mexico city – vagando

I feel like I am flying, sometimes.

After a couple of weeks off the bike, I dread getting back on. Cycling is like many other things in life, you need to just get back in the saddle and go.

The riding is initially not too bad as I make my way out of Mexico City’s boundless sprawl. I get fresh pollution straight from the source as I ride an eight lane highway out of town, none of the stale particulate matter that fills the rest of the air hovering over the city. I say ‘an eight lane highway’ as I am sure that this is not the only one. I am working my way towards Amecameca where I will ride my bike through Paso de Cortez between Itzataccihautl and Popocatèpetl, some of the highest volcanoes on Earth at 5230m and 5426m respectively.

As I pick my way through the artificial landscape I realize that I am free from this point on. I am going to abandon any goals that I had as far as destinations or time. It makes no sense to me to push onwards towards a distant and meaningless destination. No more timelines, no more destinations. No definitive goals. I will just keep rolling until I stop rolling.

Amecameca, Puebla to Paso de Cortez, Puebla

I am on a new schedule: I spend the morning reading and juggling. The saddle of the pass lies 23km away, nestled between the two volcanoes. I approach through fields of cornfields with the remnants of the corn harvest neatly stacked into golden cones as animal fodder for the winter. Popocatèpetl emits a steady stream of smoke from its black conical form; Itzataccihuatl lies long, its form jagged and colorful. I enter a pine forest that provides glorious shade and obstructs my view of the daunting climb ahead; I settle into low gear and make my way upwards.

I ride my bike around the saddle, a common stopping point for tourists, and feel like Cortez on his iron horse, my thrist for gold and blood only slightly less than his. I think I can safely blame my thirst on the altitude though. La Malinche and Pico de Orizaba are visible on this perfectly clear day. The black icy flanks of Popocatèpetl glisten in the sun.

‘Is the volcano more active than last year?’ I ask one of the park rangers.

‘Ever since Peñanieto (the current president) was elected, it has been angrier than normal.’

I devour fruit and peanut butter as the day passes, finally setting out down a sandy road that sends me swerving until I find a gate on the right side of the road. I pass my panniers and bike over once more and disappear into the forest. I set up camp in a meadow below a stand of pines on the flank of Popo. I set up my tent for the first time this trip and stretch under a full moon as the pines sway in the breeze overhead.

Paso de Cortez, Puebla to Cholula, Puebla

The sun shines on me through the octogonal porthole of my tent. It looks like morning, but I am not dumb enough to fall for it. I worm my sleeping bag back onto the pad and sleep for another hour.

I feel like I am flying sometimes, it is a feeling of freedom and weightlessness that has nothing to do with wings. I fly this morning, my bike leaving a trail of dust behind me as my panniers rattle, my hands ache and I fishtail on a steep sandy stretch; almost laying my bike down. I am not sure if flying like a bird is more interesting out of the freedom to travel with the wind or in the physical sensation of flying for most people, for me it is the former. Chainsaws hum and shift pitch in the distance.

I hit San Nicolas de los Ranchos where I eat a sandwich loaded with the following: pig leg, breaded chicken, hotdog, chorizo, egg, avocado and cheese. It isn’t impressive due to the number of animals involved in its production, as a hotdog covers all three itself, but rather in the sheer diversity of ingredients.

I ride into Cholula, passing many of the 365 churches to which the city proudly lays claim. There are exactly 365 too many for me. I find a cheap hostel called Hostal Cholula that smells of cigarettes and mildew; the receptionist eyes me suspiciously as she moves other peoples luggage out of the room to make space for me.

As I roll my bike into the room, I notice that a screw rattled loose from one of my panniers. I set about finding a duplicate, a task that proves impossible. I eventually find myself fabricating screws in an aluminum window frame shop run by a man named Antonio. We devise a solution and then I stumble into the market in search of food. Smoke dims the interior, blenders resonate in every direction, knives cleave against wooden blocks, sellers shout out prices. I find a piece of fruit that I have never seen before called chiramoye.

Our language is severely deficient in words to describe flavors.

Sometimes I feel like I am dying, that my soul is weighed down. This is the antithesis of the sensation of flying. It is the feeling of acquiescing to things that one stands against. The fight gone out of the dog. I want to be inspired and want to inspire.

