Day 57: First run in with Mexican police
Decided to take the road from Colenette to Vicente Guerrero. Was secretly happy to be back on the road. Was going so fast and was so easy in comparison to the last few days on the Baja Divide.
However, this didn’t last long. A police car pulled alongside me, put on their sirens, then pulled over in front of me. Oops… This can’t be good. “Bueno Dias, como estas?” I say with a smile when the cop gets out of the car. He then starts speaking rapid Spanish which I had no hope of understanding. And he kept speaking. I did try to interrupt him to let him know that I had no idea what he was saying but I couldn’t get a word in. So I just let him speak to himself and when he was finished I hit him with a good old “No hablo Espanol”. He retrieved his phone from his car and with the help of Google translate, told me that I can’t cycle on the road and had to go into the dirt track next to the road.
So the rest of the day was much slower than this morning but still fast in comparison to the last few days.
Another advantage (or disadvantage) of being on or next to the main road all day is I had network coverage all day. I decided that practicing some Spanish would be a good idea so I loaded up Spanish with Paul on YouTube and did lesson 1 while cycling. Don’t think I could do this while cycling on the main road or on the Baja divide as both require a lot of concentration. But it was fine here. I think I need to make a habit out of this as my Spanish is terrible. Maybe I can try to fit in one 45ish min video a cycle day?
I arrived in Vicente Guerrero much to the displeasure of the local dogs. Found the bike shop, which was closed. It didn’t occur to me that it was a Sunday. Days of the week have become meaningless to me. Wanted a few days rest anyway so no matter. So I booked into a hotel for a couple of days. Kinda felt like watching The Two Towers, you know, the shitest one, but decided agaisn’t it.
Spend most of the rest of the day horizontal in bed, except to go for dinner.
Next few days are rest days so I will combine them. Only real todo items are to go to the bike shop and figure out where I need to be before the Baja 1000 race starts and figure out food/water to get there. And spend as much time resting as I can.