite me belted 2 angry dogs running straight at me! I had to use my bike side on as a shield to stop them biting me until the owner came over to drag them away!
Back on the concrete I blasted south towards the port of La Paz at the southern tip of the peninsula. One town i passed which i wont forget is Loreto. I treated myself to a hotel there and deciced to get up and go for a 7am morning swim while the temperatures were still cool. The water felt amazing as I walked into it......until......AAAARGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Out of nowwhere I felt the most excruiciating intense shock of pain ive ever encountered! It was as though my foot had been covered in tin foil and struck by a bolt of lightning whilst an electric fence had been wrapped around the rest of my body and turned on...and the sensation of a broken foot and paralysis all at the same time! I found myself rolling around the beach screaming not knowing quite what had happened. Id like to think im not a pussy but ive never felt pain quite like it! I looked down at my foot and saw a big puncture hole in the side with blood pouring out. I had been stung by a stingray! Worse than the pain, which was a broken foot times 10, was the feeling of my body becoming paralysed. I could not walk, could barely move my left leg and the rest of my body felt semi paralalysed too. It was pretty scary! With it being early in the morning there was nobody around except an old lady walking who must have called the ambulance. The crew rocked up, stabbed some needles in my foot and wacked me in the back of the ambulance and took me back to my hotel, which i couldnt remember the name of. The pain was relieved temporarily but after arriving to my room I found myself screaming in agony rolling around my hotel bed for over an hour. I crawled downstairs to the hotel lobby in my underpants and lay on the tile floor infront of reception yelling in agony. The ambulance was called back to sort me out. I dont know what they did wrong the first time, but they got it right this time and after some more injections into my foot the pain immediately was lifted. I went from being in complete agony and crippled unable to walk to completely fine in the space of 30 minutes. I learnt the hard way its best to shuffle your feet in the sand if you swim in areas of suspected Stingray!
Determined to make up for loss time I set my alarm for 5am to make the most of the cooler morning air. I had cycled 20 miles when i managed to jam by chain and was unable to free it. I had to hitch a lift back to town in a pick up and go to the bike mechanic, who simply removed the back wheel to free the chain, I felt like a complete plonker! He was a very keen experienced mechanic, the sort of bloke that reeks of professionalism and would find it agonising to do a poor job. Since I was there and had missed the morning window to cycle, I thought i`d get him to fix the rest of my bike too. I had had no rear brake since San Francisco (my rear wheel was not buckled... but bowed outwards, so I had to remove the brake for the last few thousand miles to prevent the pads from rubbing) On removing the tyre to inspect the wheel, my Mavic French build rim had cracked right down the middle. Typical! A British build wheel would obviously be in fine shape still!
A few days later I reached the port of La Paz and bordered an overnight ferry which headed directly east across the Gulf of California to rejoin mainland Mexico at the port city of Mazaltan (province of Sinola) where I spent the night before heading south towards the surf town of Sayulita.
The arid landscape of Baja changed to a very lush rainforest like vegetation, slightly cooler but with massive humidity. On my second day towards Sayulita I found myself not being able to find a place to camp and cycling into the night. It hit 10pm and I saw a sign off the main road to a small town called Chilapa Just 1km away. Maybe I could find a place to stay there I thought. I could hear the dogs barking as I approached on the cobbled street and soon found myself smack bang in the middle of a small dead end town. The places had a colonial feel to it with crumbling down old buildings, the sort of place where everyone knew everyone and that hadn’t changed it decades... Even centuries! Me rocking up on the bike caused quite a stir. Despite the time there were quite a few people on the street, including 5 old people drinking beer and eating tacos outside their house on a plastic table and chairs. They called me over for a beer and offered me tacos so I joined them. Outside of their house stood an old 1950s John Deere tractor, which was still in operation (British engineering of course!)and an old bath full of water. To me it looked like the bath had been there for year’s (as did the water) but one of the men told me someone had stolen the water pump for the town a few weeks ago so the bath was the water supply for the house. I asked them where I could camp and they told me I could stay in the church, it would be safe in there. It seemed good to me except the old boy with one eye who owned the house and was clearly pissed kept offering me to stay In his house. I was happy to stay in the church though after him asking at least 6 times I didn’t want to appear rude and accepted his generous offer. What could go wrong I thought!
