¿En Vaso o Bolsa?

It is a very common question in Mexico. Have you ever had drink in a bag? It's delicious and surprisingly effective using a straw and a plastic baggie as a to-go cup. Anyways, if you are bored today try it out.

After leaving Morelia we continued riding back on the coast.

Andy couch surfing like a pro. Acapulco was the first place we couch surfed and it was a great and free way to find a place to sleep.

Sunset in Acapulco

Dolphins and Mermaids are the oldest lovers in the world

We had just enough time to snap a photo for andy's senior portrait before the sun went down.

This is the autopista or quota (toll roads). They had awesome shoulders and good road conditions, but seeing these signs was an added bonus.

Delicious grilled chicken (i think it was for breakfast) in a little town called Las Vigas.

Maraton Guadalupano

In Mexico a major day of celebration is Dec. 12th. This is the day for La Virgen de Guadalupe. It is a big deal and people celebrate for weeks beforehand throughout Mexico. This truck was one of many we saw on the road that was carrying truck loads of people. The people would line up on the side of the road and run a relay with a torch. Each person would run about 100 yds with the torch to the next person and then wait for the truck to pick them up again to take them farther up the road. This particular group was doing this all the way from Mexico City to Oaxaca (over 600 km or 375 mi). Pretty intense! There were also smaller treks in each town we passed through as well as groups on bikes.

After a long day of riding Yoli was there to quench our thirst.

Do you remember the Sprite commercials where basketball players would drink sprite and then jump into the basketball court but it turned into swimming pools? It's like that but more delicious.

Jumping into the wonderful pacific ocean in Puerto Escondido after a long days ride.

We met some fellow bike tourers (Matt, Lolic, and Finn) in Puerto Escondido and did some riding with them

Sunrise from Agama Yoga Center in Mazunte, where we couch surfed/camped. A very beautiful space with some very nice people.

Matt and Lolic.
Matt is a canadian who has been riding for 6 months all the way from the artic ocean in Alaska. He met Lolic, from france, in Vancouver and have been riding together for four months. Pretty cool guys.

Finn just graduated from high school in Victoria Canada and decided to ride his bike. He has been on the bike for 4 months and met up with Matt and Lolic in Zihuatanejo. He has his surfboard attached to his bike. Also a cool dude. It was great to ride and hang out with them for a few days.

My last Mexican sunrise for a while.

I decided to make some travel plan changes. I surprised my family in Boulder by flying home for a few days at Christmas and I will fly to India/Southeast Asia to travel with my girlfriend Stephanie. Pretty excited about it. I will continue to post on the blog, although the focus of my travels will not be on the bike for a while.

I scrounged the city of Huatulco in Oaxaca to find a bike box, but had to make due with 10 or so small boxes taped together. Luckily all my stuff was pretty compact when taken apart.

Sunset on the way to denver via houston

Such A Very Tiny Baby in Morelia

Morelia is the capital of the state of Michoacan located in the mountains in Central Mexico. We arrived on a bus from Lazaro Cardenas on the coast a little after sundown. I had talked to Nena and Andy about potentially visiting them but didn't have the chance to call them before we caught the bus because it was leaving right after we rode into the station. So when I called Nena and told her we were in Morelia she was quite surprised. She invited us to their home and suggested we take a taxi because her house was on the opposite side of the fairly large city.

When Andy and I went to the taxi line outside we quickly realized we wouldn't be able to fit our bikes into the relatively small taxis without having to significantly take them apart. We decided to be adventurous and ride across the big city in the dark. The route was relatively simple because there is a main 3 or 4 lane road/highway that loops around the city. We just needed to stay on that road and ride to the opposite side of the loop. The night riding made it a little more exciting and it is somewhat harder to see in the darkness than daytime in case you were wondering. But we had a relatively uneventful hour long ride to Nena's house.

Andy, Nena and Danny

The local market had many delicious foods and interesting characters. This lovely lady was selling nopales (cactus) either cooked or raw.

Andy and Señora Nena choosing some delicious veggies. There is so much fresh food here it is wonderful

Andy checks out a map of mexico in the centro area of Morelia

Morelia is a very beautiful city with a large colonial influence. Here is a beautiful fountain with the aqueduct in the background.

