Butterflies, Pine Trees, and Capitols: Morelia to Mexico City

Dear Diary, it's me Ville. Let's give K.G a break from writing and let's let the idiot loose on the pages of this blog. 

Exciting personal things that have happened to me after Morelia :
                         1. I got a haircut
                         2. I got to play football/soccer with a fun group of guys in Toluca
                         3. I got a slight black eye from hitting my head on a branch while playing soccer
                             with a 6 year old.
                         4. K.G told me I look 10 years younger after my haircut (positive)
                         5. K.G told me I look like Justin Bieber (you figure out if this is positive)

Enough about me! Let me tell you what our new friend Pedro "The Godfather" did for us in Morelia. When we were leaving Morelia, Pedro felt that on our way out of the city there was a curve that was too dangerous for us to ride without support. The Godfather showed up in the middle of his work day to drive behind us with his car to block the traffic coming from behind and possibly hitting us at the blind curve, after we reached the straight portion of the road he pulled over and let the colony of honking cars and trucks pass us. Thank you Pedro!

After 25 miles/40 km of fairly flat riding we started climbing like it was going out of style! The next 30 miles were intense climbing towards the pine tree covered mountains passing Agave fields left and right, the thing about climbing for 30 miles straight up is that it puts your body in a new position on the bike. Problem with new positions on the bike is that your butt rubs on the seat in a new way and the spot that you have already worn to the level of tough leather is not anymore the spot getting the action. A new saddle sore is born, Hallelujah!

The view and the fresh air was worth the sore butts, all of a sudden (in 5 hours) we were surrounded by pine trees galore. It felt like we were riding over one of the passes crossing the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. The air smelled like home. We truly enjoyed riding in the cool air of the high altitude in this beautiful setting but the day was coming to an end and the sun was about to set. Just when we were bombing down the mountain, I spotted on the side of the road an old man smiling at us in front of his house. I quickly yelled to K.G to reduce the speed from the speed of sound and to pull over. I made my way back up the hill a bit to talk to him and ask if we could camp in his yard, he said we could and started showing some spots to pitch our tent. After multiple options we decided to camp on the patio of his brother's house since he wasn't home. Oscar was the man's name and he and his family owned a little store attached to their house to cater for the people passing by on the busy highway leading over the mountains between the cities of Morelia and Ciudad Hidalgo. One thing to consider when camping close to a road in Mexico is to avoid the downhill sections, trucks here have incredibly loud air brakes, it's almost like they have Metallica's sound system attached to them. Just when I was in full sleep mode dreaming of shiny bike parts I was rudely woken up by what sounded like a machine gun the size of a Walmart, I could see the driver in my mind grinning at us and saying " Wake up suckers!"

The next morning we thanked Oscar and his family and finished the rest of the downhill, all the way to the city of Ciudad Hidalgo, this was also the first time since Alaska that we were wearing our puffy jackets due to the cold morning high up in the mountains. In Ciudad Hidalgo we stopped to grab a bite and ask for directions on what route to take up to the mountains to see the Monarch Butterflies, we got quite a few directions that seemed to all be very different from each other. Every time we talked to someone they would ask us where we're from, I tell them I'm from Finland and most people don't have a clue where it is and Kristen is from Canada due to recent "tensions" between USA and Mexico. This is something she doesn't do lightly, by no means is happy not to tell where she is from. 

I was desperately hunting for a Oxxo ( Like a SevenEleven ) for a coffee and once finding one and pulling in to the parking lot we met Javier, Javier turned out to be a great source of information on how to get to the butterflies and insisted on buying us coffees. After we had detailed directions on how to get to see millions of flapping wings we headed up the mountains, climb was intense but beautiful. I guess you have to work for the view. Once we reached our destination, Ocampo, we had already gotten a message on our phone from our friend Javier, he met us downtown and helped us wheel and deal with the owner of a cheap hotel in town. He rode his bike 30 miles just to help and hangout with us with no hidden agendas. That's Mexico.

