July 24
We did it! We successfully navigated the unmarked whacky directions we had to go into and around Acapulco and to our hotel! We didn’t even have to make one U-turn!!! Well, except for the one we took 200km before Acapulco and except for the one we were instructed to take in Acapulco. Which… think about it amigos... how many times has Google Maps (or any directions that have not included something like “turn left at the tree”) included a highway-based U-turn as part of the instructions??? We are awesome. Shout out to my father for fostering, nurturing (and at times likely forcing) some serious knowledge and understanding of maps. I remember him teaching me how to memorize the basic layout of a city based on a map - basically to pick some main streets in each direction or corner or boundary or whatever makes sense for that city and have that layout memorized in your head. That way no matter what way you end up if you make a wrong turn, eventually you will have something to orient yourself to. Or tricks to picking markers about when to turn or change direction. I still have that map in my head for Missoula Montana. This has all proven to be a necessity in towns that don’t have street signs (which is to say most if not all towns and cities we will be in since we left US America). I mean, anyone can follow a map if everything is marked well enough to match the roads to your map, but without that, one must rely on a certain spidey-sense for things like “we just headed SW for about 10 km and based on our map this is where the turn is…” (And FYI - No. We have not turned into some metric geniuses. Ernie and I reset our bike odometers and Google maps to be on km). So thanks for the skills Dad! Our shared map allele on an X chromosome is also probably what also fueled me to spend $100 on a handlebar mounted compass. It was a pricey bit of gear, but so far worth every penny.
Long ride today… we pushed about 250 km and are tired. Arrived in Acapulco about 4:30 pm (and beat the rain!). We unpacked bikes, turned on the AC in the $30 room, then left said room for some food. We are still unsure which towns shut-down their restaurants for siesta from 5-7, but we were hungry enough that we took the risk taking a walkabout in the weather as we were already drenched in sweat. I don’t even know the name of the place we just ate at, but there were lots of cars out front which is why we chose it (we had peanuts and only peanuts for both breakfast and lunch, so we were quite hungry). I thought the most beautiful part of Ernie’s plate was the giant slice of perfectly ripe avocado, which he ate first. And I thought the best part of it all was the tortillas - hand made, corn, and perfectly cooked.
The real highlight of today was Ed Alberts. Ed Alberts of Zihuatenejo, Venezuela, Olympia WA and New Jersey. We made one (and only one) wrong turn getting out of Z to get to Hwy 200 to begin our journey to Acapulco, and on said wrong road we pulled off for Ernie to fix his headset cable. While we were pulled over, a tall friendly fellow stood on the sidewalk watching us, smiling. He had on a floppy hat, shorts, and a great old-man button down shirt. While Ernie fixed his cables, I got off the bike and checked the map just to make sure we were going to do it right next time. A long (short) enough period of time passed that I felt I should acknowledge the man standing and smiling at us. I did, he did, and after our spanish pleasantries, he spoke English! He was the first person in what seems like weeks. I know we shouldn’t want to talk to English speakers, but it was nice to connect on “that” level and have a conversation that meant something a bit more. We talked for about 20 minutes. Lovely. His first bike was a Triumph and since then he has had 35 bikes in his life. He has two homes in Z (one rental and one to maintain residency) and he just moved to New Jersey (after leaving Olympia WA). He is retired. He is from Venezuela. He is very jealous of our trip. He so graciously offered us to stay in one of his homes in Z for a night. Probably a month if we wanted. He was so very kind… and so very curious and genuine about seeing us gringos on the side of the road as he was just walking about his morning business. He was so very nice. I hope we inspired each other.
Post Ed Albert, the stretch of road from Zihuatenejo to Acapulco is nice, but definitely the least beautiful stretch of mainland Mexico we have seen thus far. No more mariposas, no reptiles, not very many birds. Lots of power lines. We did get some good road crabs on the stretches by the beach (again, with their claws up and out as they crossed the road, as if that would do anything at all to protect them). A few roadkill foxes. The only crop of this area, albeit miles and miles of it, was cocos (coconut). So many cocos! Beautiful agricultural land… in it’s own way I suppose… perhaps like the Mexi version of corn crops. Most of the coco farms double up and have goats or cattle under the palms. I have a hypothesis (with no data to back it up) that they plant the trees far apart so that they can plant a new generation of trees and it still get sun to both generations… leaving lots of open space for things like goats or cows or horses. It is pretty spectacular to see kilometers of palm trees in a relatively open line/grid system.
