Descend upon the desert

In crossing the mountains from Chamal to Tula I went from a pretty green place with rivers, and dropped out of the mountains into the desert.  It was as quick as that.  A few hundred feet and boom, sand, cactus, desert.  On my way from Tuña to Matehuala I stopped in a town called La Presa de Guadalupe where I was recieved by an extremely nice family who offered me a room in their house.  The next day I headed for Matehuala which is a good 120 km, most of which is on the autopista, a really big major highway.  It´s totally legal to ride your bike on the highway in Mexico.  Luckily there is also less traffic than a highway in the states, and the road is really wide.  I was pretty tired and thinking about finding a place to stay somewhere near town instead of pushing on, but I kept thinking that I should make it to km marker 180 for some reason.  And I did.  What did I find?  A white truck with 2 extremely nice people that offered me some water, took me out to dinner, and let me stay at their super nice ranch just outside of town.  I threw my bike in the back of the truck and we headed in to Matehuala for the last 20 km that remained.  Jorge, the person that let me stay at the ranch, turned out to be a bike enthusiast and bmx rider.  What luck!  I really can´t get over the amazing hospitality and warmth of the people that I meet here.  I am forever grateful for each and every one of the people that has helped me out along this trip.  It´s been amazing.  Today I made it to Real de Catorce, a ghost town in the mountains here in San Luis Potosi.  I´ll do some exploring tomorrow, and hopefully make it to Cerro El Quemado, but you have to walk or go on horse and I´m not too fond of horse tours.  We´ll see though.  After this I´´m off to Zacatecas.  I´ve had a cold for the last week, and I´m really hoping that it goes away soon.  It´s not really hindering my experience, but it annoying.  It´s sort of transformed into a sore throat today which is making my voice sound raspy and deeper than usual, which I secretly enjoy.  Maybe it will go away tomorrow.  Well, enjoy the photos and I´ll probably see you all in April.

Let`s start in El Naranjo, San Luis Potosi.  Here you will find las cascadas de meco y el salto de agua...sin agua.  There are carnicerias (meat stores, like a deli) all over the place making carnitas (little pieces of super fatty pork and fried fat) in giant tubs on the sidewalk.  Grease, salt, fatty meat.  It`s soooooo good.  Slap it on a tortilla or in a gordita with a salsa and some limon, oh gosh you`ve got heaven.  Ah, the sign that says Comedor Fatty is equivalent to a sign that says Diner, Fatty.  I don`t think they knew what fatty meant.  It`s the same as saying comedor grasosa.  Silly people.  I ate there though and had a really good mole.  This last week has been a good one, slower than I would have liked in terms of milage covered, but completly great otherwise.  I rolled into a town called Chamal a few days ago sin ganas to bike any more.  I was super tired and didn`t want to move my body one more inch.  I asked around for a place to put my tent and ended up at the house of the local pastor and his wife right next to the baptist church.  I put my tent down, climbed in and slept and slept.  I was planning on leaving the next day but I was still really tired and it was raining.  The family invited me to stay another day and they fed me and put me up in a room in their house.  I headed out to a nature reserve the next day to check out the views.  I got to the top, pitched my tent, ate some food, and went out looking for a way to get to the top of the mountain.  The road to the top is totally impassable by bike, and really far by foot, and really uncomfortable by vehicle.  A truck ride or 4 wheeler ride to the top is somewhere in the range of 1500 pesos.  Hell no I wasn`t going to pay that!!!  I ran into a cop while I was looking for an internet cafe and talked with him a while, he was on a 4 wheeler.  And what do you know but the next day I got a ride to the top with that same cop for free.  Oh what luck!   The next day I headed out again and stayed with the family in chamal again.  I wasn`t going to, but they spotted me on the road and we got to talking and they invited me to eat and then it was late and I stayed.  This morning I hit the road to Tula, the beginning of the desert.  I put in somewhere around 60 kilometers of straight mountain climbing and I`m pretty beat.  For the first time in over a week I`m staying in a hotel, but oh gosh is it awesome to take a shower!!!  So, here are the photos of the last while.  Tomorrow I`m headed to real de catorce...it will probably take me a few days to get there, but I will get there.

La ruta del agua

 I´ve been riding north for a while now, with the sun always on my back. I´ve got an even tan going on from right to left, none of that one sided tan for me. There are mountains that shoot up to the sky and rivers that wind through valleys. Looking at a map of where I am and then riding through it is fascinating. I know in my mind where all of the mountains are and I can picture myself pedaling along the valley headed towards the next pass. The landscape of the world is much like if someone put a piece of plastic wrap on a wet balloon and then scrunched it a little bit. Everything would rise in crinkly peaks leaving behind smooth valleys. Who is squished the landscape in the first place? There is always something to think about while I´m riding along, and sometimes I find myself in a completely meditative trance and I pedal along. Sometimes my legs scream at me, especially in the morning, but there´s a power that the mind has over the body that is most incredible. This power is on that we are all familiar with, it´s the easiest one to notice. You have to pee and there´s no bathroom, you hold it. You just want to get to your bed and sleep but you live on the fourth floor, you keep climbing the stairs. The power that the body has over the mind is a more subtle thing, and something that is really fun to learn. You go and you go and you go and all the sudden your body is the one that´s doing the thinking and your mind shuts up. Normally your brain chatters along right? But when you do a repetative action for long enough it gets quiet and you can listen more closely to the things around you. I could just go on pedaling for a long time. This last week I´ve been following a bunch of rivers, and camping out at the cascades along the way. It´s gorgeous and full of life and neat things to look at. The food is amazing and I find myself really glad that I´m always hungry because I just want to taste it all. The only part of my body that is consitantly sore are my hands. I think they have some deep tissue bruises that just won´t go away. But really it´s a small inconvenience. I have a thousand photos of the water around here, but I´ll only share the ones that are the best. I really love taking photos and I´m looking forward to learning more about it, but really I don´t like taking landscape photos. They don´t inspire me really and it´s too bad because that´s really all I have to share these days. I could shoot other photos, the kind that I like taking, but they require a more close inspection of where I´m at and since I´m going going going it´s hard to get that perspective. Maybe I´ll stop for a minute and hang out in another town. Tomorrow I head to the state of Tamaulipas (which boarders the US by the way) Maybe I´ll just bike home. No, I think not. I would like to see Real de Catorce in the desert and a few other places here before I leave. Enjoy the photos.