Maincourse Mexico

After the h'orderve that had been Baja California and my break on beach and boat I was keen to sink my teeth into the delicious looking main course of mainland Mexico. As much as I had enjoyed Baja it had felt like an American annex, not so Mexico's Pacific coast. This was full on, my tentaive Spanish received looks of puzzelment, whereas before they would have ellicited a conversation in Spanglish; the roads where bursting at the seems with every type of vehicle from truck to donkey pulled cart and the humid intensity of the heat meant a drink stop every ten km for a refreso or ice cold coconut milk. All this I was expecting and loving; the liveliness and colours made a welcome change to Baja's montone desert. What I had not expected was the generosity of the Mexican people: my first night I camped on a beach in front of a bar, no sooner had I asked if it was ok for me to stay there then a beer was thrust into my hand "para ti amigo, gratis", "muchos gracias". This generosity has been echoed ever since: fruit is regularly added to my load, breakfasts are bought for me, bike mechanics refuse payement. I have twice been given free hotel rooms, although once I had to turn it down because the road was beckoning and the other time I spent half the night listening to the couple next door getting aquainted with admirable persistance. I quickly climbed away from the coast into the state of Jalisco, home to the town of Tequila, and into fields of agarve and huge mountain valleys. Unfortunately I had to follow the main road from the coast to Mexico's heartland and as a result I was twice introduced to the state's ditches by passing lorries. After this I hit Michocan and a whole load of cyclists, they were everywhere in the towns and even a few with flash road bikes on the rural roads. This made for much more pleasant cycling as the lorries no longer held such sway over the tarmac. My first major city I stayed in was Morelia, I had meant to stay for a lunch time and ended up staying two nights. This was partly due to the beauty and life of the city, looking its best on the weekend before christmas and partly due to the people I meet there, which entailed me sweating out an aching hangover heading onto the most beautiful road I have traveled in Mexico. This road wound from Morelia up through a nearly vertical, pine coated valley, into the heights of central Mexico, where the country's two major mountain ranges collide. The heighest I reached was a pass of 3500 m on boxing day, having seen in christmas day in a cantina, which would be flattered by a description of grot hole, but had the fine destinction of a roaring fire, and spent the day visiting the winter home of the Monarch butterfly. These creatures travel from Canada and Northern USA (essentially I've been cycling as fast as a butterfly, hhmmm) and amass in these mountains in such numbers that they can break the branches of trees with their weight. After this awesome display I headed south to Taxco a stunning city perched on a bowl of a cliff. It is fair to say that I had been getting a little lonely over the christmas period, despite the generosity and kindness of the people I met, the scarcity of a flowing conversation (my Spanish is still about the level of a toddlers) and a feeling of going nowhere had me questioning the whole point of this trip. So I decided it was time to get back to the basics of this journey: spend all day, everyday, cycling, camping wherever I met dusk and if this meant spending New Years in a field with an arrogant turkey then so be it. Thus was born the tale of The Little Gringo who Could...