Since the extreme temperatures in the middle of the day make an early start imperative, I decide to try to get my papers sorted when I return from Yaxchamil so that I can get on my bike and leave first thing in the morning. I locate the immigration office opposite the museum and approach the [...]
Also tagged border crossings, guatemala, mexicoMy stay in the area of Mexico City and Puebla has turned out to be a very extended one. By the time I ride out of Puebla, heading south towards San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas, it is almost two months since I first arrived in Mexico City and I have only ridden the [...]
Also tagged desert, jungle, mexico, wildlifeBy the time I pack all my gear onto my bike and ride out of Mexico City, it’s almost a month since I first entered the city. I’m on my way to Puebla, only a 130 kilometres away, where I’m going to meet an organisation that works with socially excluded children and adolescents with the [...]
Also tagged mexico, volcanoIt finally stops raining and I leave Zacatecas.
I am armed with detailed maps, obtained from the Secrectaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes, of the states that I will pass through next. These maps are the only ones I’ve seen that detail secondary roads and dirt tracks with any degree of accuracy but acquiring them is a [...]
We arrive in Zacatecas after dark and make our way through the bustling town to find Victor, our couch-surfing host, in his student digs.
Victor lives near the centre of town in a tiny semi-derelict house. Amazingly, the limited space Victor has at his disposal doesn’t prevent him from unquestioningly offering four cyclists accommodation. Victor is a [...]
We are not overjoyed to be back in Guachochi; it is a charmless town that most tourists probably don’t spend more that half an hour in, if that. However, we are waiting for Cass to return from the UK and the state of Jeff and Jason’s wheels means that there is no possibility of leaving [...]
Also tagged dirt roads, dirtbag gang, food, mexicoI continue on corrugated gravel track across the desert. The road is being worked on as I ride and the surface is deep and loose. The men working in the graders stare at me, as if I might be a mirage, as I pass.
I’m so glad I chose to struggle across the rough dirt tracks [...]
It occurs to me, as I ride out of the Bay Area, that I am always leaving – and that it suits me. Which is not to say that it doesn’t also pain me somewhat, at times even considerably; but the melancholy that leaving produces in me is so familiar that I wear it like [...]
Also tagged california, mountains, san francisco, yosemiteI am a little reluctant to move on. My next step, since I have decided not to go into Vancouver, will take me back to the USA and I have mixed feelings about it.
A ferry leaves from Salt Springs, close to Jane and Eric’s house, at Fulford Harbour to Swartz Bay. From there, it is [...]
Eventually, I manage to rouse myself and pack my things back onto my bike but it is already 4.30 on a Monday afternoon by the time I make to leave Whitehorse. There are fires burning across British Columbia and grey green smoke hangs thick in the air. It is not an inspiring senario.
As I wheel [...]