Day 157 - 159: Thunder, Lightning, Music, and Gunshots
That first day was mostly downhill on mostly rural roads. Stopped in a small local taco type place for brunch. The chef/owner is a cyclist so we talked bike. He seemed disappointed when new customers walked in and he had to tend to them before continuing our bike ramblings. We took the compulsory selfie together before I pressed on.
I found a campsite on ioverlander so headed towards that. Ended up on the wrong side of a fast-flowing river. I could see the campground on the other side. I was tempted to wade across it but decided on backtracking and going the long way around. A 10ish km detour to the closest bridge, but the smart choice.
Eventually got to the campsite and was greeted by a very unfriendly dog and his young owner. There was no one else at the campsite. I ended up giving the dog owner 100 pesos with the agreement that I could camp for the night. At least I think that is what we agreed, though it is hard to know.
After setting up camp and making dinner a local man and his dog comes up to me and starts up a conversation. He is a friendly Mexican guy that worked in Pennsylvania as a chef for 15+ years so had pretty good English. He tells me that 2 guys died in the river a few years ago and another guy died in the campsite. I think he was trying to scare me away or something, though he was very friendly. I am glad I didn’t opt for wading across that river…
Day 2 of not showering, and can definitely tell the flies are starting to gather.
There was a lot of tough gravel type terrain today, so lots of pushing the bike.
In some small village I stopped outside a small corner store to stock up on water. A group of maybe 9 people came up to me. One of them had really good English so we made friendly conversation. He is from Puebla and comes to this village for his work which is fruit picking. I showed him my route for the next couple of days and asked about safety. He confirmed to my relief that this whole area is very safe. He was super interested in my bike. We exchanged numbers and he insisted that I call him if I needed anything over the next few days. After taking a group selfie, I waved goodbye as the 9 of them, somehow, amazingly, squeezed into a tired and beat up car.
Finding a wild camping spot was relatively easy that afternoon. I just disappeared behind some cacti about 30 meters off a very minor gravel road. I set up my camp under some big cacti on the top of a hill. I think this looks cool so take a picture. I then decide to nap for an hour before making dinner.
I wake up and know something isn’t right. I hear thunder rumbling in the not so distant distance. I get up and go out of my tent. There are thick, dense dark clouds rapidly rolling towards me with sheet lightning to illuminate.
“Fuck” I think. That storm is coming straight towards me. And I am on the top of a hill… In a tent with metal polls. The wind is beginning to get stronger and my tent rolls over and lifts from the ground. I manage to grab it before it takes off in the wind. “Fuck”, I say, only out loud this time. With one foot trying to hold down the tent, I try to repeg the tent. I grab anything with some weight and place them in the inside corners of the tent, water bottles, electronic gear, my bag of food.
It starts to rain. I decided that I could skip dinner. I get in my tent. The wind picks up even more, the rumbling of thunder gets ever closer. I counted the number of seconds between the lightning and thunder but I couldn’t remember the conversion. I remember once I counted 2 seconds, but then counted 10 seconds of constant growling thunder from this one lightning strike. Does this mean the lightning is striking across the sky for many miles rather than straight down? I decided that this makes sense.
And then I am in the center of the storm and it is pretty fucking scary. My tent illuminates with each lightning flash and I hear thunder rolling on every side of me. The wind becomes wicked and I need to starfish myself by sticking a limb in each corner of the tent in an effort to hold it down and stop it bending and cracking. I imagine myself trying to deal with a broken tent in the middle of the storm. I suddenly realize that while setting up camp under a big prickly cactus makes a great photo, that it is a very stupid idea. The wind continues howling at me as I imagine this cactus blowing over and crunching both the tent and me with its spikes.
This is so stupid. I am so exposed here. I debated trying to pack up in the storm to move to a safer downhill place. I decided to check the weather on my phone only to find I had no reception. I could have sworn I had a little bit of signal earlier.. Does such a thunderstorm affect cell signal? Frustrated, I turn on my Garmin InReach Satellite device. It has a function that allows you to get weather updates via satellite. I have never used this functionality before but decided to try it. After a couple of mins, I got a weather update. I am in a thunderstorm. Wow, thanks for that. That is useful… But more useful is that it should only last 2 hours. I decided that that isn’t so bad so I decided to stick it out.
I learned that lying on my back is so much more scary than lying on my belly. When lying on my belly, I am seeing less of the lightning, and I am fairly sure what I can’t see can’t hurt me.
I decided to try to distract myself with some pre-downloaded YouTube videos. But even on my phone’s max volume, the storm drowned out everything. The thunder rolled, the lightning cracked, the wind howled, and the rain battered. So I watched some YouTube videos without hearing anything, and was still happy to have some poor performing distraction.
Eventually I feel like the eye of the storm moves its gaze to my west. The time between the lightning and thunder goes from less than 1 to 5+ seconds. The rain eases off and eventually stops and I relax a little.
Then the weirdest thing happens… I hear music. I am in the middle of nowhere. It is latin music but I can’t identify the type. There are no houses or villages or anything for many miles. I hadn’t even seen a vehicle for the last 2 hours of cycling. The music wasn’t from a vehicle on the road as then it would quickly pass. The music just doesn’t make sense. I consider the possibility that I have finally gone properly mad. Certainly a possibility but if that is the case, there is nothing to be done so I dismiss the idea. The music played for at least a couple of hours. I am very aware I am wild camping and am not sure if I am allowed to be here. Would the music playing people find me? Would it be the land owner and would he kick me off his land? I decided it could just be other campers on the other side of the hill. I fully know that this doesn’t make sense as no one in their right mind would camp in that storm. However, I decided to accept this explanation and try to sleep.
I woke up after not sleeping to the sounds of gunshots. My gut told me to “Leave Now”.
I skip breakfast, pack up camp and get back on the road. I feel so much safer on the road.
Yesterday when I got the weather update, it also said there would be another thunderstorm tonight. I decided that the last thing I want tonight is a repeat of last night. So I decided to cycle just 25km today to the closest town and book into a motel. Here I napped, walked around town a little and then slept until the following morning. Turns out there was no thunderstorm that night but I was happy for the short day and proper rest and shower after last night’s misadventure.
Is there something to be learned here? Probably. Will I actually learn it? Doubtful.
