The last couple weeks through Guatemala was full of swimming through caves, ripping down guatemalan single track, floating through jungle on rubber tubes and finally a 23 hr bus ride to Vera Cruz Mexico. Leaving Guatemala was tough as theres enough adventure there to last a person a lifetime but even tougher to leave behind were the Choco Banonos. Frozen bananas dipped in milk chocolate then rolled in peanuts all for 12 cents. We lived off these, corn tortillas, beans and avocados for the last month. Our spanish was getting pretty good too. Dougs is probably at a 2 yr old level while mine is all the way up to a 3 yr old. Getting to Mexico was quite a drastic change after travelling in the real 3rd world for the last few months. It was alot like getting back to Canada with shopping malls, Costcos, Walmarts and paved streets. We headed straight to the Costco and loaded up on supplies for the real reason we came to Mexico which was to race in the 7 day, 750 km Trans Mexicana mountain bike race from the caribean to the pacific ocean. After biking around with backpacks and panniers for the last 3 500 km it was like having turbo jets on our bikes to not be hauling around all the luggage. On the first stage of the race, 101 km, Doug finished first in the Master category and I came in tied for second in the elites with Travis Macey (Merrel Team racing) behind a homegrown Mexican racer Lupillo Cruz. On stage 2, the longest day of the race (160 km) Doug had some flat dificulties and came in 8th and I was lucky enough to hang onto Travis and the Lupillo (2 time Mexican XC national champion) through the final steep climbs to out sprint them across the soccer field for the win. The small seculded town we finished in probably isnt too use to seeing white boys as Travis, Doug and I had a hoard of kids following us around for the duration of the day. Somehow they coaxed us into a late night soccer game and we got beaten 14 to -2. Not too bad considering they were 12 yr olds. We tried challenging them to a hockey game afterwards but they were scared. As for now we wait for our luggage truck to show up which didnt do so well with gas in its diesel engine. Tommorow was planned to be a 115 km stage through dense jungle but there been some troubles with wild pigs and rutting jaguars so the organizers decided to give us the day off and put us on busses through to the other side.