There was a potentially scary yet in reality hilarious moment late in the day with a very tall truck filled with plastic garbage (broken chairs, broken fruit crates, 100 liter bottles with holes, etc.). There was a little man sitting atop all the plastic garbage, presumably to keep it from falling out of the truck. But alas, two broken plastic fruit crates came bumbling down from 15’ above Ernie, right in the road in front of him. If we weren’t going so slow it would have been scary, but it was hilarious in slow motion at ~5 km per hour.
Almost as hilarious as me humming and/or singing Justin Beiber for most of the day “One less lonely boy… One less lonely girl… One less lonely girl”. That is pretty much the whole song. It just repeats so it was easy to learn yesterday when the segment about the Beebs was featured at the hotel at breakfast. Ernie was laughing when I sang and hummed it today, but i wonder how funny he will think it all is a week or month from now when I’m still humming or singing “One less lonely girl…. One less lonely girl…. One less lonely girl…”
Now we are just chillin’ at the hotel. It is small and clean enough and there is lavender scented toilet paper (which demands it’s own blog post… as, wtf?). The AC works well so we are happy. I need to get crackin’ and find out what is ahead. Acapulco is the last tourist town so we aren’t sure of accommodations for the next week or so, as we think we have about 5-7 more evenings until we cross to Guatemala.
There is a bar next door that is apparently very popular. It is full of young people and the DJ is playing very repetitive, uncreative, and loud “boom boom” music. Every fourth count of eight it is accentuated by a deep vibrato tiger roar. And maybe every eight count of eight there is a lyric or two. If it continues through the evening there will be no sleeping. If you ever get the chance to ask Ernie to impersonate the music, I highly recommend doing so.
July 25
The bar shut down at 10 pm last night. Yay! Then sleep. Well ok… we stayed up to 11 and finished watching that strange movie about the two kids running from bad guys but the movie never tells us why they are running or why the bad guys are chasing them (and the movie was in English, so we can’t blame it on a language barrier). It was the first hotel I’ve ever stayed at that just gave a flannel sheet as the entire bedding. No sheet plus blanket combo, just a twin sized thick sheet on a queen bed (or as they call them here, “matrimonia”).
By 10 am or so we were out, and it was an easy drive out of town to the east. We can tell the towns are changing a bit… the stuff they are selling is different and how they are selling it all is different. I whole study could be done on the way Mexican women try and attract you to their shop.
By 2 pm we arrive at Playa Ventura. We picked this place for no other reason than our map and km between towns that seemingly have services like gas, food, and hotels. Wow! This is the beach I have been thinking about and hoping for in Mexico. Which is funny, as what we have read sort of implied the beautiful playa ended after Acapulco, so I kind of kissed my thought goodbye. In fact there was even a moment of acceptance this morning early in our ride. I said to myself, “Tara, your expectations for the perfect Mexican beach are too high and that beach does not exist.” But alas… here it is! Ernie and I feel free and light and the way a Mexi beach is supposed to feel. It is all so pleasant and welcoming… This beach is truly lovely. And steep! So steep…. Ernie and I were out on the beach for a few hours and at one point we laid out on the sand, butts to the ocean, heads to the shore, to patiently spy on fiddler crabs, and we were lying at a 45 degree angle. We were poor spies as we kept laughing, but we had a blast watching them dig our their burrows as we gently got swept up and around by the waves behind us. The sand was so coarse and soft. The perros are friendly. No one is here in Playa Ventura. There are about four hotels and ours is one of the most central, and we are one of two booked rooms. And there are rocks on the beach… yes…. rocks! I cannot wait until they empty a bit. Tonight? Tomorrow? I do hope I am here and the sun is out when the pools empty a bit. Based on the critters we can see from our palapa I imagine the tidepools are exquisite. Although we arrived at about 2 and now its about 6 and we have seen very little change in the water… it isn’t a new or full moon so perhaps the tide won’t change much this time of the month (makes it sound like a moody woman).
