December 9: Made it to Mazatlan!

Hey Friends,

I actually did sleep on the ferry.  I decided to do as the locals were doing
and lay down on the floor of the ferry.  I used my water bottle-backpack as
a pillow and laid my jacket over the rest of me.  I then put in my toilet
paper earplugs and my sunglasses.  I must have looked like one cool sleeper
in those shades.  Every hour or so I would awaken and change positions and
check my watch.  After many such checks it was indeed morning and so I
decided to go upstairs and see what the onboard cafeteria had cooked up.

I don't know the name of it but for breakfast I had tortilla chips with a
tomato and cheese sauce with (of course) beans and rice.

I met another touring cyclist on the ride named Tomas.  He was from New York
and Ireland and had cycled from New York to Alaska and then from Alaska down
to La Paz.  He told the story of his great escape from a group of bandidos
in Tijuana.  He and a friend had decided to camp very close to Tijuana one
night and he had some unwanted guests.  He got away from the four bandits
when they went for his friends bike.  His friend lost most of his gear and
his bike.  Listening to the story, I kept thinking that this could have
happened to me.  I was in the same place.  The main consolation is that I
would not have camped there and I had made special preparations to be well
out of the city by dusk.  But still it was a bit unnerving.

After we loaded off of the ferry Tomas and I pedaled into down town
Mazatlan.  It was much as I had expected it from the postcards I have seen. 
Palm trees dotted the shops and coconut stands designed for the many
tourists.  Golf-cart taxis cruised up and down the street shuttling
pink-skinned, overweight tourists.  I wanted to find the bus station and
figure out how easy it would be to get a ticket to Queretaro.  I decided to
take the bus for most of the way to Mexico City due to my upcoming flight on
the 16th and the increasing danger of the roads through the state of
Sinaloa.

The ticket agent said that I would easily be able to take my bike and put it
in the luggage compartment.  A bus left for my destination almost every hour
and the ticket would cost about $50 dollars.  This all seemed easy enough so
Thomas and I headed out to find him a hotel for the night.  We both left our
bikes in his hotel and got a chance to check out el centro of Mazatlan.  We
saw a pizza stand that advertised a piece of pizza and a coke for $6 and I
thought that in such a tourist town that it was $6 dollars.  Thomas said
it couldn't be that much and said it had to be pesos.  I bet him an orange
and sure enough it was pesos.  Thomas enjoyed his orange and I enjoyed the
the whole episode.  We visited a little store and tortilla factory in
downtown and then visited the main Catholic church in the city.

For lunch we ended  up having more pizza and then came back to the hotel. 
While Thomas took a nap I decided to find my fortune in the city and got a
great haircut and bought some new shoe strings.  This haircut was a lot of
fun being my first haircut in Mexico and my second haircut in a barbershop. 
My hair grows very, very slowly.  Actually, my dad has always cut my hair
and in college I had friend cut it.  So sitting in the barber chair was a
real experience to be documented.

As dusk approached I bought a three bananas, some crackers, Azucaritas, a
carten of peach juice and headed to the train station.

When it was was time to board the bus the real action started.  In contrast
to the picture the ticket agent had painted for me putting my bike on the
bus was not going to be easy.  The attendants had to rearrange all of the
baggage and then I had to take off my panniers.  Then four of us pushed and
cajoled my bike in amongst the other luggage as I prayed that it would all
be intact when I pulled it out.  The bus was full and it was going to be a
14 hour ride to Queretaro.  The bus was supposed to leave at 6:30 but due to
my extra luggage we didn't leave until 7:00.  I was already famous
(notorious) among the other passengers and the ¨gringo con la bici¨ and so I
thanked everyone as I got on and hoped that they would forget about it.

No such luck.  After a few middle of the night stops and due to getting off
schedule all those headed to Queretaro and Mexico City had to take another
bus.  This meant that I would pull out all of my luggage again and put it on
this new bus.  The new bus had even less space than the previous one and all
the other passengers got to put their luggage in before me.  The bus driver
kept looking at me, patiently waiting with my bike and panniers, and began
joking to the other workers that I would have to ride the rest of the way. 
I was the only one who didn't see much of the humor in these jokes due to
the likelihood that I would be ¨walking to Knottingham¨ to quote Disney´s
Robin Hood.  But, after taking off a tire, and a few curses from the
attendants we got the bike and gear in again.  I gave everyone a high five
after we slammed the cargo door shut in celebration of our ¨team effort¨.

On the bus again and off to Queretaro...

Peace(Bike),

TAD