I’m going to change my focus so that we can all stay in real time. I’ll write a quick overview of what we did since Mazatlan and then, when I have time, I’ll write some detailed stories of interesting parts of the trip. I might have to post pictures in separate posts, too….

We spent the day and one night partying in Mazatlan. It was a dead Sunday and I never had a good impression of Mazatlan.

The following day, Roar and I said goodbye to David and rode out to Guadalajara, which I’ve heard a lot of great things about. It was a beautiful, modern city with a lot that reminded me of the good parts of Mexico City. The people seemed modern, cultured, and were very polite. We spent a second day in Guadalajara to rest up after the blistering pace of our Baja trip.

The next day we rode a huge stretch out to San Juan de Teotituacan. The toll roads were boring so we took a side road to Mexico City. It took longer but was more fun and interesting. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in the northern suburbs of Mexico City right smack in the middle of rush hour traffic. After stopping to ask directions about twenty times and enduring stop and go traffic for about 20 miles straight (Mexico City is HUGE) we ended up in San Juan.

Early the next morning (7 am), we toured the Pyramids of Teotituacan. It was my second time seeing them but they were still just as amazing and awesome as before. After a couple of hours we left for Acapulco. Another long, exhausting day of riding but we arrived in time to stay in the same hotel that Steve and I stayed in a year and a half before. The place was packed at night and we stayed out until 4 in the morning.

The next day we didn’t get up so early. We started out for Puerto Escondido at about 1 pm and it was a fun, frustrating, and frightening and beautiful ride, all at different times. We arrived at Puerto Escondido at 9 pm. Yeah, it was dark and the last couple of hours of night riding fried my last nerve.

We stayed the whole day in Puerto Escondido. Well, actually, we took a short ride to a nearby beach for some fish, great stories, and chilling out for a couple of hours. By the end of the day I wondered what happened to our rest day since we ran ourselves ragged again. Sometimes it’s hard to slow down once you’re at that level.

The next day we rode south along the coast without any real idea where we would end up. We slowed down our pace considerably which allowed us to ride a healthy distance without being totally exhausted and stressed out. Our trip to South America is like running a marathon. This first part we sprinted, stopped, rested, sprinted some more. I won’t be able to sprint 100 meters at a time for a total of 26 miles without taking even more time. Now, we’re jogging.

It was one of our funnest and enjoyable rides of the trip. We stayed in a scummy town called Juchitan on the Mexican Pacific coast.

The following day we headed out to San Cristobal de las Casas. Amazing riding to start out with, we ended up getting there by 12:30 pm. We had the whole afternoon to sightsee! It was great. I didn’t enjoy the dirty hippies or the pretentious, super culturally aware American and European tourists but I did enjoy this picturesque, European type town and its inhabitants.

Today (can you believe it?), we started out at 8 am, rode a few hours to a chaotic, but small border crossing in Guatemala. Fortunately, the paperwork wasn’t too bad and we made it through in an hour. The riding here is much more intense and makes the stuff in Mexico seem like a Sunday drive. The truck and bus drivers are a lot more impatient and riding the roads is a lot scarier as vehicles are constantly passing each other around blind curves leaving you just a few feet to avoid them. It was a long, scary and exhilirating day of riding. In Central America, we will need to get used to it.

Tonight we are at Panajechal on the shore of Lake Atitlan. We’ll enjoy the scenery for a morning and will head for Antigua tomorrow. We need to buy new rear tires (they’re pretty flat in the middle). That way we can kill two birds with one stone. Antigua is another one on the list of 1000 Places (along with San Cristobal and Lake Atitlan) and we can check it out while we get new tires…..