The house was spacious inside and had a once grand feel to it, though was now In need of repair and was riddled with cockroaches. The old boy took a piss on his doorstep and made me a make-shift bed on the hard tile living room floor with an old sofa cover and a dirty old pillow. I wasn’t complaining, it was a generous offer and after cycling 135 miles that day was exhausted. I soon fell asleep, but in the early house of the morning was awoken by footsteps. The one eyed man was walking towards me in his underparts! He lay down next to me, reached out one arm and clasped his hand around my arse! I bolted upright like I had been stung by a stingray! The front door to the house was locked so leaving was not a option, nor was being buggered by a old man.
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| Crime scene where the young Mr Panther was sexually assaulted by the one eyed man |
I suspect being an old man in very small Catholic dead end town he had never had the opportunity to come out the closet. I didn't really want to make a scene and for his wife to discover after decades of marriage that her husband was a homosexual, so i opted to move to the corner of the room and got inside my sleeping bag lying on the tile floor propped up against the wall. I layed there, eyes wide open and dripping with sweat (the sleeping bag was for protection not warmth!) wishing i had chosen the church and took my chances with the Catholic priest. I want scared, just pissed off and massively in need of sleep! A few minutes later I heard his wife walk into the room. She stood above me, probably trying to work out what had happened... And then went completely mental!! I heard her shouting and screaming at him and hitting and kicking him, and he was gone! I left the next morning acting as if nothing had happened.
Back on the road I headed I headed south along the coast to the surf town of Sayulita and then near-by Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta was a popular detination for the gay community and had a gay district the size of Soho. I got chatting to a cute short haired bi-sexual girl in the coffee shop who after warning me she had no license and her bike was falling to pieces took me for a moped tour of the town and a skinny dip. This is what i like about Mexico. I then headed inland towards Guadalhara, Mexicos second largest city with a very vibrant student population, and the desitantion for any good looking girl in Mexico. Getting there was hard work, my earlier preconceptions of Mexico being one big flat desert were completely wrong and I found myself climbing ridiculously steep 2000 metre high lush green mountain passes right into the cloud layer. It looked more like New Zealand than Mexico.
After hitting a techno club in Guadlajara with a German guy i met earlier on the trip and meeting the friendly locals I headed for Mexico City, offiical name now CDMX. I have no idea why, it sounds like the model of a Vauxhall car. I could see 2 roads heading in the direction of CDMX, one curved to the north and one to the south through the state of Michiocan. Michocan was the state which everyone told me was dangerous and I shouldnt visit. Being the sort of person that likes doing the opposite to what everyone tells you I was keen to check it out.
I had barley even been cycling in Michoacán for more that 500 metres where right in front of me 20 police officers surrounded a house with machine guns! The following day brought more Michoacán madness, cycling along a raised dual carriageway out of the corner of my eye 3 youths sprinted up the embankment and jumped over the metal barrier literally 2 feet in front of me.
They had a look off terror on there faces and I could have sworn I was about to be the victim of a Mexican travellers horror story. Just as I thought they were going to attack me, they sprant across the dual Carriageway right in front of my eye’s narrowly missing a huge truck. It all made sense moments later when 2 cops with guns in hand chased them across the carriageway, later followed by more police and a load of onlookers from the nearby village. I have no idea what they did or if they were caught, I definitely wouldn’t fancy the prospect of being taken to a Mexican police station. Maybe Michoacán deserved its dodgy reputation!
After spending a night in the beautiful town of Santiago de Queretaro (cobbled streets, colourful historic buildings) I made a b line for CDMX. When possible I’ll take the small roads. Small roads normally equal less traffic, better scenery and meeting more wacky people. Though heading for Mexico city nothing seemed to go In even vaguely the right direction, so I spend the last 200km on the motorway climbing uphill to CDMX (2250 Metres above sea level).
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| Santiago de Queretaro |
I certainly made good progress but on the uphill sections the hard shoulder disappeared and I Found myself being crushed between the wheels of old American lorries and the metal barrier as there side exhausts blasted dirty black smoke in my face, it wasn’t groovy! Unable to find a hotel and with a face like a coal miner I pitched my tent at night on the grass right by the side of the motorway. I barley slept a wink with the horrific sound of unmuffled lorry exhausts and woke to find my tents inner and outer covered in literally hundreds of slugs and snails and a load of Mexicans walking past me in sombreros, some carrying wooden crosses on there backs. Whilst picking the snails one by one off my tent that morning I tried to comprehend why anyone would want to do a pilgrimage alongside a motorway!
