Day 28: El Parque Nacional de Cofre de Perote, El Perote, Veracruz, Mexico to Veracruz, Veracruz, Mexico

Opening the flap of the vestibule to the morning light resulted in a shower of frost flakes. Ok, this justifies the cold toes. The outside of the tent was covered in frost while the interior was coated with a layer of ice. Excellent. Alberto wasn’t kidding when he said it was “muy frio” up here although daytime temperatures were warm enough to warrant wearing a t-shirt up near the summit (must be the New England blood).

Clear blue skies above us and a thick layer of clouds below us; I have no idea what today’s weather will be.

We packed up camp, muscled our bikes back onto the “side road” and, sweating bullets, proceeded to mount up the cases to the bikes only to find we couldn’t finish the job: one of J’s compression locks was missing the bottom half of the mechanism that secures that case to the rack. Not only that, one of the welds on J’s rack (hey, nice rack) had given way and as a result of the extra load on the remaining intact portion of the rack one of the key bolts had worked it’s way free and found it’s self a new home somewhere on the rough road to Cofre de Perote. Shit.

Spare bolts we brought helped somewhat and duct tape did the best to hold everything else together. Transferring the majority of the heavy items to my bike gave us extra faith that the conglomeration would hold together. With some level of a solution figured out, we carefully picked our way down the rest of the road to Puebla El Perote but not without a stop at a great overlook for a breakfast of tortillas, queso y café. Then it was onward to the autopista a Xalapa y Veracruz.

Ok, listen up. Now remember the lesson we gave on Mexican ciudad driving a few days ago? Put that on steroids and speed, and that is the beginning of the explanation of the highway driving experience in Mexico. First, take one part two lane twisty mountainous road, two parts diesel smoke spewing ginormous semi dual trailered trucks, three parts impatient caravanning turbocharged sedans, one part fruit, vegetable and field worker laden farmer driven minuscule pick-up truck and two parts no hablo Espanol overly laden with rack breaking load moto driving gringos trying to understand the system. Like the stone soup you make in elementary school, it doesn’t make any sense. Unless you enjoy the diesel smoke spewing ginormous semi dual trailered trucks jake-braking at 30kmh down the mountainside, you flick on your left blinker to pass, just as the caravan of turbocharged sedans zooms by on the wrong side of the yellow line. When you do get the opportunity to pass, you may find yourself looking head on into the eyes of the farmer driving a fruit, vegetable and field worker laden minuscule pick-up truck who is trying to pass a diesel smoke spewing ginormous semi dual trailered trucks going 20kmh up the two lane twisty mountainous road. This is when you drop it down a gear and make full use of the space your own diesel smoke spewing ginormous semi dual trailered truck has given you by driving completely in the breakdown lane. You finally pull out in front of your friend, the diesel smoke spewing ginormous semi dual trailered truck, only to find yourself in the same situation another kilometer down the road. Repeat this for 160 kilometers and add in a dose of the lesson we gave the other day to make it through La Ciudad de Xalapa and that is how you navigate the beautiful roads from Perote to Veracruz. Class dismissed!

-Colin