La Penita de Jaltemba – Puerto Vallarta – San Sebastian del Oeste – Mascota – Atenguillo – Ameca – Tequila – Guadalajara

7 days   |   510 kilometers   |   7780 meters elevation gain

It’s been a month in Mexico now. I like it here. People are super nice, there’s delicious food everywhere and the country breathes happiness. More importantly, the streets are very lively. In comparison to the US and Canada, where after 6PM the streets are empty because everybody is at home watching television, here the streets are always filled with people eating, selling stuff, etc. Everybody is busy with something, music blares from any street corner, this country is alive. And you know what? We live on these streets here too, so it is a very welcome change that it never gets boring here.

We are back on Mexico’s west coast, but soon we will dive into the mountains again. Back on the coast means back in the heat and humidity. We make our way to Puerto Vallarta, just because somebody once told us it’s a nice place. That’s normally how our route evolves anyway.

We are cycling when suddenly a car squeaks his breaks and comes driving very close to us. The window rolls down. A very enthusiastic man points at the nearest gas station and tells us to stop over.

Either we just voluntarily stopped over to get robbed or this man is trying to tell us something. When he get’s out of the car he starts shaking our hands. He is a fanatic biker himself and he loved seeing us on our touring bikes. He treats us to two Gatorade each. Also it appears that he knows the girl from Warmshowers that we are going to stay at in Puerto Vallarta, what a small world! Later we find him next to the road making videos of us and cheering us on (x2). We enter Puerto Vallarta, another famous Mexican beach city. We stay in the house of Gaby. She is a very hospitable young lady that loves to cycle too. In the evening the three of us drink a beer on the beach. We’re gonna stay another day here tomorrow to have some (more) rest.

The extra day in Puerto Vallarta is filled with regular stuff: I take a haircut, get my cables on the bike replaced (shifting has never been smoother!!), read a book, take a dive in the ocean and buy ice cream. At night we accidentally end up being participants in a very serious pool tournament in the local pub.

Cycling again! We say goodbye to Gaby and make our way out of the city. The first 30k is flat, but the last 40k are a serious climb. We’ll be battling 1900 elevation gain today, a new record. The first 30k already have me nearly death, so that’s promising. We fill up our water bottles. The climbing is tough again in this super humid and warm weather. Sweat is dripping out of the long sleeves of my shirt, once again we’re fully soaked in our own sweat. Although the views make up for the suffering, we cycle beautifully into the mountains. When the thick bush makes way for agave fields we take a left to climb further to San Sebastian del Oeste. The last 5k is over cobblestones and, again, it’s driving me crazy.

The cars passing me by must’ve seen that I am suffering because all of them cheer me on. They hang out of there cars, honking at me, shouting “vamos, vamos!!”. That really gets me through and puts a smile on my face. The last bit is steep up, when I watch the speed on my bike computer it says that I’m going 4.5 km/h, a record low. We reach San Sebastian del Oeste. Apparently it’s possible to cycle to a different climate within one day because it’s seriously chilly here. I quickly change into a dry shirt and also put on my fleece vest. I did not wear that vest for months.

We do some stealth camping somewhere further up in the mountains above the town. I’m a broken man and sleep at 9PM.

A short day today, but filled with elevation gain once again. I don’t feel too good, I have a bit of a cold with a lot of snot build-up. I’ve never driven a longer amount of time in my lowest gear (a.k.a the ‘koffiemolen’) than today. Mascota is a nice little town with the best Torta (Mexican sandwich) in Mexico. We find a perfect city park, with pick-nick tables, lots of trees, green grass (it rains frequently here, so probably no sprinkler systems), and even a toilet! It reminds us of camping in the US.

We make pasta and salad and put up our tents. At night, however, the park is suddenly not so perfect anymore. In the middle of the night, packs of dogs are roaming around, mopeds tearing through the park, a man walks whistling right between our tents, cars are continuously stopping by.

It strengthens my theory that I’ve been shaping recently: Mexicans don’t sleep. And as a result, so don’t we.

First we get some more delicious tortas and pack them for lunch today and then it’s time for the first climb of the day. Almost at the top Jacko’s bike suddenly breaks: one of the eyelets of the frame where his back rack attaches broke off. Luckily it’s steel. I propose to go back to Mascota to find a welder. We put our thumbs up next to the road, put Jacko in a pickup truck that passes by and I cycle down. When I enter the main square of Mascota, connect to the WiFi and text him he responds: “bike is being welded already right now!”.

Wow, that was fast! Around 2PM we are enjoying the torta and a Coca-Cola, Jacko’s bike is fixed and we’re ready for round two.

We decide to stop in Atenguillo. After dinner we cycle a bit out of town (we learned from yesterday) and find a perfect camping spot along a river bed. We shower with a bar of soap in the river.

When we wake up I see drops of water on the outside of my tent. When I unzip out of my tent I see what caused it: a thick layer of fog is hanging over the river. We have to pack up with everything being completely wet.

For the first time since forever I’m wearing two shirts in the morning. We cycle through orange flower fields, everything is lush green here.

I see an old man on a mountainside smashing his machete hitting randomly against something that doesn’t even remotely resemble farmland, it looks like an artistic form of anger management.

