Guad, Guach and Guan…

Sayulita proved a good place to spend a couple more days relaxing, we spent longer than anticipated there as we were both ill and wrote off a couple of days feeling sorry for ourselves. The plan was to then get a bus from Puerta Vallarta to Tepic to avoid the horrific road we had cycled In the other direction, this soon changed as we got on our bikes to ride to PV and realised how weak and useless we were after being ill. We needed more recovery time off the bikes so got a bus straight to Guadalajara. The bus ride reminded us why we are travelling by bike, the driver was determined to unsettle our already delicate stomachs by hurling us round the steep corners and overtaking on mountain roads at great speed. We made it to Guadalajara as it began to get dark – rather wobbly but in one piece. There followed an interesting ride through the second largest city in Mexico, eventually finding a pretty guesthouse with a courtyard and roof terrace, and collapsing for the night…feeling like we had cycled hundreds of miles.

We liked Guadalajara…its big, the atmosphere was relaxed yet bustling, with interesting museums, galleries, churches and brilliant people watching! After a couple of days in relative luxury and large amounts of sleeping and sitting around, we moved to the apartment of a warm showers host a little further out from the centre. Dev (Mexican) and Max (French Canadian) had recently returned from a tour to Argentina so had lots of advice for the coming few months…including how difficult the riding becomes in Colombia, which is a little daunting. We stayed on their sofa bed for three nights, explored the city and took a bus out to Teochitlan to see the Aztec ruins of the Guachimontones pyramids. The pyramids weren’t the most impressive things we have seen but the location was peaceful and had a relaxing feel which was welcome after the city. The bus ride there and back was hot and busy and took double the time we expected…we must get back on the bikes!

We were pleased to set off the next day under our own steam and in our own space again. It took us two hours to escape the sprawl of Guadalajara and at 5138ft the hills were tough, we couldn’t work out whether we had become unfit in our time off or whether the altitude was effecting us – maybe a bit of both. We then struggled to find a way onto the toll road and ended up first on gravel tracks and then going the wrong direction on the toll in search of a retorno, not our finest hour! Anyway, once going in the right direction the boring, noisy and lumpy cuota was to become our home for the next few days. We stopped in Tepatitlan, San Juan de Los Lagos and Leon, where we were hosted by Frida and Fernando and their adorable puppy Leah, who took a liking to nibbling on my toes! The toll road was tough going, the uphills were long slogs and the descents were spoiled by the rubbish on the road and the clear view of the next long slog up ahead. However, we made it into the confusing maze of Guanajuato at lunchtime on Sunday. We weren’t quite prepared for the chaos that followed…no street is straight for more than a few metres, the roads unexpectedly dive underground into a network of tunnels and we floundered around in the dark until we appeared at a square or under ground crossroads – impossible to navigate. We just had to cycle into a tunnel and hope we came out where we wanted to be! But through impeccable navigation or blind luck we popped out within a few hundred metres of our guesthouse, where we simply had to push (or haul) our bikes up steep narrow cobbled streets, navigating steps and corners to reach our destination. The view over the city from the roof terrace soon erased the memory of the arduous slog of the last few days, after all, the good is never as sweet without the tears and tantrums on the way there!