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| Motorway to Mexico city - awful nights sleep! |
To say Mexico city is massive would be an understatement, 21 million Million Chilangos Live in a city which creeps up into the hills for miles around. I decided to be sensible for a change and found a place with WiFi and used my phones navigator to guide me in using the “cycle” option. The navigator drains the battery really quickly but I thought it would last long enough to see me home. Anyway, of all the roads in this city this stupid navigator managed to find a mud track through some of the dodgiest looking favelas I’ve ever seen (police in pick ups with machine guns driving around) before taking me up a mountain. I was about to curse out loud thinking why I didn’t use a paper map like I normally do when the mud track took me to the crest of the mountain from which the whole of Mexico city’s gigantic skyline became instantly visible. A cobbled road wound its way down the other side dropping right into the heart of the city.
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| Mexico City - CDMX (2250 metres) |
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| Arriving into Mexico City |
I had intended to head for Belize after Mexico city, though I was becoming increasingly aware of my timescale and beginning to release why most people take 18 months or 2 years to cycle the America’s, not the 8 months I had given myself. Not wanting to leave myself playing catch up on reaching South America I decided to take the direct route towards Guatemala, via Oaxaca, sticking to the Pacific side of the continent. On route to Oaxaca, taking a small country road, I looked up and had to pinch myself I wasn’t dreaming! There was a huge marquee pitched on the carriageway occupying the whole entire road! As I got closer I could see a village party was taking place, men in hats, mariachis, and women in traditional clothing. Before I had even entered the Marquee everyone was pointing and laughing at me and the old drunk men surrounded me, put Tequila under my nose and demanded I sat down and joined them! They were all extremely jovial...... and hammered, there was no way I was getting out of this one. They found 2 good looking girls for a photo session and then kept shouting out, “kiss!” Although extremely attractive they were possibly of an age that could of landed me in jail, at least in the UK anyway, I may look like Jimmy Saville on a bike but don’t want to behave like him, so I kindly rejected the offer. 2 whole glasses of Tequila and 2 cervezas later I pedalled my bike away from the village, hammered, wobbling all over the road. A few miles later the small road hit the main toll road for Oaxaca, I found a piece of grass nestled between the toll booth and an ambulance station, pitched my tent and passed out for the night.
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| You wouldnt get away with this back home! |
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| Just no way out of this one!! |
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| The Police didnt seem to mind anyway! |
The road to Oaxaca, as I have experienced in much of Mexico, was incredibly green and mountainous. 2 days later I arrived in Oaxaca in complete darkness, and as I did, the heavens opened (summer is monsoon season in Mexico). When it rain here it doesn’t mess around. The insanely heavy rain caused a flash flood and at one point the water touched my knees as I pedalled. I eventually found a hostel (Oaxaca is a touristic town) and dragged my bike up the steps into reception looking like a drowned rat. With blood shocked eyes and trembling cold from head to toe I checked in with the bloke at reception, at which point an eastern European girl pushed in front of me to complain her WiFi wasn’t working properly! She then turned to me to ask if my WiFi was working OK!? I don’t think I should get preferential treatment for choosing to travel by bicycle......but somethings are just obvious! No words.
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| Oaxaca |
From Oaxaca I dropped down out of the mountains and returned to the sweaty hot temperatures of being at sea level as I headed for the Guatemalan border. Mexico had been a blast with many good memories and the most amazing hospitable people. Throughout Mexico people had stopped to give me food and water, always been fun and friendly, in fact, I cant recall a single time when anyone was at all rude to me. So many cars had stopped to beeb and wave at me my arm felt like it was going to fall off from waving back. Mexicans get a bad rap, maybe there just good at looking dodgy! But this certainly wasn’t Donald Trumps land of bad hombre’s! Oh and the food....... Although often unhealthy, the food had been very tasty. The only thing I can criticise Is when they mix beer with tomato juice....they call it Michelada....and its just wrong! .......and the sugar content, apart from water every beverage ranged between 30 and 70 percent sugar, yes seriously. Some believe in a conspiracy theory that the government want to keep the people fat and lethargic so they are easier to control. If this is true, they are doing a very good job, Mexico has overtaken the US as the fastest people on the planet.
