Day 160 -163: large climb and arrival in Oaxaca
This entry is a quick entry for the 3 days cycling into Oaxaca.
--- 20th Feb
After a short day yesterday, I felt quite rejuvenated today. In the morning there was a bit of a hill but then 75 km downhill, tho with headwinds. Great scenery, rural roads and I was in a great cycling mood.
--- 21st Feb
Today will be a big day. Garmin told me that it would be the biggest climb of the trip so far. I have been getting sick of Spanish lessons, music and have abandoned the book I was listening to. I decided to pre-download some cheesy motivation shit from YouTube to entertain me on what I knew would be a tough day.
This was a long climb but quite enjoyable. It was constant climbing but never that bad. I climbed more than 2100 meters today.
Had some water concerns about 1/3 of the way through. I was down to less than a half liter so I was getting quite concerned. I was saved by a random shop/restaurant in the middle of nowhere. The lovely ladies there made me a couple of tortas and sold me 4 liters of water and some snacks. They also assured me that the worst of the hill was over and it would get a little less steep from there.
Once I reached what Garmin called ‘the top,’ there was still more climbing, though it was less steep. I guess the steepness was under some threshold by Garmin so it didn’t count as the main climb.
Then there was a downhill which brought joy, laughter and bad singing. Such downhills feel great after a day of climbing. I was tempted to continue pushing for 30 kms more to get to Oaxaca today but it was getting dark so this felt like a mistake. Cycling in the dark is for emergencies and this wasn’t an emergency.
--- 23rd Feb
Today was a short 30ish kms day into Oaxaca. Initially got lost on some minor roads. I met some local bikers whose names I forget. They were out for a Sunday ride so they gave me an escort for the last 15 kms or so into Oaxaca city.
I checked into hostel here where I met Fiona, Renena (also cycling to Argentina), Ben #1 (who is cycling to Colombia) and Ben #2 (who is a mountain biker doing crazy mountain bike stuff around Oaxaca). Haven’t met such a quantity of bike tourers at once since California.
I went to Oaxaca a couple of years ago and it feels good to be back. Going to take some days off here. Talk soon.