Cholula, Puebla to Outside San Juan Atzompan

I have a mental map of how to exit Cholula and skirt around Puebla in my head, but I end up spending two hours navigating unmarked roads that lead me into the concrete labyrinth of Puebla. The physical map that I have doesn’t even remotely correspond to reality. I cross several rivers that burbles and bubbles with a frothy deep brown mixture of raw sewage and chemical waste that looks incompatible with life. As I pass the river Tepanene there is a sign with a skull and crossbones saying that drinking the water will cause harm or death. (I hope in twenty years I can look back on this writing and this will be laughable.)

I get out my map frequently to get directions and no one is able to point out where we are without my assistance. I ride through rolling foothills of cactus until I reach a fork in the road, where I diverge towards the city of Tepanene. As I stop to take a photo of a tope, a man named Hector sidles up and we spend half an hour talking over apricot juice. About America, about Oaxaca, about life.

I ride out of town on a dirt road that begins to climb into a towering forest of Joshua Trees and lush desert vegetation. The road is devoid of cars, people and barbed wire fences. Paradise. The vegetation grows more varied, trees of the sort that I associate with African savanna appear. I slowly climb and then coast downhill, lost in the landscape. I don’t look at my computer, I don’t think. I finally arrive in a small town, where two guys wrestling a large piece of plateglass in the wind give me directions to San Juan Atzompan. I hang a left at the fork to La Magdalena and then climb some steep dirt sections that leave me gasping.

Towering cactus appear, flowers line the roadsides, agave are scattered across a landscape cut with several small clear creeks. I buy tostadas in a small village from a woman who asks me the following:

“Are you a Catholic or a Christian?” Fuck this sounds like a trick question. Think fast…Oh god… she is either a rabid Christian or a vicious Catholic, but wait Catholics are Christians.

‘Uh…Christian?’ Brilliant!

‘The Evangelicals here say that the Catholics are not Christians.’ She bursts forth.

‘Uh….well… Catholics are Christians.’ I try and defuse this one, it just shifts her tangent.

‘We welcome you here with open arms and will help you along your way, yet if a Mexican goes to America he will be arrested and thrown out. Why don’t you want us in your country?’ I am not sure if this conversation quite constitutes welcoming me with open arms.

‘Blah blah blah. Diplomatic rhetoric. Blah blah.’

I ride out of town on the hunt for a place to sleep, many men are still in the fields working. I see a beaten double track winding into the hills of cornfields and dense desert scrub. I push my bike uphill and take a few forks to help disappear myself. I set up camp in a small grassy spot next to a corn field. I hang my clothes on the thorny acacia tree to dry, clear the ground of things that want to penetrate me and sit down to rest in the golden afternoon light.

I sit in the darkness writing under the tree as wind whips the pages of my notebook. The lights of the scattered villages shimmer in the distance, the stars wink and the crickets sing. I sit thinking what often comes to mind, why am I not at home with my family and friends? Secure, indoors, good food… The answer is manifold, but one thing that comes to mind as I sit with my thoughts about being robbed, killed and then posthumously violated tonight, is that I feel alive right now. Taking risks for something you love is living. Whatever fate befalls me, at least I know that I chose it explicitly.

Outside San Juan Atzompa to Outside San Juan Ixcaquixtla

I hang all of my dew soaked gear out to dry and juggle to stay warm. Wind builds early and scours the rocky ground. As I shift direction, it somehow seems to do the same. Grass is laid horizontal and trees sway at the trunk. I find one slight downhill where the wind is blowing so hard that I am forced to pedal my way down.

I ride into San Juan Atzompan during Sunday morning mass that is broadcast throughout town on a shrill PA that makes the preacher sound incredibly angry. I have an American aversion to loudspeakers, who decides who gets to rant? We all want to rant deep down inside. The preacher boils over as I sit casually sipping atole de maiz leaning against the church fence. The town police chief comes over to talk and then goes to tell my story to the mayor. The mayor radios down from an office 20 feet away to wish me luck and notify me that the town is at my service. I radio back and thank him with the mirth I get from remembering childhood when we I had walkietalkies that we used to communicate over equally ridiculous distances.

I climb against the wind out of town at 7km/hr. I ride over a river outside of town on a bridge called the Bridge of God.

‘Don’t drink the water from the river.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t’ As I look down at the filthy frothy flow.

‘Local devil worshippers go up to that mountain over there to make offerings to the devil.’ He points at a mountain in the distance.

