Biking West 2015 ‐ Tuxtepec

2015-11-22

tl;dr: A lot of people talking to me today. Some I understood. I stopped in Tuxtepec.

It turns out that a bunch of cows bedded down near my tent during the night, but they didn't bother me.

Just before it was light enough to see I pushed my bike back to the gravel road that would take me to the highway where I intersected two guys on horses as if I was coming out of the brush to meet them. They were slightly taken aback. I think they were checking fences. I think I managed to communicate that I just slept there because the highway was so busy. When I reached for my phone to use Google Translate, they immediately lit me up with their flashlight.

I pass dozens of trucks loaded with workers each day. I usually just yell out, "hello" or "good morning." Today, one of the workers yelled back, "where are you going?" English? This caught me by surprise. It turns out Thomas just got dumped all the way down here by Immigration. His family is in New Mexico. He is making his way back to the border. Right now he is working the sugar cane fields. In two weeks he hopes to pay a coyote $7500 to get him back across into the US. I should have asked him to clarify dollars or pesos, but he said "7500 dollars". Dang, coyotes are expensive. Have spent time biking along the border, it does seem like it would be challenging to cross it illegally.

I stopped in Tuxtepec, which seems like a nice enough city. I booked two nights at the Hotel El Rancho. Apparently weekend rates are different than weekly rates, so that became a translation ordeal, even though I didn't care. Two nights at a nice hotel in Mexico is still cheaper than a single night back home.

There is a Dominos Pizza in Tuxtepec. I could go for some pizza. So I thought, this ordering process should be fun. It wasn't too bad.

After that a guy on a motorcycle stopped me on the street. "Do you speak English?" I guess that's a safe bet. I haven't seen another white person in a week, except possibly a high school girl who was obviously living here. He invited me to his restaurant. I'm starting to gather that the few people who speak English look for any opportunity to practice it.

Somewhere along the line I read that Mexico has great chocolate. Either I read that wrong, or they left off the "if you can find it" part. Chocolate is hard to come by down here.