Day 146 + 147: Robbed at Knifepoint, Scaling the Pass of Cortés, Record Altitudes and Freezing Temps
A lot to cover in this entry. But just so the title doesn’t cause panic, the robbery wasn’t bad at all. Honestly, the friendliest robbery you will ever hear of. But more on that a little later.
Last night I created a route from CDMX to Puebla via the Paso de Cortez based on the recommendations by the wise bike tourers in front of me. This is 100 miles odd but with 2000 meters of climbing with max elevation of over 12000 feet. Expected it to take at least 2 days but my massive ego wanted to try to do it in one. A very stupid idea.
So I got up early, downed a coffee, packed up the bike, and had a satisfying shit teased out by the laxative effects of the aforementioned coffee. By 7.30 I was on the road trying to navigate the massive sprawl that is Mexico City.
The new AI stuff has been interesting lately so I entertained myself with a 5 hour Lex Podcast. After leaving CDMX, there were many cute towns and villages, some of which with really steep streets so that I needed to hike my bike on a couple of occasions.
Just as the podcast was finishing up, and with some newfound insights into the emerging Artificial Intelligence cold war between the USA and China, I found myself in Amecameca. I just stopped briefly here to fill up on water.
This would have been the smart place to stop for the day. I was already at the highest elevation of my trip to date and still had 1200 meters of climbing to do. Everyone else I know that came this way stopped here and then did the climb and descent from here in 2 or 3 days.
However, I pressed on.
Paso de Cortés (Ruta Volcanes) is a mountain pass between two volcanoes in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. My garmin said the average gradient was only around 8%, but at 12,000 feet of elevation, it was brutal. I ended up walking most of the 18 km climb.
Shortly into the climb, I made another quick shop stop for Oreos and a bag of crisps, strapping them to my front basket. Turns out these snacks would become more interesting than expected…
About 1/4 of the way through the climb, I see a guy on the side of the road at the entrance to a gate. There is a white flag with a black pirate skull on it. This definitely doesn’t foreshadow anything, I am now thinking with the benefit of hindsight!… I am walking my bike at this point so give a friendly wave to the man and try to make some bad joke with a mixture of shite spanish, exaggerated out of breathlessness and hand gestures to convey the steepness of the hill and my lack of fitness.
“De donde eres” the man asked. Not quite sure if he was asking where I am from or where I am going, I said I am going to Puebla today. He then pulls out a knife. I don’t want to exaggerate here. It was literally a butter knife. Not so treathining but held at waist height so the intention was clear. He said some sentences in Spanish containing the words dinero and money. “No Tengo dinero” I say. He seemed to accept this.
I don’t think I fully understood that I was being robbed at this point. I think it was some mixture of tiredness, a tad of altitude sickness and the sheer absurdity of an arts and crafts inspired hold up.
“De dondes eres? Aqui?” I asked with a smile. He nods his head and points somewhere behind him. He then seemed to remember that he was trying to rob me, and pointed to my phone on my handlebars with his butter knife while saying more Spanish that I didn’t need to understand in order to understand. “No. Yo necesito es” I say, which is quite true. Would be a disaster to give up my phone.
He again seems to accept this without complaint. I am beginning to understand I am being robbed but somehow I’m out bartering my robber. He then scans my bike and demands my crisps. Yes, the crisps I bought just a few minutes ago. As I get my crisps, he takes my Oreos from my basket. He wanted both. I try to convey that he can have either my Oreos or my crisps, hoping that he gives me back my Oreos. I like Oreos… He now seems to take a stand, waves his butter knife about and I decided it isn’t worth it so I hand over my crisps. With his loot in hand, he turns about and walks back through the gate and into his field. I tried to say “adios” but I didn’t think he heard me.