The kitchen in Nena's house is a common hangout place. Señora Nena's cooking is incredible and we were constantly full.

Los dos Nenas.
Mother and daughter. Two wonderful people. Señora Nena was pretty pissed i took this picture


Cristina!!!!

Baby Daniel was pretty amazing. I wanted to keep him....until he started wailing. Much nicer to hand him back to mom and dad then.

Tacos Al Pastor
I ended up getting pretty sick in Morelia which delayed our departure by a few days. It was really nice to have a home to stay in when i was running to the bathroom every 20 minutes. Here i am enjoying my awful "suero" as andy eats delicious tacos.

Here is my little pig/cow mascot i found in a little market. He was ready to go as we headed out of Morelia.

We had a great time in Morelia. Andy, Nena and Family were very gracious and generous to host us. It was very nice to meet Danny before they headed back to the US after christmas.

From Wide Shoulders to No Shoulders

The past 10 days we have spent riding on the coast in the states of Colima and Michoacán. The roads here in Mexico are always changing. Highway 200 runs the entire length of Mexico from our start in Puerto Vallarta until Guatemala. When we crossed the border into Colima from Jalisco we were surprised as the road suddenly improved with a huge shoulder and very nice pavement. A few days later as we crossed into Michoacán, a group of soldiers stopped us to ask us what we were doing and checked our passports before letting us cross the bridge where the shoulder suddenly disappeared and the potholes increased. You never know what your gonna get. We would be riding along and suddenly the pavement would disappear and we would be riding through a work zone on dirt with tractors and dump trucks passing us by. There weren´t any signs letting us know, or workers directing traffic. Two way traffic just seeming to work its way through one lane areas with no problems.

The days are starting to blend together as we form a routine. Each day waking up with the sunrise, making oatmeal and packing up camp. Then onto the bikes for a short while before we are hungry again and need to stop for 2nd breakfast. A little more riding until we come across another town where we can eat lunch. Usually some tacos or plates of chicken or steak with beans and tortillas. Back on the road trying to drink enough water as the heat really picks up in the afternoons. Eventually we are exhausted and find a beach town to put our tent for the night. We usually find a little Enramada (small family run restaurant on the beach, open air right on the sand) and have a second lunch and then ask for places we can camp. A lot of the times we are invited to camp right there or directed somewhere nearby we can go. Set up our tent and eat dinner then hit the sack pretty early before starting all over again the next day.

Now we are in Morelia visiting Andy and Nena Dick and there new born baby son Daniel. Back on the bikes in a few days.

Here are some highlights from the last week.

Paco, Andy, Francisco and Mike
We met a kid named Paco in Santiago who saw our bikes and started chatting with us before eventually inviting us to stay at his house. So we took a rest day and hung out with him.

We were late to the start of a soccer game, but Andy wanted to practice his portero skills.
He ended up playing in a match the next night and impressed the locals with his mad skills and fearlessness

Andy entertaining some of Paco´s friends in Santiago.

We take a lot of breaks in the shade to get out of the heat and to eat snacks throughout the day. This was on a toll road which have much nicer pavement and shoulders.

Our bikes on the beach in Pascuales.
We arrived in a small beach town and found out there wasn´t a direct road connecting two towns 5km apart and thought it would be easy to ride on the hard packed wet sand. Didn´t work out so well and we ended up pushing our bikes the whole way.

Some kite surfers in Pascuales at sunset

Our first night in Michoacán in Boca de Apiza. A super nice family cooked us some great meals and shared some good fishing stories with us.

Fresh fish, fresh salsa, fresh tortillas. Doesn´t get much better.


In the morning the dog milo, the pig cleopatra and the kitten named kitty were playing together

We met some fellow travelers (Ari and Major from Sequoia) in Maruata. This is a fish Major caught with his speer gun.

The fishermen getting after it early at sunrise

We camped at a local families enramada for $5 a day including bathrooms and showers. Here was one of the many lobsters they caught that day.

The baby Kimberly slept most of the day in the hammock

Andy demonstrates how to brush your teeth in La Soledad

Andy looks down the Michoacán coast. Some beautiful views along this road. But some brutal climbing as well.