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The next day we woke up early to catch the first minibus at 7am to the butterfly sanctuary, it turns out that the first minibus leaves at 8am. Classic Mexico! Once we got up to the Sanctuary we still had good 45 min hike up in cold mountain weather to find the hiding butterflies. It was worth the shivering cold jaunt up to 9 400 ft/2865 m to see the Monarch Butterflies that have made it all the way to Central Mexico from Western Canada to meet up with their homies and make babies, yes that it the official National Geographic's description. We were bummed we couldn't see them flying around since it was too cold for them to do nothing else than great massive clusters of butterflies hugging each other to stay warm. Just seeing that was awesome so we left feeling happy to have climbed all the way up there to see these beautiful creatures that have traveled almost the same distance as we have. Have a great journey back to Canada buddies, may the currents be at your back!

Gee gully whiskers we had a blast flying down the mountain, passing logging trucks that were loaded up so full you couldn't fit a hair between. Here's a video of the rollercoaster!

After the down hill came the uphill, this one was 17 miles long! We got almost to the top when the sun was setting and I asked a farmer if we could camp on his field. He said no problem, pitch the tent wherever. We found a spot that we liked, pitched the tent and crawled in to hide from the cold night. We were almost asleep when 2 men with flashlights woke us up, they were telling us we were camping in a bad spot and should move. I asked what was wrong with the spot and they told us there were some bad hombres wandering around and that we should camp closer to where they were camping since they had guns. Telling a stranger that you have guns doesn't always make them feel safer, that was the case with us too but we still decided to take down the tent and move to a safer area code. It turned out that Enrique and Antonio were hired by the farmer to guard the tractor and rest of the equipment on the field. We ended up sleeping just fine but I was so restless that I woke up every time a cricket farted. In the morning before taking off we thanked the guys and gave them Snickers bars for snacks.

By late afternoon we reached Toluca, we did get thrown out of the toll road first time in Mexico but ended up riding just fine on the free road even though it did have substantially smaller shoulder for us. We had written to Warm Showers host Guillermo (from Mexico) and his wife Janelle (USA) about staying with them, we wrote them from Guadalajara and estimated that we would get to their house on the 11th. We ended up getting here on the 18th due to the kindness of Mexicans along the way. We did keep them updated on our progress and luckily since they've done a lot of bike touring they understood exactly what was going on. Guillermo (Memo) and Janelle live in a beautiful house a little outside of downtown Toluca with their 2 kids Anna and Mito. We've had a great time hanging out with them sharing travel stories and getting lots of good info for the road ahead.

From Toluca we made a 3 day trip by bus to Mexico City where we got to see all the sights we were hoping for, Palacio de  Bellas Artes, Museum of Anthropology and Diego Rivera's murals in one of the government buildings. We stayed with 2 different Warm Showers host in the city. First with Tomas (Argentina), he is doing his PhD in Mexico City on renewable energy, thank you for thinking and working for future generations Tomas! He lives with his wife Ursula (Mexico) and we had a blast staying with them and had a great dinner laughing our worn out butts with their friends brainstorming on business ideas on how to make Pajarete the national drink. The next 2 nights we stayed with Nelly and Erik in the southern part of the city, Nelly is a teacher and Erik drives Uber. They made time in their busy schedules to show us around the cool & hip parts of the city and we got to taste more traditional dishes that we would've never found out on our own. I could describe you the city but it's better to see our pictures, or even better come and see it yourself. It is awesome! The public transportation system works like a charm and there is enough things to see for multiple weeks.

Yesterday we returned and we held a speech at the local university for one of the classes Memo teaches. The students seemed to enjoy hearing our stories and no one was sleeping while these 2 yahoos were ranting and raving about the beauty of traveling by bike. We had fun sharing our stories and hopefully inspired someone to jump on the bike for even a short ride to the next town. 

Tomorrow we're heading towards Cuernavaca and from there to Oaxaca. I attached a Google Map with a route that is not quite like ours (instead of 5 758 miles we've actually covered 7 100 miles) but it gives you a pretty good idea on where we are and where we've come from.

​Yours Truly, Justin Bieber.