‘Have you ever been there?’

‘No.’

I overeat in Molcaxa and then stop at a small roadside store to charge my Kindle. What a weird world?

On a big climb a spandex-clad roadbiker strains and passes me without saying a word as he jams out to his Ipod. He spends the next twenty minutes off the seat of his 9kg bike, constantly looking over his shoulder to gauge his distance from me. The only thing that allows him to gain any distance may be the air that I lose laughing.

I crest the climb and ride out into open plains lined with rows of corn. I stop at an incredibly nice hotel in the middle of nowhere, a very Mexican concept, for directions. The owner is blind drunk and rambles on frankly about life. The wind howls outside, so I sit down on a couch and the contagious laughter of this drunk spreads over to me. Everything in the world is suddenly amusing.

I ride out of town, quickly give up and lay down under an acacia tree.

Outside San Juan Ixcaquixtla, Puebla to Tehuacan, Puebla

A terrible night sleep, precipitated by the glare of a full moon, the incessant traffic and the disgusting dinner that I made and was unable to finish. I am scatterbrained as I pack in the morning, moving things from one place to another and then back. I breakfast in Atexcal, a city with proper buildings and streets, but completely devoid of cars this morning. It is serene as bikes click past and gravel crunches under feet.

I pass an unknown town, a few idle men near the entrance peer out from under their hats as I pass. I enter a surreal micro ecosystem unlike anything I have ever seen before with forking cactus, massive drooping bulbous cactus and Joshua Trees flanking the road. The splendor fades after a few hundred meters.

I am accustomed to the omnipresent wind here. I pant over a ridgeline and the glaciated conical form of Orizaba looms in the distance as a mirage radiates off of the sweltering pavement.

Suddenly I am in Tehuacan, a cosmopolitan city booming with New Years Eve fireworks.

Tehuacan, Puebla

I wake up feeling a little rough and decide not to leave. There are two churches nearby, both sharing the same Catholic belief system. They are unable to agree on the time though, consistently ringing their bells several minutes apart.

I take my shirt off and lay down on a towel on the cold tile floor. I let my thoughts rise, observe them and let them pass. My mind is filled with thoughts about doing, yet no matter how much I accomplish in a day, my mind is always there with more. The taste, smell, feel, color and energy of this very moment is all that I will ever have, can ever have. It is one thing to understand this concept and it is something wholly other to embody it. It means nothing other than experiencing. It is exceedingly difficult, yet infinitely easier. I may be the person who understands this idea the best, yet spectacularly fails in practice as I rush to and fro in search of something that I know only resides within myself.

Inhale, exhale. Every part, every molecule of my body is tingling as if I am vibrating from head to toe. I can feel every part of my body at the same time, a feeling pleasantly overwhelming. It increases steadily, I am purely focused on feeling every nerve in my body and breathing as if air is pouring in and out of every pore of my body. The feeling is electric. My focus is broken by the thought that I might have a seizure. I start shivering in a way as the energy courses through my body, but I feel almost paralyzed. I feel like I am just watching. It peaks with every inbreath and falls on outbreath, but each time higher than a moment before. I feel the blood coursing through my veins, the air filling my body. My closed eyes see the reddish glow that builds behind your eyes normally, but it builds into a glaring consistent white light with a reddish tinge that fills the entirety of my vision behind my eyelids.

I am mesmerized in this state. I hold it for a while and then it is strange. I take an inhale that seems to last an eternity. My ears ring. I swallow and it echoes through my head. I feel every muscle and organ in my body as I let air out for another eternity. My heart thumps slowly. All of these sensations are happening at the exact same moment, they cannot be ranked or separated.

Then I open my eyes and I sit catatonic in a way. My mind is completely blank. I feel everything, yet continue to feel paralyzed as I stare out. This goes on for a while and then I decide to sit up.

I stare at the intricate stains on my pants, I hadn’t realized they were so dirty. My stomach looks strange and I am amazed as I watch it fill with air and deflate. I notice the texture and stains on the walls for the first time. I see the hand prints of the workers who built this room in the plaster. I smell the mandarin rinds in the trash. I look at my bag of dirty clothes, it is purple and the surface consists of complex folds and shadows. I see how the door was constructed from multiple pieces.

I eat at a stall in the market where a few women sit talking. An wrinkled and wizened old lady listens on as I tell my story to the woman serving up my mole. She suddenly turns on her stool and looks me in the eye.

