Post Race

The Transmexicana is over but not forgotten. After an amazing race experience last yr, this yrs version of the race was a little different. Day 0 started with the racers each getting to let an Iguana loose into the forests around Huatulco. Simons Iguana was over anxious to get going and squirmed out of Simons hands leaving behind its tail. Apparantly Iguana tails are pretty fragile and when removed from the body they keep twitching for a couple minutes. This turned out to be a bad oman for Simon as his race didn´t end up going as planned between broken bikes, getting lost and bathroom runs. I managed to keep the tail on my Iguana but I couldnt keep the flu away as day 2 severely limited my chances of ending up on top of the podium.

Simon and I arrived to Mexico city on Sunday night and have been staying with the TransMexicana race photographer Edgardo ever since. After 4 days we have figured out that Mexico city is pretty big. Last night after a 6 hr ride up a 3800 m mtn with fellow racer Julio, Simon and I tried to find out way back to Edgardos house but ended up biking around like a couple headless chickens for 1.5 hrs. At one point we tried calling Edgardo with my new mexican cell phone but the battery died along with our hopes of finding our home. After another good pedalling session we finally recognized a local coffee shop and later found our digs pretty exhausted and feeling a little dumb. We now wrote down the address as it could probably help in the future. Today we went for another pretty epic ride through the city and up to a mtn bike park hanging at 3000 m above the city. Riding through the 2nd biggest city in the world is pretty crazy as we are constantly weaving through a maze of vehicles and trying to hit holes in the traffic. Simon hit one hole today but I was cut off by a taxi and soon caught in the middle of the Mexican freeway. Getting to the safety along the edge I kept going but I missed Simon who was waiting a little further ahead as I was probably passing a bus at the time. After ripping down the highway aways thinking Simon was ahead of me I opted for a u-turn as I was getting lost again and Simon had the apartment keys. Luckily I ran into Simon who was still waiting along the edge of the road and we continued on our way this time finding our home like a couple heat seeking missiles. Tommorow is tourist time as we will grab our cameras and head to a couple 0ld castles and some sort of archelogoy museum people keep telling us about.