The Michoacán coast in 5 days

La Costa

We left the safe haven of Mascota to begin the hard everyday riding. Cisco dropped us off up the road from Mascota and we began riding the rolling hills towards Talpa de Allende where thousands of Mexicans travel each year to see La Virgen.

Our first stop to eat. It was a nice old man and his family who lives part time in Mexico and part time in California.

Andy on top of a mini church looking down valley towards Talpa.

The road heading down to Talpa below was an awesome descent. 77 kph max speed

Arriving in Talpa, Andy is stoked!

A very common scenery the first few days. The hills were beautiful until we had to ride up them. Then we were pissed.

Lots of pretty butterflies and tarantulas on the road

As the road turned to dirt and started to climb there were more and more landslides. It looked as if the road was just cleared in the past few weeks. We were told that it had rained more this summer than any rainy season in the last 100 years.

There was construction on the bridge so we had to ford the creek.

The road was all dirt for most of the first two days even though our map showed a paved highway.

Our first stop was in La Cuesta. A tiny town in the hills with one street. We were allowed to camp in the church courtyard and bathed in a natural hot (more like warm) springs that night.

Leaving the next morning for more fun. This was right next to the woman's house/ one table restaurant who cooked dinner for us as we waited in her living room.

More dirt and more climbing the second day. It was two of my harder days on a bike. Lugging a ton of weight on a dirt road with little traction and tons of bumps can really wear you out. Even so, it was one of the coolest road rides I have ever been on.


The second day we arrived in a small ranch town called Llano Grande. We ate in the first restaurant we saw and asked about camping. We were told he had a friend who owned a land down the road we could camp on. We asked if we should speak with him first and he said no, its no problem. When we arrived at his ranch a group of kids were playing with the cows in the bull ring as we waited to try and speak with Reuben, the owner. Another man we ran into also told us it would be fine to camp there but offered to go get Reuben, which made us feel better.

Reuben came by and started chatting with us, wondering why the crazy gringos on bikes wanted to camp in the middle of his cow's field. He was very friendly, and the longer we talked to him the more stuff he started offering us. First he said we were welcome to camp on his land, then he offered to let us shower at his home in town, and he eventually said why didn't we just come stay at his house. It was amazing how well it worked out because when we went back to his house/restaurant we ate dinner, then showered. As we prepared to set up the tent in their yard, his wife Lupe asked us why we weren't staying in the extra bedroom. Extra bedroom? Really? It turns out they had an extra room with 3 beds. Perfect. When Reuben came back from work later he also offered to give us a ride to Tomatlán (as he was taking his kids there to the dentist in the morning) which was probably another two days riding on similarly crappy roads. We decided to take him up on the offer and packed into his work truck in the morning. It's amazing how the universe just works everything out perfectly for you sometimes.

Local kids chasing the cows

Andy stumbled upon a high school and we were invited into this English class to help them practice. The majority of the students were girls as most of the boys drop out to work when there are of high school age. There was only one english teacher and the students only get 2 hrs a week in her classroom.

Hanging out with Reuben and his friends in front of his house in Llano Grande

We were six deep on the bench seat of his pickup truck for the 2.5 hr bumpy ride

After the two difficult days of riding and climbing up bad and bumpy roads, Kodi had decided she was going to return to Colorado. We were sad to see her go, but we have potential plans to meet up after Christmas in Central America.

The day after Llano Grande my camera mysteriously broke and hasn't been working until today when it miraculously started working after I hit it on my palm in frustration. So there aren't any pictures from the last week.

We continued down the coast riding on nice paved roads stopping in beach town where we would be able to camp each night. We continue to eat lots of delicious food and meet interesting people along the way. There are still a good amount of climbs each day but the roads are much easier and the drivers are extremely cautious and courteous when passing.



Here are some maps of the last couple days riding. And for all of my bike nerd friends here is some data from my garmin:

Since we left Puerto Vallarta:
338 km in 23 hrs of actual riding time.
14,550 calories burned on the bike
3800m of climbing and 4600m of descending

Day 1: Talpa to La Cuesta. Day 2: La Cuesta to Llano Grande. Day 3: Tomatlan to Punta Perula

Day 4: Punta Perula to Playa Cayeritos. Day 5: Playa Cayeritos to Melaque