‘Why are you traveling?’

‘To see the world and learn.’

‘Yes, but what are you looking for?’

‘Uhm… I am not sure.’

‘Then you will never find it.’

Someone can say the same thing in a different moment and its impact is completely different. I had this same conversation a year before and had a definite answer: there is nothing to look for, it is all equal, I am just watching the world go by. Today I know that this is not true. We talk for the next hour, profoundly about life. She says the following about her son who set out on his own for the United States and has never come home.

‘What does he want other than his family, food and a roof over his head?’

‘Good question. What more do any of us need?’

As I get up to leave she says the following with tears in her eyes:

‘I am a mother of a son like you. A mother is a mother to all sons. I wish you the best on your journey and may good be with you every step of the way. Don’t forget your family and take care of yourself.’

She hugs me, as does her daughter and granddaughter. The granddaughter blushes as she is forced to hug some strange sentimental gringo.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Eje+3+Pte+Medell%C3%ADn&daddr=19.0861952,-98.6472279+to:Unknown+road+to:Recta+a+Cholula+to:Unknown+road+to:Unknown+road+to:18.4304713,-97.6645145+to:A.+L%C3%B3pez+Mateos&hl=en&geocode=Fa9AKAEd99oW-g%3BFXM7IwEdRcMe-inz16E-rDDOhTGII2r5kCTqTQ%3BFYsDIwEdnlch-g%3BFbLTIgEd-F8k-g%3BFXcVIAEdCign-g%3BFWzmHQEd8PMp-g%3BFQc6GQEd_sEt-ildazYqDI_FhTFYqIWhkyiGCQ%3BFbDGGQEdIY8x-g&sll=18.557089,-97.730942&sspn=0.365179,0.676346&mra=dpe&mrsp=6&sz=11&via=1,6&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=18.869905,-98.31665&spn=1.81921,2.334595&z=8&output=embed&w=425&h=350]

Auctioneer/Professional Boxer

Guanajuato, Guanajuato to Celaya, Guanajuato

Breakfast: one can beans, four eggs, two tomatoes, one potato, one bag of salsa… All of it sauteed in a disgusting amount of oil. Preemption. I climb the cobblestones and exit the city through a dark tunnel that resounds with the roar of cars and chokes with putrid exhaust.

I ride by myself, at my own pace and rhythm. I gained a bit of weight with Brin’s departure and it makes itself known. I ride slower than previously, while still stopping regularly to eat fruit, but my breaks are never any longer than a minute or two as I climb towards Juventino Rosas.

I stop for lunch and eat with men painting lines on the road. They have built a fire and alternate heating beans and tortillas on the comal.

Juventino Rosas sits in a valley hazy with smog. I drink a bottomless glass of pineapple juice at a roadside stand and I am sent on my way with a gift of Mandarines and a ton of advice. Celaya defies my expectations of an industrial hellhole strewn with powerlines and clogged with traffic. I effortlessly cruise into the city center where I eat several dinners.

I am not relaxed as I ride, I feel like I am lacking confidence in the world. I fight away the day, my mind constantly thinking about food, water, how many, what time, where, never thinking that it will all turn out alright and that I have limited control. The day seems lost to me.

Celaya, Guanajuato to Maravatìo, Michoacan
I awaken in a strange place that I occupy for only a few hours. Everything I do these days has a surreal quality, a detached feeling. I lose myself in thought frequently, apart from where I currently am. I am riding my bike on rural backroads of Mexico, crisscrossing the sierra. It seems like more of a concept than a reality. I don’t know how I got here, what I am doing, why I am doing it, where I am going…. I am not sure if I can answer any of these questions for anything in my life. I could give you a contrived answer. I thought I wanted time to think, time by myself?

Letting my mind free can be dangerous, there seems to be very little that it cannot deconstruct and bring into doubt.

I head once more again into the fray. I hope to beat some of the morning traffic as I have to ride on the highway for 20km to Apaseo el Alto. I have no such luck. I refuse to eat breakfast until I get off of this nightmarish stretch.

The road to Jerècuaro weaves through town and then begins to climb steadily, the theme for the day. Cliffs tower in either direction and the landscape is filled with cactus and wiry trees. Drivers on this road are vicious as there is no sholder, I am run off the road several times. A bus goes flying past me within inches, not an ounce of recognition.

