Sunday, January 8, 2017

Jan 8--Just a Short Ride to Colonet

Yesterday we were planning to take a day off in Colonet. This morning, Brent and I got to talking, and decided we would rather take a day off in Vincente Guerrero, another two days south. We just had 23 miles to Colonet--a short day...supposedly.

We woke up to dry tents, which was a surprise since we were right on the ocean. It was quite nice to pack up a dry tent! We headed out at about 8:00. We were off route, but the route was just down the Coast. We saw lots of other riders camping out on the point. We were riding through fields. At one point I realized we were off route. We cut across a field to get back to the route. Then it was tricky again. We could see the road we needed to be on, but there was a fence between us and the road. We found a broken part of the fence, and managed to get to the road. At one point when we stopped to take a break, we saw these cormorants out on the rocks.

Looking down the Coast it was kind of hazy, but beautiful nonetheless.

After awhile, we turned inland. The sun really started heating up. We had plenty of water, and that was great because we could drink as much as we wanted. 

We did encounter some very steep hills on this short day--hills we had to walk up. Some were not so steep, but had very loose rocks, making it hard to get traction, even with air let out of the tires. Some were just plain steep. At least I'm able to push MC up those hills. Ones like that on the Great Divide, I couldn't do it because of the added weight. I should have taken some photos of these hike-a-bike sections, but I didn't.

We also encountered our first experience with mud. The mud stick (a paint stirrer stick) that Marty gave me back at the KOA in Chula Vista came in very handy! 
This is not the super muddy section. Clearly, we could ride around this stuff, but imagine those puddles covering the whole road. 

After more whoop-dee-do ups and downs, we seemed to finally come out to a mostly flat area. At about noon, we knew we weren't too far from Colonet, but we stopped in the shade of a tree, and had some lunch. I also lubed my chain, as it was squeaking. 

We rolled into Colonet at about 1:00. First, as usual, we stopped at a grocery store. At first I just got some guava juice. We needed to have a pow wow as to what our plan was, and how much food we needed to buy. Adam and Tim rolled in as we were sitting there. They were talking about not going back into the mountains, but continuing down the Coast to Vincente Guerrero. It is about half the distance going down the Coast. At first Brent and I were not so sure we wanted to deviate from the route, but both Harry and Herb seem confident we can find our way. So...I guess we'll go the Coast route. 

We decided we wanted to stay in a hotel so we could have showers and do some laundry. We rode south, but couldn't find the hotel that was supposedly there. We turned around and went north of town to one called Hotel Escondido. Going up the steep hill to the hotel, there were a number of dogs that chased Harry. He even had to stop because one was trying to bite him. The dog retreated under a car. I was behind Harry, but the dogs didn't chase me. 

At the hotel, I t was very funny trying to ask Maria if she had two double rooms. First she showed us one, then she showed us another one that was not finished, was up a flight of stairs, but was cheaper than the other double room. It took forever to figure out that the rest of the rooms were singles (sensilla) with one queen size bed. We decided we didn't want to haul the bikes up the flight of stairs. Herb and Harry took the double room, and Brent and I took a single. Brent said he was fine sleeping on the floor (he is afraid his coughing would wake me up). We only had to pay 300 pesos for the room (about 8 bucks).its quite nice, and the bikes fit in the room. Harry asked Maria if he could do some laundry (that was another fun conversation). She did it for him! He asked how much, and she said (via Google translate), "What ever you think." Really a nice gal!

We didn't really have any food for dinner, so we walked back down the steep hill (curiously, the dogs just watched us walk by--must be the bikes). We had seen a restaurant, but it wasn't open. We ended up at a mini mart. I split a can of fruit cocktail with Brent, and also had a pan dulce and a horchata (a rice milk drink with vanilla and spices). Interesting dinner, I know, but filling enough. 

Tomorrow's destination will be interesting. There has been an ongoing fuel strike in Vincente Guerrero. Apparently, it is over, and traffic is now moving through VC. The problem is there may not be much of a selection of food. We are stocking up for a couple of days, in case there isn't.

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