(Pause and backtrack)
Within an hour after arriving to town we were camped out under a palapa and did so for about three hours. Was soooooo great. Honestly the beach and reading experience I’d been waiting for. The sound of the ocean while reading “The Storyteller” by Vargas Llosa - thanks Bonnie!), the few people walking by…. Heck, one guy came by with his cast net looking for his next spot. A CAST NET. And his two dogs. We drank a few cervezas, fed our leftover chip crumbs to our local perros (out of a coco), and then headed back to the outdoor hotel showers to get the sand out of our bits. Seriously… I had about a pound of sand in my crack - forward and backward. It was very funny and very awkward trying to get it all out. I asked Ernie if he had the same problem (at least for his backward bits) and he laughed and laughed and watched me wrestle with the situation - he just kept laughing and eventually said “no, he didn’t have any problem, probably because his shorts are baggy”. Total lies. I think he is just more sophisticated than I and wouldn’t admit to such crack issues.
Damn these perros are sweet (we are back at the beach now, waiting for the sunset). We went walk about looking for a taco place that we read about on the internet, but they were closed (either for the day or for siesta, but damn us gringos don’t eat dinner at 8 pm!). So we found another place and the gansta’ dude that went with it. He sweet talked us and it was funny (and no harm no foul at 75 pesos for dinner and cervezas). We fumbled with our spanish and he talked us into one full order and one half order of taqitos. They were good, but very small and felt more like a tease of an appetizer than a meal. And they were served in a soup-liquid then piled with cheese and a whopping dollop of mayo. I quickly dug out my two mini taquitos and then strained the rest out in and stashed in some napkins. Brought it right back to the same perros and coco we left the chip crumbles in earlier and our little buddy gobbled it up. Except the onions. I can hear my dad saying, “see, even the starving perros in Mexico don’t eat onions”
(Pause)
This is the first town that I have felt the desire to come back to. I can easily picture a week in fall or winter where all Ernie and I have to do is enjoy this town, it’s people, and it scenery. Read, relax, and of course plan it around the lunar cycle for tidepooling. Bring hammock and cooler. Ernie has had a few so far, but for me this is the first place I would spend a full on “vacation”. It is so very lovely and genuine. I can’t really guess what it is like during peak season, as there seems to be a bit of a carrying capacity to the place…. Even with a few hundred people however (as opposed to the few dozen now) I imagine this town is just as charming.
Doh! Two perros and attempted chinga! It was an unsuccessful attempt, but el senor is being persistent. Now el senor perro is rubbing his banana in the sand!!! Dios Mios! Guess they got a lesson from the marine iguanas of the Galapagos…
As I wrote all that (as we sit by the beach, take two), Ernie was playing guitar. He stopped with the perro on perro action and we’ve decided that is enough blogging for today.
Although… “Ernie, have you any final thoughts?”
“I am enjoying this evening”
July 26
Today was hard. And sad. It started off terribly… on our way out of Playa Ventura we saw a dog get hit by a car. It had a collar. It was awful… the sights and sounds will haunt me in my dreams tonight for sure.
Stressful arrival and navigation in Pinotepa Nacional. No signs in or out of this city… Our map (or the map in my head) was useless. Over 1-2 hours we found our way out of town for tomorrow, which is great as we have a long day of riding tomorrow and want to get up and out of town smoothly - if that is possible.
With all camping and RV parks a distant memory, we are staying Hotel Pepe’s, which is bright pink and on the outskirts of town. With tourism completely gone from the towns and cities, it is very raw. Working city with working people doing their thing.
I feel very different than I did 24 hours ago. But that is how this shit goes. Up and down… up and down… We are committed to the ride.
It is 6:30, and Ernie is already asleep.
