The Magic of Mexico
So how do you exit one of the biggest cities in the world by bike? Make sure you start early on Sunday morning! There were not much cars around and we were lucky to choose one of the main streets that had a car free Sunday! Happy families and athletes were cycling, skating and running on streets that are normally packed with traffic. Great initiative!
On a high at 3000m
After some 40kms of urban area we had escaped the city but still had a lot of climbing to do on a hot day. Back into the dry yellow hills! Climbing is fine but combined with road works it is less fun. For a couple of miles some lanes and the shoulder are closed off. Luckily a police car pulls up and we get an escort to go to the top. This is the highest point on our trip so far, almost 3000m, and before we make the last kilometres we eat a well deserved quesadilla on the road side. On the way we have two of the highest volcanoes in Mexico in sight: the Popocatepetl and the Iztaccihuatl. Quite knackered we get to the small village of Santa Rita and almost pass out before dinner time. But we make an effort and go the corner of the little town square. Here is a food truck run by a very friendly family. We dig in and the “gringas” taste so good!
Puebla con mole
The next day we reach Puebla. On the way we have a lot of fun at a gas station with the ladies of the coffee place. At first a bit shy, but soon they are all sitting on our bikes and taking photos and videos of each other. Close to Puebla is the town of Cholula. This town is famous for having supposedly one of the biggest man made buildings in the world: a giant pyramid that is now covered with grass and trees and has a yellow church built on top of it. We admire it from a distance in the shade with a nice lunch on the main square. When we arrive in Puebla the vibe feels great and we decide to stay for a day. There is a lot of history here as we see in the impressive Palafoxiana library (1646), full of sculpted wood, globes and very old books. The Santa Domingo church has a chapel with a bizarre amount of gold. Surrounding it are shaded pedestrian areas full of shops where Jakoba finds a dress to take home. The streets are filled with antique shops with colourful fronts and people having food and drinks overlooking the streets from French balconies. At night we go to a well designed hotel restaurant for the best ‘pollo con mole’ in town; chicken in a spicy chocolate sauce with over 40 ingredients and endless variations. Every town and every family has a secret recipe that is of course considered to be the best one. Walking around the main square many couples occupy the park benches and cuddle the night away. Mexican city life is not that bad!
High hills on the highway
The next day we make some 130kms, but the ride along the highway is quite uneventful and progress is slow. At some point we have so many punctures from tire wire that a men walking alongside the road is passing us three times! Luckily we get off the main road and get on a newer and less busy road to Tehuacan. We get there just before dark and check into a clean, air-conditioned business hotel. After some food we are exhausted and get some good sleep. The next day will be though again as we have an elevation gain of 1400m. And the heat gets more intense, but luckily so do the views when you are climbing. At a ‘restaurant’ that is not more than a little hut near the top, we get some food. We are joined by Paul (Germany) and Kelli (US), who have been living in their van for some years and are climbing fanatics. We get a peek inside their organized van, cool to see their way of life!
Rural life in Mexico
Our Warmshowers hosts live in a tiny town off the highway with a badly paved road. It is a very warm welcome though. After asking around for the exact location -street names and house numbers don’t ring a bell here- we get to a shop that is owned by Paloma and Gabriel. They live behind the shop in a courtyard with a lot of space and we get a bed in a large room that more houses have in Mexico and is probably used for parties and family events. Soon the kids are playing around with our whikes in the yard. Paloma and Gabriel are such great people and we have a big barbecue at night with their friends and another guest, a French guy. Of course the barbecue is accompanied by a large 3L bottle of Coca Cola! Life in these villages seems so nice with a close-knit community where everybody knows each other. They are sad that we stay only for one night, and after a great empanada lunch we continue to Nochixtlan. The bicycle trouble continue after Jakoba loses her fender on a bumpy downhill. The town of Nochixtlan has had a turbulent past, as we learn only when we leave town. Burnt cars and a bus are the remaining witness and monument of a large protest that took place a year ago between teachers on strike against an education reform and the police.
In love with Oaxaca
From Nochixtlan we had a nice ride to a city we would stay for a while and fall in love with: Oaxaca. Before we would venture further into town, we treated ourselves to a night in a spa just outside the centre. Time for cooling down in a pool and getting a massage, it is our honeymoon after all! After all the quesedillas, rice and beans, it was great to have a tapas dinner in a cosy little restaurant. With a nice glass of wine. After that we met up with Paul and Kelli to try some mezcal and live music at one of the many bars around. We were already liking it! The next day we moved from the spa to an affordable yet excellent ‘posada’ in the centre. It had nice spacious, air-conditioned rooms around a shaded courtyard with flowers. We soon discovered that Oaxaca had many ‘hipster’ features that were a welcome change to rural Mexican life. Good coffee bars, a delicious bakery/lunch room, museums and many good restaurants and mezcalerias for the evenings. On Sunday afternoon the main square, the zócalo, is filled with an orchestra playing tunes to which the whole town is dancing. From young to old, and with the occasional tourists like us, everyone is dancing together. The older men are dressed in sharp suits and hats and the women in colourful dresses. A great way to spend the afternoon and feel ‘feliz’!
On Monday we start our week of Spanish lessons from Marco. We got him recommended from our friends Joost and Carolien, who spent some time in Oaxaca as well. We decided we wanted to learn some more Spanish to increase our level of short sentences and vocabulary that we had learned on our first weeks in Mexico. Every morning from Monday to Friday, we order a cup of coffee and go over verbs, present tense, adjectives, write short stories and dutifully do our homework. Marco is a great teacher and also knows the good place to go for the smallest restaurants with the best ‘tlayudas’ (tortillas the size of a pancake), good mezcal and much more. The days have a nice rhythm with lessons in the morning, sightseeing and coffees in the afternoon and a drink in the evening. There is an old theatre, a textile museum and we even visit an artsy Virtual Reality experience. We enjoy a luxury five course meal at Criollo, which makes modern classics of traditional dishes and intersperses the wine pairing with other drinks like mezcal and beer. On Saturday Marco takes us to the nearby archaeological site of Monte Alban. We get a personal tour through the remains of this Zapotec city that had its heydays between 500BC to 500AD. At night Marco’s girlfriend Niza and some other friends join for drinks and salsa dancing! In the mean time we also tried to get Jakoba her fender fixed. After being sent to different places and some knocking on iron garage doors, we find a couple of greasy looking guys that can weld and glue the fender back together. We decide to have them work on both bikes as all fenders are cracked by the down hills on bad roads. The next day we are sad to leave this lovely city, but happy with the great memories and the prospect of a new adventure in Mitla!
