Border Time

It feels a world ago that I crossed the US border into Mexico at Tijuana and the time has come for my next border transit - into Guatemala. I'm sitting in an internet cafe no more than 200 meters from the border so if all goes well I'll make a speedy crossing in the morning and be on my way into the Guatemalan mountains. I don't mean this to sound negative towards Mexico, but I'm happy to be moving on. Mexico has been an amazing experience, but it's been a very long one, acounting for not far off half of the total trip distance, so I feel ready to move on to the next place.

My last two weeks in Mexico have been the best I've spent here. To get to Oaxaca I had a few days of hellish cycling. Temperatures were into the 40s, there was a strong headwind and the terrain was my least favourite - big hills and valleys. Don't mistake me, I don't mind going uphill and quite enjoy a big climb (I've got some monsters coming in the next few days), but it's really sapping both physically and mentally when you spend all day climbing 100m to 200m hills, one after another after another after another with no flat ground to recover on and the knowledge that at the speed your going you'll not make it to where you need to be before dark without really thrashing yourself. To put it into perspective, the highest building in the UK, the Canary Wharf Tower is 235m from top to bottom. So its like climbing slowly up that, then getting the lift down only to start climbing again and doing that for a whole day. On the nice hills you'd only have to climb half of it. And at the end of it all you're still at the same altitude so don't have any big fun downhill to get excited about. But, anyway, it was worth it because I spent a few great days in Oaxaca and as you'll see from some of the pictures it's a really pretty city with lots of colonial architecture and a really nice laid back feel to it.

So fresh from four days of rest and having lightened my bike by 8kg by shipping home my camping gear and a few other things that hadn't seen enough use to justify being carried I came across the best road I've ridden in Mexico, and some of the best scenery, which has brought me to the border. I was planning to write more and might add to this in the next few days, but it's getting late and I'm hungry so I'm off to find what treats this town has to offer (unfortunately I suspect the answer is few).