Day 573
Agave wildcamp
We reluctantly left our Warmshowers hosts Richard and Diana and hit the road. On Richard’s advice we rode along the Malecon, and immediately bumped into Doug and Jo from the USA. Doug has done a fair few cycling tours, many big hikes, and they both are experienced travellers so were full of advice and questions too. As usual, though we longed to chat more, the road was calling. I looked around to see if I could spot the bar that my niece Gabs and hubby George had sampled a few too many margaritas when they holidayed in Mexico a few years back but this early in the day there were none on offer, probably a good thing!
Lake Chapala at 80 kilometres long is Mexico’s largest freshwater lake and we were going to cycle all the way along it. Komoot had said sections were unsuitable for road bikes, but being Mexico the bus service runs all the way, so though we knew it was probably going to be a tough ride, where the bus can go so can we! Google Earth had hinted that it was mainly made up of dirt with two strips of concrete to ride on. To start with that was spot on. There are many small towns along the lake, full of the usual bustle that we’ve come to expect. Kids out wanting a high five, numerous dogs and assorted animals wandering about, fruit and taco stalls, all types of workmen using the street as part of their workshop. People chatting and frequent buses running along. The road deteriorated in the towns but we carried on rolling along. The two big hills didn’t stop us and finally we rode away from the towns and the road surface improved. We felt smug, we’d done it, Komoot promised us a smooth flat few miles to the finish. Except this was one of those routes where Komoot liked to mess with us. First of all came the hills, then we lost the two strips of concrete and instead got a loose rocky path with potholes galore. I hate to say it but it broke us and first me, then Tom, got off and pushed sections. Finally, we left the lakeside route behind and headed besides a main road looking for a wildcamp spot. We thought we’d got lucky when we spotted a restaurant with camping, except our Spanish had let us down, it wasn’t advertising camping but countryside and there was no room for us! Onwards we rode until we spotted a dirt track leading back to the end of the lake. We camped up in a mosquito infested spot, but the views were awesome!
In the morning the mosquitoes were still out in force so we decamped in record time, taking just a brief pause to admire the stunning sunrise. A few miles on we stopped for a late breakfast, the food gods were with us and we had a fantastic meal. We also chatted to Orlando, our waiter who was fascinated by our trip. He wanted to know how on earth we could afford a 4-year holiday. Well, it’s amazing how cheap you can live if you wild camp most nights, cook the majority of your own meals with just a few treats along the way. Having a combined age of 112 has given us many years to save up too. With our home rented out and most of our possessions sold it’s manageable for now. We know though that we are so lucky to be in this position and count our blessings every day.
After an uneventful day we left the quiet roads behind and hit the hills on a busy road, to make it extra interesting it was being resurfaced, always fun in Mexico. Traffic was sharing the road and there didn’t appear to be any traffic controls in place, just a free for all. We muddled through, at least it took our minds off the hills! Finally, we escaped from the traffic but not the hills. We rode up steep paths in a few villages then escaped to farmland riding along rough gravel tracks between the fields of agave plants. It was time to stop and we had no choice but to camp beside the track. The farmer who owned the land popped over to say hi and let us know we were welcome, and shortly afterwards his family came by with offers of blankets and told us to pop up to the ranch if we needed any food etc. We settled down for the night feeling safe and welcomed.