Also… after 2-3 days of snacks, we may or may not have walked into town, bought a whole chicken fresh off the grill, and eaten it right out the plastic bag on the bed…
We did it! We successfully navigated the unmarked whacky directions we had to go into and around Acapulco and to our hotel! We didn’t even have to make one U-turn!!! Well, except for the one we took 200km before Acapulco and except for the one we were instructed to take in Acapulco. Which… think about it amigos... how many times has Google Maps (or any directions that have not included something like “turn left at the tree”) included a highway-based U-turn as part of the instructions??? We are awesome. Shout out to my father for fostering, nurturing (and at times likely forcing) some serious knowledge and understanding of maps. I remember him teaching me how to memorize the basic layout of a city based on a map - basically to pick some main streets in each direction or corner or boundary or whatever makes sense for that city and have that layout memorized in your head. That way no matter what way you end up if you make a wrong turn, eventually you will have something to orient yourself to. Or tricks to picking markers about when to turn or change direction. I still have that map in my head for Missoula Montana. This has all proven to be a necessity in towns that don’t have street signs (which is to say most if not all towns and cities we will be in since we left US America). I mean, anyone can follow a map if everything is marked well enough to match the roads to your map, but without that, one must rely on a certain spidey-sense for things like “we just headed SW for about 10 km and based on our map this is where the turn is…” (And FYI - No. We have not turned into some metric geniuses. Ernie and I reset our bike odometers and Google maps to be on km). So thanks for the skills Dad! Our shared map allele on an X chromosome is also probably what also fueled me to spend $100 on a handlebar mounted compass. It was a pricey bit of gear, but so far worth every penny.
Long ride today… we pushed about 250 km and are tired. Arrived in Acapulco about 4:30 pm (and beat the rain!). We unpacked bikes, turned on the AC in the $30 room, then left said room for some food. We are still unsure which towns shut-down their restaurants for siesta from 5-7, but we were hungry enough that we took the risk taking a walkabout in the weather as we were already drenched in sweat. I don’t even know the name of the place we just ate at, but there were lots of cars out front which is why we chose it (we had peanuts and only peanuts for both breakfast and lunch, so we were quite hungry). I thought the most beautiful part of Ernie’s plate was the giant slice of perfectly ripe avocado, which he ate first. And I thought the best part of it all was the tortillas - hand made, corn, and perfectly cooked.
The real highlight of today was Ed Alberts. Ed Alberts of Zihuatenejo, Venezuela, Olympia WA and New Jersey. We made one (and only one) wrong turn getting out of Z to get to Hwy 200 to begin our journey to Acapulco, and on said wrong road we pulled off for Ernie to fix his headset cable. While we were pulled over, a tall friendly fellow stood on the sidewalk watching us, smiling. He had on a floppy hat, shorts, and a great old-man button down shirt. While Ernie fixed his cables, I got off the bike and checked the map just to make sure we were going to do it right next time. A long (short) enough period of time passed that I felt I should acknowledge the man standing and smiling at us. I did, he did, and after our spanish pleasantries, he spoke English! He was the first person in what seems like weeks. I know we shouldn’t want to talk to English speakers, but it was nice to connect on “that” level and have a conversation that meant something a bit more. We talked for about 20 minutes. Lovely. His first bike was a Triumph and since then he has had 35 bikes in his life. He has two homes in Z (one rental and one to maintain residency) and he just moved to New Jersey (after leaving Olympia WA). He is retired. He is from Venezuela. He is very jealous of our trip. He so graciously offered us to stay in one of his homes in Z for a night. Probably a month if we wanted. He was so very kind… and so very curious and genuine about seeing us gringos on the side of the road as he was just walking about his morning business. He was so very nice. I hope we inspired each other.
Post Ed Albert, the stretch of road from Zihuatenejo to Acapulco is nice, but definitely the least beautiful stretch of mainland Mexico we have seen thus far. No more mariposas, no reptiles, not very many birds. Lots of power lines. We did get some good road crabs on the stretches by the beach (again, with their claws up and out as they crossed the road, as if that would do anything at all to protect them). A few roadkill foxes. The only crop of this area, albeit miles and miles of it, was cocos (coconut). So many cocos! Beautiful agricultural land… in it’s own way I suppose… perhaps like the Mexi version of corn crops. Most of the coco farms double up and have goats or cattle under the palms. I have a hypothesis (with no data to back it up) that they plant the trees far apart so that they can plant a new generation of trees and it still get sun to both generations… leaving lots of open space for things like goats or cows or horses. It is pretty spectacular to see kilometers of palm trees in a relatively open line/grid system.