A long straightaway climbs into the distance, I shift my hands to my drop bars and put my head down. Why do Mexican businesses cluster together? On the highway before Apaseo El Alto there was a 10km stretch of businesses selling caramel, hundreds upon hundreds right next to one another selling caramel at the same price. Aftwards came the pallet district, 4-5 kilometers of businesses buying and selling pallets. How does this….Holy fuck! An oncoming Coke truck wakes me from this reverie as it passes another truck and misses me by inches, the gust of wind almost knocking me over. Adrenaline courses through my veins.

I sing songs as I ride, parodies of Mexican banda music that invariably include the following lyrical constants: beso, labios, corazon, madrugada, alma, amor, cariño. I ride and sing with pride, regardless of my audience.

A Monarch Butterfly flits past me, dancing across the road. Maybe they are migrating right now? I ask around and I am told that the butterflies are around and to ride in the direction of Melchor Ocampo. After eating a half chicken in Jerècuaro, I set out in the direction of mountains and the town of Puro Agüita.

A man with a table full of coconuts? I slam on my breaks. I start to feel far away from home as I recline on the roadside and sip a coconut after the top is hacked off with a machete.

My cadence is roughly 80rpm, an average day is five hours at an average speed of 20km/hr. 80 x 60 x 5 = 24000 rotations. Sweat pours down my face as I climb in my highest gears. I ride into Maravatìo and feel like quite a spectacle as I ride around in search of lodging. I resist the recommendations to head out to the bus station, semen spraying rendezvous come to mind. The hotel turns out to be alright.

‘Hey, what’s up man?’ I hear from a guy examining the engine of a semi truck as I walk towards the city center.

Antonio tells me his story in perfect English: He moved to Santa Ana, California from Mexico 20 years ago since there were no jobs and too much corruption. He married another illegal immigrant and had two kids that were natural born citizens. Two years ago while driving his kids to school he was pulled over and obviously had no license. He was shipped back to Mexico with his family following soon after. He talks about each of his kids, enumerating their hopes and dreams. It is heart rending to hear these stories, to put a face to the ‘immigrant problem’ in America. The immigrant problem in America that consists of people who are in a sense more American than many natural born citizens, immigrants who want a better life and are willing to leave everything they have to pursue it.

The windows of my room rattle from fireworks and strobe from Christmas lights strung in the trees outside. High heels click down the hallway all night long.

Maravatìo, Michoacan to Melchor Ocampo, Michoacan

The champurrado that I drink on the roadside makes me breath steam in the cold air. I come across Antonio again as I am leaving town and we wish another well. I receive several distance estimates to Irimbo that are all various shades of wrong. As I climb out of the hazy valley where Maravatìo lies , the landscape moorphs as the mountains become steeper and their flanks are lined with pines. I know I am nearing my destination when every business, confusingly, is prefaced by the word Monarch. Irimbo is a strange town that gives me the impression of being on a slant, but a slant relative to the ground. Tilted in a way that makes no sense.

The mountains tower in the distance as the road wraps around their flanks, beams of light cut through the air as they energize particulate matter. The trees are thick and lush, water runs off the mountainside. I find myself in Ocampo, check into a placed called the Hotel San Carlos and catch a collectivo to the butterfly sanctuary.

At the sanctuary I am forced to take a man with me from a pack of loitering shiftless ‘guides,’ after 15 minutes of arguing. His claims of having attended school to learn about the area are dubious. The trail is cordoned off by ropes along its entire length, making it virtually impossible for even a person destitute of vision to get lost.

‘Why did you tell me that people get lost here regularly? Who could possibly get lost? The idiots from Mexico City that have never seen a forest before?’ I ask in befuddlement and irritation.

‘Yes! It is always people from Mexico City.’ We share a good laugh.

We get to their….roosting grounds?…. The air is filled with butterflies, they cover the abundant Oyamel Pines and every other extant surface. The
sanctuary exists within old growth trees that are virtually nonexistent in a country whose existence has been perpetuated by the hemorrhaging of natural resources. The trees vibrate with life, their branches grow and shape shift. The only audible sound is the fluttering of their wings as they flutter through the air and jitter on the branches that sag under their weight. They gather together in the afternoon to cluster together through the night and conserve warmth. They take flight in the morning at a time adjusted to the temperature and strength of the sun. A Monarch while migrating can cover roughly 120km on a clear, warm day and as little as 60km on a cloudy, cold day. A pattern very similar to my riding patterns.

