Cycling Guatemala, part two
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Cycling into Southern Guatemala: Changing Vibes and relaxing places Cycling through northern and central Guatemala has been quite challenging. The heat, the steep climbs and being called “gringo gringo” 500 times a day was wearing on us. The final straw was when a few kids yelled at us with “gringo gringo”. While that is pretty normal, they also threw a few sticks at Ron, as he is crawling up a super steep climb in the heat. Although, we know it was an innocent thing and kids are just kids, we had the occasional fleet thought of calling it quits. Luckily, when we finally arrive in Panajachel ..read more
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Cycling Guatemala, part one
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Making Do, the tale of the mysterious ATM After spending 4 months in Mexico, it is finally time to continue our cycling tour in Guatemala. El Ceibo is a tiny bordertown. The electricity shuts off and the whole town shuts down from 10.00 at night until 6:00 in the morning. There are only a few houses, maybe two small hotels, and a few small convenience stores and eateries. There is no bank or official currency exchange office anywhere. The only place where we can exchange the rest of our pesos is at the convenience store, that also acts as the copy-shop for the border crossing. Cycling toward G ..read more
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Nuts and Bolts of Bicycle Touring Mexico
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Is Mexico safe for bicycle touring? “Is it safe?”, ”Aren’t there Cartels and drug wars?”, ”How are the drivers and how are the roads?” Those are just a few questions, we recieved from friends and family, when we announced our bicycle touring plan through Mexico. After all, we can not call it a Pan-American bike tour, without cycling through Mexico. Looking at the news media, those questions and concerns are definitely warranted. However, while we cycled over 2000 miles in Mexico, we never felt threatened or unsafe. Does that mean, we are dumb and naive? We would like to think NO. Overall, the ..read more
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Nuts and Bolts of Bicycle Touring Mexico
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Is Mexico safe for bicycle touring? “Is it safe?”, ”Aren’t there Cartels and drug wars?”, ”How are the drivers and how are the roads?” Those are just a few questions, we recieved from friends and family, when we announced our bicycle touring plan through Mexico. After all, we can not call it a Pan-American bike tour, without cycling through Mexico. Looking at the news media, those questions and concerns are definitely warranted. However, while we cycled over 2000 miles in Mexico, we never felt threatened or unsafe. Does that mean, we are dumb and naive? We would like to think NO. Overall, the ..read more
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The last few days cycle touring Mexico
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Making Plans to Leave Palenque Leaving Palenque apparently is not as easy as we anticipated. According to the current news, and from what we hear, the road from Palenque to San Christobal is not safe at the moment. Apparently questionable voting results in a municipality along the way has local villagers up in arms and stopping traffic . The route in general is deemed unsafe due to frequent robberies. A couple years ago a German and Polish cycle tourer were killed along this stretch…apparently a robbery gone bad. Just two weeks before we arrived in Palenque there were 3 collectivo buses kidnap ..read more
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Down time in Palenque
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Exploring the Ancient Ruins of Palenque After exploring the Pyramids in Tula and the Sun- and Moonpyramid in Teotihuacan, we are excited to visit more ancient sites in Mexico . This time though, we are heading into the jungle. In the morning, we set out to find the collectivo to the ancient ruins. Collectivos are small minibuses and for 25 Pesos each, we can fetch a ride to the archeological site, which sits about 10 km outside from the center of town. The collectivo stop is easy to find. Besides getting very nice and clear direction from the hotel staff, we also have plenty other collectivo d ..read more
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Cycling Mexico, Tierra Blanca to Palenque
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Changing landscapes and fickle weather After spending a couple extra days in Tierra Blanca to let Ron cure out whatever illness he caught, we moved on. Although it is a long distance from Tierra Blanca to Palenque, it was a pretty uneventful ride. We cycle mostly on the Cuota over rolling hills and through some small towns. We have a few hot days with some more climbing, but at least the locals are out in full force selling their fruit along the road. Loving the fresh fruit along the road on a hot cycling day in Mexico There are still more rollers, but for some time, the terrain becomes more ..read more
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Cycling from Puebla to Tierra Blanca
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Almost lost After our morning coffee from the OXXO and taking the customary picture at the Puebla-city-letters, we head out of town. Unfortunately, we do not get very far. About a mile into the ride I notice, that something does not feel right. I am trying to go through a mental check list in my head. It is not until I put on my gloves at a red light, that it suddenly hits me. My wedding ring is missing and my left hand feels strangely naked. We quickly, turn our bikes around and head back to the hotel. I run to the reception, point to my empty finger, then up toward our room and ask for the ..read more
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Taking downtime in Puebla
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
Cycling in thin Air, riding to Puebla It is a two day ride from Teotihuacan to Puebla, Mexico. Once there, we plan on spending a down day to visit the city. After riding along one of the smaller roads, we eventually end back up on the 15D toll road. There are plenty more rollers to cycle along the way. Being that mountains are all around us, makes it hard to believe that we are continually cycling between 8000ft and 9000ft elevation. The air is thin and we feel like we are running out of breath as we ascend some of the climbs. At least the scenery is nice and we get to see our first active vol ..read more
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Cycling From Tula to Teotihuacán
Pedal Power Touring | Bicycle Touring, Photography, & Adventures
by Petra
1y ago
About happy encounters In the morning, it is time to continue our cycling tour from Tula to Teotihuacan. Leaving the Terrace 10 Hotel in Tula was not easy and it had nothing to do with having to pack up all of our panniers and trying to manhandle all of our bags down three flights of stairs without tripping and falling. No, it was simply, because we liked the place and its people. Eventually though, and much later in the day than anticipated, we find ourselves cycling out of town. We decided to stay off the busy highway and followed a small road instead. As we reach the outskirts we find our w ..read more
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