There was a potentially scary yet in reality hilarious moment late in the day with a very tall truck filled with plastic garbage (broken chairs, broken fruit crates, 100 liter bottles with holes, etc.). There was a little man sitting atop all the plastic garbage, presumably to keep it from falling out of the truck. But alas, two broken plastic fruit crates came bumbling down from 15’ above Ernie, right in the road in front of him. If we weren’t going so slow it would have been scary, but it was hilarious in slow motion at ~5 km per hour.
Almost as hilarious as me humming and/or singing Justin Beiber for most of the day “One less lonely boy… One less lonely girl… One less lonely girl”. That is pretty much the whole song. It just repeats so it was easy to learn yesterday when the segment about the Beebs was featured at the hotel at breakfast. Ernie was laughing when I sang and hummed it today, but i wonder how funny he will think it all is a week or month from now when I’m still humming or singing “One less lonely girl…. One less lonely girl…. One less lonely girl…”
Now we are just chillin’ at the hotel. It is small and clean enough and there is lavender scented toilet paper (which demands it’s own blog post… as, wtf?). The AC works well so we are happy. I need to get crackin’ and find out what is ahead. Acapulco is the last tourist town so we aren’t sure of accommodations for the next week or so, as we think we have about 5-7 more evenings until we cross to Guatemala.
There is a bar next door that is apparently very popular. It is full of young people and the DJ is playing very repetitive, uncreative, and loud “boom boom” music. Every fourth count of eight it is accentuated by a deep vibrato tiger roar. And maybe every eight count of eight there is a lyric or two. If it continues through the evening there will be no sleeping. If you ever get the chance to ask Ernie to impersonate the music, I highly recommend doing so.
July 25
The bar shut down at 10 pm last night. Yay! Then sleep. Well ok… we stayed up to 11 and finished watching that strange movie about the two kids running from bad guys but the movie never tells us why they are running or why the bad guys are chasing them (and the movie was in English, so we can’t blame it on a language barrier). It was the first hotel I’ve ever stayed at that just gave a flannel sheet as the entire bedding. No sheet plus blanket combo, just a twin sized thick sheet on a queen bed (or as they call them here, “matrimonia”).
By 10 am or so we were out, and it was an easy drive out of town to the east. We can tell the towns are changing a bit… the stuff they are selling is different and how they are selling it all is different. I whole study could be done on the way Mexican women try and attract you to their shop.
By 2 pm we arrive at Playa Ventura. We picked this place for no other reason than our map and km between towns that seemingly have services like gas, food, and hotels. Wow! This is the beach I have been thinking about and hoping for in Mexico. Which is funny, as what we have read sort of implied the beautiful playa ended after Acapulco, so I kind of kissed my thought goodbye. In fact there was even a moment of acceptance this morning early in our ride. I said to myself, “Tara, your expectations for the perfect Mexican beach are too high and that beach does not exist.” But alas… here it is! Ernie and I feel free and light and the way a Mexi beach is supposed to feel. It is all so pleasant and welcoming… This beach is truly lovely. And steep! So steep…. Ernie and I were out on the beach for a few hours and at one point we laid out on the sand, butts to the ocean, heads to the shore, to patiently spy on fiddler crabs, and we were lying at a 45 degree angle. We were poor spies as we kept laughing, but we had a blast watching them dig our their burrows as we gently got swept up and around by the waves behind us. The sand was so coarse and soft. The perros are friendly. No one is here in Playa Ventura. There are about four hotels and ours is one of the most central, and we are one of two booked rooms. And there are rocks on the beach… yes…. rocks! I cannot wait until they empty a bit. Tonight? Tomorrow? I do hope I am here and the sun is out when the pools empty a bit. Based on the critters we can see from our palapa I imagine the tidepools are exquisite. Although we arrived at about 2 and now its about 6 and we have seen very little change in the water… it isn’t a new or full moon so perhaps the tide won’t change much this time of the month (makes it sound like a moody woman).
