Day 24 11/19/2021
Odometer – 26,675 – 26,800 —— 125 Miles Today (4,100 Miles Total)
Teacalco, Mexico – Puebla, Mexico
For sleeping in my tent on a hillside surrounded by cows with some huge sharp horns on their head I slept pretty well. I got up at the crack of dawn to get some shots of the campsite and started to pack up. It was quite chilly this morning packing up, 52 Degrees. I rode about 30 minutes near Skydive Mexico and stopped for breakfast. Delish
I got to the Skydiving place and it wasn’t quite open yet so I decided to go to another one about 2 hours away which was a pretty rough ride on the side roads and not on the highways. I counted 197 speed bumps on the road. Just kidding. There were probably more than that. My bike is taking a damn beating with all these speed bumps.
I got to Skydive Cuautla at about 11am, and talked to some people that some other people recommended to me a few days ago. Next thing I know I’m on a plane with Legaspi’s rig having a great time with the local crew. I did two jumps which took a few hours as the dropzone was taking their time waiting for more customers coming in. It was nice being there and checking out Mexico from 12,500 feet. We could see two volcanoes nearby that I was planning on riding to tomorrow and checking out which was really cool to see from the sky. While I was there someone started a conversation with me about my trip and how he works at a church. He mentions a lot of people come to him asking what is the purpose of life after they retire. They are so lost and confused on what to do now. It’s wild that work becomes the center of people’s lives and it’s all they know after a while. Once they retire they just have no idea what to do with themselves for 8-10 hours a day because all they ever did was work work work and now what? I guess I’m sort of feeling the same way. I’ve been working more than I usually do the last year of my life and it started to become normal. What’s the point of our life if we’re just going to spend 40 years working and then when we retire we’re old and tired and beat up and can’t go out living life on trips you’ve been dreaming of your whole life. I mean I know a few guys that are retired and still out there crushing it but most people’s health goes to crap because they’re too busy with work to take care of themselves. And here I am. 34 years old, on my third big motorcycle trip trying to knock off visiting every country in the world on it. How did I get so lucky? Did I get so lucky? It feels too easy and now I feel like I’m not appreciating it. I hope that feeling goes away. It was an interesting conversation we had about all of this. Definitely made me think about a few things, I packed up at about 3pm and decided to get out of there.
For some reason I had a lot of anxiety today about where I was going to sleep. I ended up bailing on the volcano idea for tomorrow and just booking a hostel in Puebla City, Mexico which was recommended to me by a guy I met paragliding a few days ago. Rushed over on the highway to make it just before sunrise. Settled in and then ran out to make it to a Crossfit gym for a 6:30pm class. I walked in and the coach asked me a few questions about what i’m doing here so i mentioned the bike trip. He was mind blown. It’s nice to see the smile on peoples faces when I tell them what i’m doing. At the end of class I double checked the cost of the class and he said it’s on the house. It was only 100 Pesos but just that small gesture really turned my day around and cheered me up a lot. That was very sweet of him to do for just a stranger that I am.
I shot back to the hostel to take a cold shower. Ugh. Went out into town and found a lovely restaurant. I stuffed my face with Mole con Pollo and some other good stuff. Took a stroll around the city which I’ll check out more tomorrow morning after the gym and see what i get into. I might go for a ride to the volcanoes. I ended up booking this place for two nights when I got here. Time to slow down a bit more again and relax!
