Trans Americas 2009 - The Blog

After the excesses of last night it wasn't surprising that I slept until late, waking around 8am as Jim went in the bathroom. With Montezuma still wreaking his revenge on my poor guts, I lay there hoping he would be quick... when he'd not emerged 15 minutes later, I had to let him in on the secret and ask him to vacate the bathroom whilst the contents of my guts vacated my body rather quickly. I'm not the only one with slightly looser bowels than normal, and fortunately I know it won't affect me too badly, so I'm not overly concerned...

We then went to get some breakfast, ordering soft-boiled eggs which should help bind things together (sorry about all this bowel talk, but it's uppermost in my mind at present...). When they came in a bowl with the whites all runny we had to send them back to get cooked again, before we could even face eating them. After breakfast I did my usual chores of updating the blog and also filled a laundry bag with washing for the hotel to sort out – even though I've been washing everything by hand, a proper machine wash once in a while is needed to get them properly clean. Then I wandered into town with Richard & Karen and Chris & Danielle, and what a town it is. The streets are narrow and cobbled and the houses on either side a beautiful collection of shades of red and yellow, with Mexican flags and red, white and green bunting everywhere, ready for the celebrations for Independence Day (although the celebrations continue throughout the month of September). The main square, a short walk uphill from the hotel is particularly beautiful, with trees lining the central park, and two large churches at one end... it's a photographers dream, so naturally I took some pictures, and have selected a couple to try and give a flavour of the place – when I finally get round to sorting out the galleries (which will be when I get a day off in a place with much less to see...) then the one on Mexico is likely to feature San Miguel de Allende quite a lot...








As we continued our wander round town, we popped into several little gift and craft shops, that turned into Aladdin's caves, opening out into bright courtyards, with endless shelves stacked high with beautiful coloured ornaments, the intense colours almost hurting our eyes. In addition to the ornaments were lots and lots of silver shops, a sign of the original significance of this area of Mexico, with row upon row of silver bracelets, earrings, necklaces and rings... Pity I don't know Tracy's ring size, or I'd be able to buy her something nice (email it, Tracy!).





Our exploration took us deep into the back streets, where we found a traditional food market, with stalls of brightly coloured fruits, beans, herbs and various meat stalls (not the sort of place I'd want to buy my meat from, though). The sheer variety of beans on sale was incredible, no wonder they seem to serve them with every meal...





The market then changed from food stalls to clothing stalls to gift stalls interspersed with jewelers and this went on and on for street after street. Just as we thought we were coming to the end of the market, we'd enter another section, with more brightly painted statues and silverware stalls. One of the odd things we saw a lot of were statues of skeletons in various costumes and poses, apparently because they celebrate the “Day of the Dead” with great passion in this part of Mexico, a celebration that involves taking picnics to the graveyards and eating feasts in the company of dead ancestors... but the statues are pretty cool, just a pity I can't transport one or two home on the bike...





By now we were getting hungry (at least, my stomach had stopped complaining), so we found a little cafe down a side-street and went inside, to discover a beautiful little courtyard out back where we could sit, surrounded by plants and Mexican flags and various ornaments. I ordered the lunch special, which consisted of a soup (chicken and sweetcorn) followed by a choice of main course (I opted for the tuna burger thinking it would be easiest on my stomach). The soup was excellent, but also very filling, so by the time the burger came I was unable to eat any of it and had to apologise and send it back. That's not like me, and I still feel bad about wasting food, but there was simply no way I could face it. After dinner we walked back to the square and wandered inside the churches. The first (the one on the right in the picture above) was incredibly ornate, with beautiful statues lining all the alcoves, and a massive scene behind the altar, topped with a gold statue of a roman soldier wielding a sword (no idea why...). The 2nd one was a complete contrast, with just a few statues, all of which were more grotesque, including one depicting the crucifixion scene in quite graphic detail, the 2 poor souls either side of Jesus Christ looking decidedly unhappy with their fate...





All this wandering had tired me out, so I wandered back to the hotel and tried, successfully, to get hold of Tracy again. After a quick chat I decided I'd clean my bike, which took me until the group meeting at 5.30pm, where Kevin gave us the new route out of town to avoid the roadworks, and then it was time for the Prat Hat ceremony. This time there is a new dimension to the hat as there is now the option for the recipient, having worn the hat on the day they were awarded it, can negotiate a fee with Gerald for him to wear the hat instead for the week, the fee going to Gerald's charity. (now, if you don't already know, Gerald is raising money for the Devon Air Ambulance, so please donate via his website at www.geraldstransamericas.com). So on to the nominations... this week we had: Nigel – for coming to the group meeting on the last night in Tuscon and accusing the group of stealing his washing, only to discover (in front of everyone) that he'd left it on the wrong floor, when he went to the wrong room, then when his key wouldn't work went to reception and had new keys made, returning to the correct floor to discover his washing wasn't there... Chris – somewhat unfairly I thought, for looking on the dark side of everything (glass half-empty), me (shock, horror!) for posting home my shot glass that I got for my birthday just before we entered Tequila country and Christine – for getting the wrong room in Parral and walking in to Ozzy Andy's room to find him sprawled out on the bed in just his undies...
The short-list was just 2... Nigel and me. Nigel put up a brave, but frankly ridiculous defence, whereas I explained quite simply that I'd sent the glass home as I was worried it would get broken and because it was too small and I like large shots of Tequila. Naturally, my defence won the day,
and Nigel got the hat...





I think it rather suits him...

With the meeting over it was time to get tidied up ready for dinner, so I trimmed my now scruffy beard and got changed into my nice clean trousers and shirt (my other trousers, clean on this morning, were filthy from washing the bike...), then headed into town with Nick and Al in search of a nice quiet restaurant. We found one just before the square and ordered, the food excellent once more (shared plate of cheeses to start, chicken in white wine and mushrooms for main course, which I had to send back to get cooked properly, but was very good when it came back). With the football about to start (Mexico vs Costa Rica in the world cup qualifiers) we watched the first few minutes before giving up as we're simply too tired. But we didn't skip the opportunity to walk up to the square to see the churches all lit up, looking beautiful against a pitch black sky, before grabbing a couple of bottles of water and heading back to the hotel and bed...





Tomorrow we ride away from the beautiful little town, rested and recuperated after the hard days into and out of the Canyon and the 400 mile day that followed, this time into the mountains to a village called Huejutla, where we've been warned there is no Internet access... so the next blog entry will be a day late... hope the suspense isn't too much!

In the meantime, why not check out Gerald's site and donate some money to a worthy cause...