As a couple of other tourists depart, I am left with one crazy Canadian named Dev. Dev is from British Columbia and is on his way to the End of the World Rainbow Gathering in Palenque, an event I will discuss later. The guides drop the rope and allow us to walk through the colorful trees, we walk mindfully to avoid killing any of the thousands of butterflies that litter the ground.

Have I ever seen millions of an individual thing at once before? I am
not sure if I can think of an instance, but it is impressive. Bark is barely visible on several trees. One lands in my hair and gently flaps its wins as I walk.

I catch a ride back to Ocampo with Dev and we grab some food in town. We walk through the central square in town and suddenly find ourselves running for cover as a group of kids rain fireworks down upon us. As I run from the square I ask one kid where I can buy fireworks and I spent every last cent that I have on fireworks, immediately a strategy comes to mind: Shock and Awe.

We light a mortar, in the middle of the square, which tips over and fires a horizontal fusillade of red. An all out war breaks out on in the plaza, resistance is more fierce than anticipated. The kids shout anti-American propoganda and are funded by shadowy figures on the periphery. Their small stature adds to their agility and ability to conceal themselves. They employ unorthodox tactics, such as running into stores, that lead to munitions lighting a towel on fire. Smoke and screams fill the plaza. I am the first to be injured, suffering blisters on my hands from letting the fuses burn down on entire fistfuls of fireworks, as I try to minimize my opponents ability to dodge them. In the end we clear the plaza and hold it until a group of well armed adults appear and we are forced to retire.

Fireworks are incredibly self-promotional.

Melchor Ocampo, Michoacan to Toluca de Lerdo, Estado de Mexico

I set out in my warmest clothes at 2500m. A relatively even landscape drops off into Zitàcuaro on switchback turns. I replicate the Doppler Shift to give pathetic peripetetics an even greater impression of my velocity. I slam on my breaks going downhill as I see a sign for Atole de Galletas, a soupy blend of crunched up cookies and milk that is everything its name promises. A modern day spin on a drink with thousands of years of history.

I always seem to find myself riding the wrong way in cities, something that bothers me far less than police and motorists. I hop onto the tollroad, weaving around the tollbooths with unstoppable confidence. I hope I get pulled over.

As I tackle an 18km, 1000m climb sweat cascades down my face. I aim it off the end of my nose into a crevice on my framebag, creating a small pool.

Michoacan is notable for the following reasons:

-A remarkably diverse number of dead animals on theroadside, their bloated bodies befouling the air to such a degree that I have come to associate the smell of rotting flesh with this state in particular. I try to study the smells, believing that I can honestly identify the scent of a dead dog before seeing its rigid carcass.

-Amazing food.

-Stunning scenery. This portion of the Sierra Madre has not been as deforested as in other areas. Rugged mountains rise over 3300m in all directions.

Climbing…climbing…climb… I reach the summit and the border between the two states. I see a 55 gallon drum billowing smoke with chicken carcasses splayed out across the top. I pull over and start shivering uncontrollably as soon as I get off my bike. The lady notices and invites me inside where she builds a fire. I change my clothes and savagely tear at the half of a chicken she places in front of me.

All ascents must come to an end at some point and after I eat I descend and hit a new highspeed at 73.6km/hr. I am run off the road at 45km/hr by a semi truck and narrowly maintain control in the loose rocks with my feet on the ground.

As I continue downhill a pickup truck follows behind me with its lights flashing, I ignore it. Eventually the driver pulls around me and then stops his truck to block my advance. I am flagged down and told that I am breaking the law, that bicycles are not allowed on the tollroad.

‘Sir, you a breaking the law. Bicycles are not allowed on the highway. It is too dangerous.’

‘Actually they are allowed on the highway. There is no other way for me to get to Toluca.’ I have no basis for this claim.

‘No they are not, it is too dangerous.’

‘I have never had a problem before, everyone has told me it is completely fine.’ A complete lie.

‘Sir, put your bike in the back of the pickup. We will give you a ride to Toluca.’

‘No thanks.’

‘Put your bike in the bed, please.’

‘No thanks.’ I absolutely love confidently asserting what I want, making it clear that I am immovable. What are you going to do? Taze me bro?

‘I am going to get my boss out of the truck, hold on.’ I take this moment to refine my obstinancy and argument, I will throw in a romantic twist to my appeal.