This all happened pretty quick. I continue walking up the hill. It took me a few minutes to fully realize I had just been robbed. I have never been robbed before. Should I feel more vulnerable? Or cautious? Or scared? I spent a little time thinking through the encounter to see if there was something different I should have done. I think I somehow stumbled into the best result. Give up some Oreos and come out with a good story. With some new experience under my belt, I continued tackling this fucking hill.
The hill became more of a struggle as the altitude continued to increase. I kept doing the math, hour after hour and kept calculating 2 more hours left. But as I climbed, I slowed, and took more rest so the next time I calculated I still had 2 more hours to go. It started to feel like groundhog day. I was expecting to get to the top and still see “2 hours to go”.
At this point I was feeling the altitude. When I took a deep breath, it felt stingier, thinner and as if the end of the breath wasn’t quite there.
The final 3 km of the hill were a real struggle. It was getting close to sunset, and while I was keeping warm from my pathetic efforts, I could tell it was going to get really cold tonight. It wasn’t even sunset yet and my thermometer read 3 degrees. It would for sure freeze tonight.
I had found a place on ioverlander that looked to be a ranch where I hoped I could camp so I set my sights on this. I just needed to get to the top of the hill and then down maybe 1 or 2 kms on the far side.
I was wrecked and really struggling. I had long since given up on trying to cycle. Every step was an effort. I was breathing as heavily as the thin air would allow.
I decided I was going to cheat. When the next pickup truck passes, I will ask them for a lift to the top, I told myself. So I continued struggling up the hill while listening out. After some time I hear the engine of a vehicle behind me. Would it be my saviour? I pray. I turn around only to be met with a little beat up car. No chance of fitting a bike in that. Fuck. The driver gave a smile and friendly wave as I cursed him to hell. I continued pushing my bike up the hill. This repeated about 10 times, all without luck.
Eventually I completed the climb on just tired human power. I check my garmin… 2 more hours to go… Wait, what? No, that is just the altitude confusion… It literally took me 4 hours and 25 minutes to go 18km. Granted, it was 4,300 feet of elevation after already cycling 80km and at a max altitude of 12,000 feet. And it immediately became very cold. It is just a couple of mins of downhill to the ranch. However, the downhill on the far side is more off-road. So while going slow, concentrating and constantly holding my breaks I made my way down. Now, with the lack of physical effort, I became very cold. My fingers were soon numb making it hard to hold those breaks.
Just as the sun set, I reached the ranch. There was a barbed wire gate over the entrance. A man was building an outdoor fire in the distance so I waved and called out to him. He comes over and agrees to let me camp. As he dismantles the gate to allow me in, I am not exactly excited to try to put my tent up with frozen fingers and have a night of camping below freezing, so I ask if he has a room or cabin for rent. He nods, gets his wife who tells me it would be 600 pesos. Expensive but I agree.
I must have looked in a state, emerging from the mountain, cold and shivering, battered and bruised. They led me to an empty restaurant dining room and they lit a fire in the middle. They brought me a menu and I chose Aztec soup. Ignoring all the tables, chairs and social norms, I sat on the floor with my hands basically in the fire.
30 minutes later, I was warmed, fed and shown to my “cabin”. It was just a single room with a bed. But, importantly, there were about 5 sets of blankets on the bed. The only other thing in the room was a bedside light. It had one of those energy hungry, inefficient light bulbs that put out more heat than light which was the only source of heat in the room. It did a surprisingly good job.
The next morning it was still cold when I got up but it warmed pretty quick. Today should be a much easier day than yesterday as “what goes up, must go down” and indeed, today would be mostly downhill. The downhill was off road and through rough terrain in which I got lost a couple of times. It was very enjoyable scenic riding which I could mostly coast at 10km/h.
Once at the bottom, it became mostly country roads for most of the way to Puebla. I have been cycling a lot of highways lately so I am missing this type of off road and back roads. I reached Puebla around 1pm and checked into an Airbnb. Two shattering days, highest climb and highest elevation of my trip and my first experience of being robbed at (butter) knife point. Some rest days will be had here.
Todo: add GPX tracks