Trans Mexicana Stage 3

After a puke filled 6 hr bus ride across the Mexican Jungle we arrived in an Eco camp where we spent the night in an auditorium and the 30 racers and 30 support staff had a Mexican snore off. The racers were clearly winning before I vacated the premises to find a small tree to sleep under out in the forest. Today we arrose early for a typical Mexican breakfast of corn tortillas and beans before heading out on the hilly 72 km stage 3 of the race. Lupillo was anxious to trounce the competition over the 2000 m climbing of the day and Travis Macey took off behind him. I was left alone to sweat like a small eskimo in a wood burning pepporini pizza oven as the 35 celsius temps were not being kind to the Canadian. As the day went on my pace slowly picked up as first a pack of dogs put the chase on me then a hoard of turkeys gobbled ferociously as I passed by. By this time we`d been racing for 2 hrs and getting close to the top of the 2970 m pass where the temperature showed some remorse and started to feel a little Canadian. Givin a second chance at life for the day I started biking like a cool Canadian biker and road past Travis at the pass and started down a singletrack decent and then climbed another pass up to 2700 m. Then came the cow dodging part of the day as the road decended 18 km through a farmers pasture and into a desert north of Oaxaca to the finish line where I came in 2nd, 7 minutes behind Lupillo and 10 minutes ahead of Travis. Next came stage 3 part deux, the 30 minute (turn into 1.5 hr) van ride into our hotel in Oaxaca in which our driver weeved between semis going 140 km/hr then playing chicken with a OCC bus before wisley backing off at the last second. My heart rate was maxxing out at 190 bpm and the ride had just started. Next up was the traffic system in the Oaxaca city which goes from normal right hand side of the road driving before switching off to left side British style driving then back and forth and back and forth and pretty soon our driver was stunned like a small child peeing on an electric fence on the farm and drove us out the other side of town before remembering the reason he was driving the van was to take us to a hotel. Next came the part of the game in which we tested out how many crazy Mexican drivers we could cut off at once with a wheel screeching u turn and then spending the next 30 minues working the streets of Oaxaco like a jigsaw puzzle and finally arriving at our hotel for some much needed R&R. Tommorow we start all over again with 120 km ride through the Cactus stands of the Oaxaca desert to our next Camp in San Cristobal Amatlan.