‘Sir, what is the problem here?’

‘Look, I am riding to Mexico City to meet up with my girlfriend. I rode 2200km to get here on my bicycle, using my own power. I am absolutely certain that I will not get into your pickup. Thanks for your concern over my safety, but I can assure you that I am more concerned with my safety than you.’

They speak amongst themselves for a minute.

‘We aren’t going to call anyone else about this, but we cannot tell you that you are not going to have problems further on.’

‘That is fine. Thank you. See you later!’

I get my wish of being pulled over.

I find myself in the hellish sprawling madness of Toluca. I veer wildly around buses, taxis and cars. Car doors open, cars back out, buses merge, taxis stop. I run red lights, I swerve, I yell, I hit my brakes, I stand on my pedals, I spray black sootsnot out of my nose.

I eat ice cream and look at my map; I am going to center punch Mexico City on the 15. The main highway.

Toluca de Lerdo, Estado de Mexico to El Distrito Federal

I sleep like shit as Christmas lights, exterior to my room, cast their annoying glare upon my precious and fragile self. The liter of ice cream that I ate before bed is likely the actual culprit. I just can’t hold my choices or ice cream responsible for my restlessness. I cough up something black into the sink and leave it there. It tastes acrid with carbon and chemicals. The smog is so dense that I never see the 4700m volcano Nevado de Toluca.

As I nimbly weave through the rush hour traffic, I give in. I didn’t think it would ever come to this, it just wasn’t supposed to be this type of trip. My mom warned me though, and I adhered to her advice out of my respect for elders and family structure. Conditions change, your perspective must mature and aquiesce to the capriciousness of life. Life simply cannot just be about looking good as you valiantly cut through blunt machines manufactured for murder without a modicum of protection. I don my construction worker’s vest. Neon orange stripped with neon yellow reflective material.

I drink an orange juice blended with raw Quail’s eggs. Vamanos!

Speed is your friend in congestion. I feel like an auctioneer that is also a professional boxer. I am ducking and fluttering, confusing my opponents by shouting utter nonsense. I begin my climb into the mountains that cradle Mexico city.

I am passed by a road biker who looks like a factorymade chorizo in synthetic casing. He doesn’t wave at me or say anything as he barely manages to pass me on his carbon fiber bike. He is constantly looking back at me as he pedals hard, judging himself against someone on a bike that weighs 62kg.

I race a truck that is belching carbon, a more fair opponent. I stand up and pedal hard and put some distance between us. I finally slow from exhaustion, hooting and shouting pour out of the truck cab.

I reach the summit. I made it. I sit in disbelief and eat fruit as cars stream past. The real fruit though is the 10km descent into the city, I take over an entire lane with complete disregard for the angry muppets who pass me. The city suddenly expands in all directions, smoldering in its own effluence. Several potholes have metasticized to entire sections of the road and I am nearly airborne.

I split lanes. I diverge off the thoroughfare and find myself in the leafy neighborhoods of La Condesa.

At the hostel I bore the living shit out of some unsuspecting backpackers with stories of my travels and my self importance.

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Guanajuato,+Mexico&daddr=20.9004452,-101.0851275+to:Unknown+road+to:20.1996628,-100.5184398+to:Vasco+de+Quiroga+to:19.4536644,-100.3443687+to:Jos%C3%A9+Ma.+Morelos+y+Pav%C3%B3n%2FMorelia-Toluca+to:Dr+R%C3%ADo+de+La+Loza&hl=en&geocode=Ff-1QAEdsOv2-Snr8QyL9XMrhDF0Hldl0bD0JQ%3BFV3qPgEdOZD5-SnDxgAy6mUrhDG1nqo49BvPLg%3BFesoOQEd2KX9-Q%3BFe44NAEd2TUC-ilpaqblAi7ThTFTvJpwmdw3Jw%3BFUqNLwEdPl8D-g%3BFeDWKAEd0N0E-in7xrPNVqPShTHvH7ecp-3Z7A%3BFWhQJgEd6HIP-g%3BFUZnKAEdtSsX-g&sll=19.544261,-99.931641&sspn=1.576239,1.766052&mra=dpe&mrsp=5&sz=9&via=1,3,5&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=20.024968,-100.17334&spn=3.612228,4.669189&z=7&output=embed&w=425&h=350]