Mexico Memories

I came across an list of elevation maps for places that I have eithered bicycled or visited in Mexico. Now, I see why cycling down the Baja Peninula was tough. The little charts look like some trendy hairdo, with lots of spikes everywhere. Those little spikes were not fun to climb at all and I still remember them.

The trip started with an interesting incident – a lost shoe at the airport. We had a group of teenagers with us and arrived at the San Diego airport. We waited for our bike boxes to come out of the over-sized luggage door and tried to assemble the bikes as quickly as possible. It was January and daylight hours were very limited. Well, the plan didn’t go too smoothly, but we thought that we might still make it to the border before dark. Those hopes vanished when somebody lost a shoe. Now, I don’t really understand how you can lose a shoe and I don’t think that a lone shoe in the middle of the luggage claim area would be a theft magnet. Maybe it was a special shoe. Funny that I don’t remember if the shoe was found, but do know that the rider was wearing two shoes when we finally departed the terminal.

That incident was the first of the spikes in that trip. We got lost in Tijuana and found ourselves on the toll road. It was cold and rainy, supposedly the coldest and wettest January on record. The desert was in its blooming glory. We were cold and wet rats. Eventually we dried out, the temps increased and the rain decreased. I don’t know if I would bike the peninsula again, but I would sure drive it. The memory of its stark beauty remains strong.
Those spikes in the chart aren’t so pointed in a car. It doesn’t matter that much.

The same charts had the route from Escarcega to Merida. We only rode a short part of that, but there are no spikeys there. The route is mostly flat but the personality of the Yucatan is far from flat. We still haven’t been to that southern most road that goes from east to west from Escarcega to the Caribbean. Maybe sometime soon we will drive it and then add to our collection of Maya archaeological sites.