We decide to book a hotel in Ameca. Half an hour later, the clotheslines on the roof of the hotel are filled with our clothes and tents. Jacko gets a free haircut on the towns square from the Ameca hairdressing school.

I have to blink a couple of times and squeeze my arm a little bit too: a bikepath??!!?!? Yes, it surely is a bikepath. Amazing. And not one of these ‘bikepaths’ that stop after 1 kilometer, no this one goes on and on. Orange flowers have overgrown the bike path left and right and we have to dive away constantly for huge bees and other flying bugs, but still it’s a pretty nice ride.

We are almost seduced to stay the night in a little town when we’re halfway through the day because the complete town is getting ready for a big party. There’s one hotel in this town San Juanito but it’s fully booked so we go back to the original plan and cycle on to… Tequila!

Agave (the main ingredient of tequila) fields as far as the eye can reach when we get closer to Tequila. And of course we end the day drinking tequila in Tequila!

We drank a bit too much yesterday and now we lost the key of the hotel somewhere. Our solution is simple: we close the door and drive away. The lady of the hotel waves us goodbye with a big smile, if only she knew.

Today is filled with highways, busy traffic and entering Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco. Via a common friend of us we got in touch with a group of friends that live in Guadalajara. We can crash in the studio that they work at. So we meet Peño (architect), Denisse (architect) and Paula (graphic designer) at the studio.

After a shower we tag along with them to a pub and meet some other friends. This is perfect. We immediately feel we are a part of this group of friends, they are our age and we have a good connection.

What also is perfect is that we have our own space to stay at, the studio has a shower and even a one-person bed (I happily roll out my sleeping pad on the ground).

We will stay here some days.

On Saturday I read a book in a park and when I get back to my bike I find a note from somebody that tells me she likes me. Always a good boost for the self-confidence.

In the evening we make ourselves ready for a party marathon. The first one is at an exhibition of a friend of Denisse. We meet our new friends there. Good vibes.

Later we tag along to a house party. And we finish the night at a party that we got invited to when we met some people in Tequila (the guy owns a production studio).

This last party is out of this world. When we get to the venue there are bodyguards and we doubt if we are at the right place. When we say our names it appears we are on the list and we can enter. There’s a tattoo artist, open bar with anything you want to drink, a rooftop with a DJ booth and lot’s of interesting people. We meet our friends and they are thrilled to see us. They feed us crazy shots of liquor, one with snake venom that makes your mouth tingle and one with mushrooms that’s set on fire (“don’t worry, no magic mushrooms”).

At 8AM in the morning we decide to go home.

On Sunday we recover from our hangover and on Monday we discover the city a bit more. On Tuesday Jacko decided to get his “520” tattoo that he’s been talking about for a while now. As a tribute to his ‘Trek 520’ touring bike that he’s cycled half the world with and that got stolen in San Francisco. We both fall in love with the tattoo girl a little bit. When we go for a beer afterwards, suddenly my rear hub breaks. I bring my beloved Koga to the nearest bike shop and they tell me it will take a day to repair. I guess we’ll stay another day in Guadalajara than I guess.

It’s good that we’ve stayed a couple of days in Guadalajara because I physically had to recover from a bunch of discomforts: saddle pain, a cold and a bruised toe. Yes, a bruised toe. I jumped from a 40 cm high platform and suddenly I bruised my toe. Come on body, this is not the right time to suddenly become old.

Also I’m starting to slack. In the beginning of this trip I was quite proud of myself because I didn’t loose anything. You have to know that I’m quite famous for losing stuff. But now, after 5 months on the road, I’m starting to get back to my natural slacking behavior. After forgetting my wallet in Tepic, now I’ve forgotten my credit card in a bike shop in Puerto Vallarta. Luckily they’ve been able to contact Gaby and she will put it on the express mail to Guadalajara. It will arive today.

For our last day in Guadalajara we make a small trip to Tlaquepaque, a nice little town just outside of Guadalajara. I pick up my bike. We organize a little drink with some food at the studio for our friends as a way to thank them for a perfect stay. After that we decide to drink another beer in the city. A perfect end to a perfect stay in a very nice city.

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8 Replies to “Mexico Part IV: Climbs and Tequila”

  1. Wat een belevenissen wederom Marijn. Nog iets meegekregen den Tequila sunrise? Vroeg me ook af hoe het mogelijk is dat je na zoveel km nog zadelpijn kunt krijgen? Geniet met volle teugen van je reisverslagen. Ze geven het gevoel of je er even middenin zit. Je doet dat fantastisch. Goed vervolg gewenst en let een beetje op je centen 😊

    1. Ha Kees, super leuk om te horen!! Wb zadelpijn: het was niet echt zadelpijn maar meer pijn met een gebied wat daar in de buurt zit;) had dus niks met fietsen te maken, maar ik moest het even wat netter verwoorden.

  2. Mexico in een ruk uitgelezen en het leest écht als een spannend boek. Wat een avonturen weer en geweldig mooie foto’s. Ben je wel heel zuinig op je klavertje 4? Want ik heb het idee dat je die nog vaak nodig zal hebben1🥰

    1. Klavertje vier hangt nog steeds aan mijn stuurtas en heb het idee dat het al veel geluk heeft gebracht!!! 🍀 Dankjewel voor jullie lieve bericht

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