Anyway, all that’s left is to cross the Guatemalan border. Mexico has been a huge country to crack, a lot further than crossing the US with extreme heat and mountains, psychologically at times (as with Canada) it was gruelling and felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere. Crossing into the Guatemala signifies the end of North America and the beginning of Central (coincidentally Mexico is about 3 times as long as the whole of Central America) and will be a huge mental boost. This would be a formality had I not entered Mexico illegally...lets see what happens tomorrow! Current location, Tapachula, 15km from the Guatamala border. 3 months and six days since leaving Anchorage, Alaska.
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| Photo taken ...tomorrow!.... less than half a KM from the border, Guatamala is in the background. |
More pics...........
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| Heading south from Tijuana |
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| Northern Baja - The transition into Desert |
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| Not one of my most attractive campsites - Baja California |
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| Cocos Corner! |
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| Town of San Felipe - Baja California |
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| The only bit of flat ground I could find out of sight from the road. Apart from the insane humidity and rocks in my back it wasnt a bad nights camp (Heading for Guadelajara) |
It was time to hit the road. The route I had chosen would take me south to the tip of the 1000 mile long Baja California peninsula before taking a boat across the sea of Cortez to join the mainland. What I had not taken into account was the temperature. It should have occurred to me before hand that crossing a Mexican desert on a bicycle in the middle of summer would be hot. Though it had not. Daytime temperatures hit highs of 45 degrees Celsius and I was melting, it was f'ing brutal! Research would have told me this but anyone attempting to cycle from Alaska to Argentina normally starts in summer so as to avoid camping in snowstorms and getting frost bite....which would make for a much cooler autumn arrival in Mexico. In Alaska I purposely would not awake from my frozen coma like state in my tent till around 9am when things started to warm up a little (well at least not double digits below freezing anyway!) 2 months later I was setting my alarm for 5am to avoid getting cooked by the baking sun! It was so hot sweat dripped from my fingertips and I had a few dehydrated wobblies where I nearly fell off my bicycle. And no, a sip of water did not do the trick!... My bottled drinking water was not just warm from the sun, it was as if you’d just boiled a kettle! Whoever said warm water is better for cooling you than cold water as its closer to your bodies temperature... Well that’s complete rubbish!!
Back on the concrete I blasted south towards the port of La Paz at the southern tip of the peninsula. One town i passed which i wont forget is Loreto. I treated myself to a hotel there and deciced to get up and go for a 7am morning swim while the temperatures were still cool. The water felt amazing as I walked into it......until......AAAARGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Out of nowwhere I felt the most excruiciating intense shock of pain ive ever encountered! It was as though my foot had been covered in tin foil and struck by a bolt of lightning whilst an electric fence had been wrapped around the rest of my body and turned on...and the sensation of a broken foot and paralysis all at the same time! I found myself rolling around the beach screaming not knowing quite what had happened. Id like to think im not a pussy but ive never felt pain quite like it! I looked down at my foot and saw a big puncture hole in the side with blood pouring out. I had been stung by a stingray! Worse than the pain, which was a broken foot times 10, was the feeling of my body becoming paralysed. I could not walk, could barely move my left leg and the rest of my body felt semi paralalysed too. It was pretty scary! With it being early in the morning there was nobody around except an old lady walking who must have called the ambulance. The crew rocked up, stabbed some needles in my foot and wacked me in the back of the ambulance and took me back to my hotel, which i couldnt remember the name of. The pain was relieved temporarily but after arriving to my room I found myself screaming in agony rolling around my hotel bed for over an hour. I crawled downstairs to the hotel lobby in my underpants and lay on the tile floor infront of reception yelling in agony. The ambulance was called back to sort me out. I dont know what they did wrong the first time, but they got it right this time and after some more injections into my foot the pain immediately was lifted. I went from being in complete agony and crippled unable to walk to completely fine in the space of 30 minutes. I learnt the hard way its best to shuffle your feet in the sand if you swim in areas of suspected Stingray!
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