natbikes.com

Well hello there.

So I though that I would just start off with a few photo’s and brief explanations of them. I am using different software, and think that the pictures are loading a little slower than normal, but better quality?

I have sent off 3 ‘journal’ entries to Kim (who isn’t actually my aunt, she’ll kick my butt if you call her that…)

Anyhow the coolest stuff has happened since then when I left the Mexican coast and headed inland south of Peurto Viarta (I can’t spell in English, so don’t expect me to get the Spanish stuff right), and I will try to get you up to speed on the two weeks since that has happened.

For a while my digital camera was not working (we camped 5 nights in a row on the beach, but more than that I think it was the amazing humidity that we encountered south of Playa Azul, so for a few weeks time I was shooting film pictures. Now things are dryer in Belize, and I am back with the digi cam. Enough talk, here’s on with the pictures:

This is the northern part of the Baja Peninsula

As you can see in the first few pictures I my initial plan was not to shave for the entire 84 days. This lasted 3 weeks, at which point my face resembled a baboons’ ass – no hair in most places, and a few tufts where there should be none….

It often was 4 days in the desert between campgrounds. Here I am rough camping, with a piece of cow.

One third of plant life on the Baja is unique to it. Here are some weird cactus things

After a lot garbage, and road kill we came to the bay of conception. Which was beautiful.

Yeah it was really pretty.

Jan 31 we rolled into La Paz late at night. I crawled off the road in the dark, and hi-jacked a snooty person party. This is the quarry that I woke up in

Rather than having more ferries for the holidays, the Mexicans cancelled them, so I spent 4 days riding down to Cabo and back. Here I am booking the ferry over to Mazatlan

A classic Mexican bicycle, no breaks, and a machete

So fast forward a month, here I am outside of Agua Azul, Zapatiste (freedom fighter, or terrorist depending on your perspective) territory. Vive El Che!

Welcome to the jungle. None of my clothing has been dry in weeks because of the humidity in the jungle. Most mornings my still damp clothing causes me to smell like wet dog for 30 minutes until I get the sweat flowing.

Palenque, Ancient Mayan ruins. Awesome, only part of the site has been cleaned up, in addition, much of it did not fit in the picture, and the bigger ruins such as Tikal are still down the road.

This is out on the Yucatan, which I though was going to be quick flat riding. Well it was flat and boring, but here is the low part of the trip thus far for me. Riding too hard I gave myself heatstroke. Here I was feeling RAAM miserable (I don’t want to ride my bike). The next 4 minutes I spent vomiting (I didn’t know heatstroke did that to you). 6km later I went swimming in a stagnant tropical swamp surrounded by every type of farm animal imaginable, but it got my core temperature down enough to ride on.

Usually I have been asking native families to camp with them, and sometimes you just head into the bushes. This is a clear-cut for a future highway, which kinda sucked, but the sunrise was nice.

In 3 days time I will have ridden all 4 of the paved highways in Belize, and some others as well. This is the ‘coast highway’ 2 days after our ‘only’ day of rain thus far.

30 miles of dirt, a few streams, etc, and my final Spanish lesson

Eating some oranges on this bridge, I noticed that there are some ferocious sardines in these waters. Apparently swarms of them will attach your freckles and cuts, if you go swimming, but are nothing more than annoying.

Well that is it for now. Today I rode 0 hours, and have clean clothing. Both a first since I started 50 some days ago.

Thanks to Ma, Surly, Amos, and Zippy for the care packages here, you guys rock.