(Pause and backtrack)
Within an hour after arriving to town we were camped out under a palapa and did so for about three hours. Was soooooo great. Honestly the beach and reading experience I’d been waiting for. The sound of the ocean while reading “The Storyteller” by Vargas Llosa - thanks Bonnie!), the few people walking by…. Heck, one guy came by with his cast net looking for his next spot. A CAST NET. And his two dogs. We drank a few cervezas, fed our leftover chip crumbs to our local perros (out of a coco), and then headed back to the outdoor hotel showers to get the sand out of our bits. Seriously… I had about a pound of sand in my crack - forward and backward. It was very funny and very awkward trying to get it all out. I asked Ernie if he had the same problem (at least for his backward bits) and he laughed and laughed and watched me wrestle with the situation - he just kept laughing and eventually said “no, he didn’t have any problem, probably because his shorts are baggy”. Total lies. I think he is just more sophisticated than I and wouldn’t admit to such crack issues.
Damn these perros are sweet (we are back at the beach now, waiting for the sunset). We went walk about looking for a taco place that we read about on the internet, but they were closed (either for the day or for siesta, but damn us gringos don’t eat dinner at 8 pm!). So we found another place and the gansta’ dude that went with it. He sweet talked us and it was funny (and no harm no foul at 75 pesos for dinner and cervezas). We fumbled with our spanish and he talked us into one full order and one half order of taqitos. They were good, but very small and felt more like a tease of an appetizer than a meal. And they were served in a soup-liquid then piled with cheese and a whopping dollop of mayo. I quickly dug out my two mini taquitos and then strained the rest out in and stashed in some napkins. Brought it right back to the same perros and coco we left the chip crumbles in earlier and our little buddy gobbled it up. Except the onions. I can hear my dad saying, “see, even the starving perros in Mexico don’t eat onions”
(Pause)
This is the first town that I have felt the desire to come back to. I can easily picture a week in fall or winter where all Ernie and I have to do is enjoy this town, it’s people, and it scenery. Read, relax, and of course plan it around the lunar cycle for tidepooling. Bring hammock and cooler. Ernie has had a few so far, but for me this is the first place I would spend a full on “vacation”. It is so very lovely and genuine. I can’t really guess what it is like during peak season, as there seems to be a bit of a carrying capacity to the place…. Even with a few hundred people however (as opposed to the few dozen now) I imagine this town is just as charming.
Doh! Two perros and attempted chinga! It was an unsuccessful attempt, but el senor is being persistent. Now el senor perro is rubbing his banana in the sand!!! Dios Mios! Guess they got a lesson from the marine iguanas of the Galapagos…
As I wrote all that (as we sit by the beach, take two), Ernie was playing guitar. He stopped with the perro on perro action and we’ve decided that is enough blogging for today.
Although… “Ernie, have you any final thoughts?”
“I am enjoying this evening”
July 26
Today was hard. And sad. It started off terribly… on our way out of Playa Ventura we saw a dog get hit by a car. It had a collar. It was awful… the sights and sounds will haunt me in my dreams tonight for sure.
Stressful arrival and navigation in Pinotepa Nacional. No signs in or out of this city… Our map (or the map in my head) was useless. Over 1-2 hours we found our way out of town for tomorrow, which is great as we have a long day of riding tomorrow and want to get up and out of town smoothly - if that is possible.
With all camping and RV parks a distant memory, we are staying Hotel Pepe’s, which is bright pink and on the outskirts of town. With tourism completely gone from the towns and cities, it is very raw. Working city with working people doing their thing.
I feel very different than I did 24 hours ago. But that is how this shit goes. Up and down… up and down… We are committed to the ride.
It is 6:30, and Ernie is already asleep.
Also… after 2-3 days of snacks, we may or may not have walked into town, bought a whole chicken fresh off the grill, and eaten it right out the plastic bag on the bed…