Maybe just one more rest day

November 28, 2018

Now we're going backwards

"Maybe just one more day?" I suggested, the idea of getting out of bed and back onto the bike not really appealing. Dea laughed, perhaps thinking I was joking, but I wasn't. "Let's check with our friend Windy," I said.
"Okay," Dea agreed, "We'll let Windy decide."
I loaded up windy.com, a fantastic website for showing wind pattern forecasts. It looked like we would have a tailwind if we left today. Not such positive news for the one more day campaign. But then I checked the future forecast, and saw that we would have an even bigger tailwind if we waited a day before leaving. "Looks like Windy thinks we should stay another day!" we chorused, and it was decided. Thanks, Windy.

But we weren't going to stay at the same cheap motel, not with the dodgy wifi, and we decided to move to another hotel we'd passed on the way into town that also only cost 250 pesos. So we loaded up our bikes to head there, but first we parked our bikes outside of a funky green restaurant and got ourselves some lunch.

The restaurant was very green and very funky.

Dea demonstrating how to drink a papaya and cinnamon shake. Nice one, Dea,

As we were just finishing up our tortas and sipping the last of our shakes, we happened to notice a cycle tourist pass by. Noticing our bikes he slowed down to look at the restaurant, and I darted outside to greet him with the desperate air of a man with no friends. The man's name was Harvey, although being French he pronounced it Errvay. His English was not the best, and our conversation consisted mostly of country names and bike parts. I discovered that Harvey has been travelling for four months of every year since 2010 and has been to a great many parts of the world. I also discovered that he was camping at the Cafe Ojo Liebre, the cafe we'd passed yesterday morning, and that he was not the only one. There was apparently three other cyclists also staying there, all planning to continue cycling south in the morning.

We bid Harvey well and then Dea and I rode to the new 250 peso hotel. We were, however, now in two minds about whether to stay, or instead to go back to the cafe and camp with these potential new friends. We were unsure, but we definitely didn't want to be the boring old cyclists who stay in the hotel when everyone else is camping for free, and when the hotel turned out to actually cost 350 pesos our minds were made up. We'd go and camp for free and make some friends, the only downside being that not only would we not be making any forward progress today, we would actually be going a little bit backwards.

We rode back through the town and immediately felt good about our decision.

It doesn't really feel like Christmas out here, but nice to see some people trying to get in the spirit.

There were no signs of any cyclists at the cafe, just a couple of old dogs that greeted us in a very friendly and docile, unbarking manner. This really was a haven for cyclists! Almost immediately a cyclist arrived, returning from doing some chores in town. This was a young man named Michel, from Montreal, who is in the relatively early stages of a circumnavigation of the Americas, going down the west side and back up the east. He showed us around the back of the cafe where we could camp, and it was a really very nice location for pitching our tent alongside the three already there. And it wasn't long before we met the owners of the final tent, when two cheerful girls from Canada, Erica and Cristiana, also returned from town.

It was really nice to chat with all these new people for a while and it was obvious enough we'd made the right decision to come here. The youngsters all cycled off to try and find the beach, but it was already late afternoon and Dea and I remained at the cafe. Dea played her ukulele and I just sat and watched the two old dogs, and the two horses, and two pigeons that sat in a tree, and had a nice relaxing time. Harvey returned, happy to see us, and then when the others got back we all went inside for dinner. With the girls able to speak both French and English they did a great job of translating from one end of the table to the other, and a thoroughly enjoyable and social evening ensued. Real friends at last!

Not only a nice picture of two pigeons, but I'm also claiming it as an S!

Today's ride: 7 km (4 miles)
Total: 686 km (426 miles)

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