Day 27

Day 27 11/22/2021

Odometer 26,870 – 27,070 —— 200  Miles Today (4,370 Miles Total)

Jose Maria Morelos, Mexico to Oaxaca, Mexico

I wish I opened up my google maps last night and looked around there area before I went to bed. I would have seen there was a shooting range nearby and I wouldn’t have been so jacked up all night! I passed out at 8pm last night which was great, I woke up  thinking it was sunrise and couldn’t believe I slept through a whole night in my tent without waking up once. I opened up my tent and man was I off. It was midnight. I climbed back into my cozy sleeping bag and went right back to bed.

Getting out of bed at 7 was rough since it was 49 and everything outside was wet from the rain. I was hoping the sun would dry my tent off before I packed up but was so deep behind some brush that the sun never hit my tent. I packed everything up, threw my rainfly from the tent in my top box and would open it up later on to dry off once it warmed up. I got right the hell out of there this morning after the cartel info at dinner. I rode about 2 hours and still no where to get food on the backroads. Google maps is starting to play games with me finally and took me through a small town where the paved road turned into dirt. Ugh. I would have been ok with it if I had breakfast but who knows what this would turn into and on an empty stomach it would test my patience. I ended up doing 15 miles on the dirt road. I stopped once to take some pictures and aired out my wet rainfly. I only stayed for a few minutes because it was a weird area to be in the middle of nowhere and I didn’t know if the road was a dead end and my 7 hour ride to Oaxaca would turn into a 12 hour journey if I had to turn around and backtrack to some real roads.

Quite some time later I popped out onto some paved road and came into a small town with everyone giving me funny looks. I rode a bit more and decided I had to stop and eat some food. They ended up feeding me cheese and yogurt on bread with a piece of chicken on the side! Not my best meal but I had food in my stomach. Few hours later my GPS had me stop on the highway to look at a dirt road up into the mountains to get to Oaxaca….not this time google, not this time. I stayed on the highway where I assumed I had to pay tolls. This is where it got weird. The line for the tolls were about 2 miles which I haven’t seen before which I obviously skipped since I’m on the bike. When I got to the front there were about 30 guys hanging out with signs and I thought they were looking for work or something until I got next in line there was a guy holding a jug to put money in. He said something in Spanish and I told him I didn’t know Spanish. I put my 50 pesos for the toll in the jar and when I looked up a the guys I noticed they were all holding pipes and bats in their hands. It got weird quick. I paid the toll and hurried out of there. Im sitting down at the hostel getting snacks fed to me by the hostel owner and her friends and I just asked her what that was all about. She was telling me how to the govt took some peoples land a long time ago and they’re just being a pain in the ass trying to get justice back. So they take over parts of the city and the toll booths at time charring people money to get through certain areas or just light stuff on fire to block the road. The hostel owner is telling me how sometimes she can’t get her kids from school because they light tires and block the roads so she can’t get through. Pretty annoying. Her mother and herself are telling me one day they’re going to snap and run them over. I like it! hah

After the toll booth incident I got to my hostel. It was 2 miles from the city center but I read a lot of good reviews about it. Im so glad I booked it. It’s a family run hostel in the mountains behind Oaxaca and it’s perfect. It’s got a pool, a lovely view of the mountains, a huge area for people to hang out, small restaurant, lovely rooms and hammocks everywhere.

I hung out here and unpacked sending a bunch of people videos of the place and then it started to downpour while it was sunny all around especially on the mountains. It felt like the amazon for a little bit with the view. They said they haven’t gotten rain here in a long time they were all outside watching it rain. I see I’m bringing the rain wherever I go again!

Once the rain stopped I hopped on my bike for a quick ten minute ride into the city. I walked around a while, saw a couple eating a delicious brownie looking thing and I asked them where they got it, I went straight there and got one. Then I went off to dinner to a place Christina recommended, then off to the meat market where they have tons of booths selling meat they just throw on the grill for you and its all indoors so its all smokey in there. It was delicious.

While I was walking around I took a picture of some grasshopper or crickets and posted if someone sends me $50 ill eat a handful of them. I hate my friends. No less than 5 minutes later Yvonne messages me and said deal. She Venmo’d me and I started walking back to the area I took a picture of them. I gave the woman 10 pesos for a full bag and I started shaking my head and fingers at her to dump it all out she laughed at me. I walked back to the city center, sat down and counted ten and took a video of me eating them. Boom, the hostel was paid for 3 nights by eating crickets! Hahaha

I watched a wedding outside the church in the city center which was pretty fun to see. Walked around some more, had some hot chocolate and cake, then I went out for a drink at a place Christina recommended too. I people watched for a while and came back to the hostel and hung out with the owner and her friends for a bit as they fed me cake and tea which was perfect. Thats my day and night!

I can’t believe its been almost a month and over 4000 miles since I left. It doesn’t feel like that long at all.

The hostel owner told me this afternoon there were three guys here the other day that are doing the same trip. One of them was from Canada, Seattle and Florida! She said another guy was here recently from Russia. he was about 65 years old and was riding here from Russia. Supposedly crossed the Bering Strait via motorcycle on the ice which is hard to believe but the guy is Russian so……

Either way if he took a ferry over and crossed into Alaska that’s pretty wild as well. She said he left Russia went to Siberia crossed over into Alaska and rode down here stayed with her for a few days and was riding to Argentina. The guy doesn’t have any social media no smartphone nothing at all electronic wise. I was wondering how he found this hostel and she had no idea. She said the guy looked unfazed by anything and was telling her this trip was the last thing he wanted to do in his life and was probably going to die on it on the way south. Pretty wild stuff but I believe it since those Russians are on another level!