I went across such a pathetic part of the Rio Grande river that I could have walked across it without getting my shirt wet, but as soon as I got to the other side I was in another world. Mexico had narrower streets and the buildings were older, smaller and unpainted. It was exciting to be in another country for the first time in almost a year. The first thing I did was go to a bank to get Pesos, but the ATM was busted so I asked a lady who worked at the bank where another one was and she was struggling to tell me because she didn't speak any English, in fact the only thing she said in English was ''across the street'', but that was enough to locate the place. I went to the central pedestrian street and found a hotel there. Because I was in an undeveloped country I though I could bargain the price of the hotel like I did in Asia, but the guy didn't have any of it, which was alright because it was nice and cheap. It was nice to be staying in a bed again in my own room after sleeping on the side of the road. Pretty soon I forgot about some bike stuff I forgot to get when I was in Brownsville so I crossed back in America and delt with some pretty big culture shock even though I was only out of the country for a couple hours. America was just so much more organized and cleaner and the roads were so much bigger. After I went back to Mexico I had a walk around the pedestrian mall where there was a market and looked for a good restaurant to have some Mexican burritos as my favorite food in the world are burritos. While I was about to go into the restaurant a Mexican guy said ''Hi how are you'', or something like that and so I automatically thought he could speak English so I started speaking English to him as if he could understand me but he just had a blank look on his face. I can't remember what the burritos were like in the restaurant but I don't think I was impressed.

I bought a pump and a tube and stuff and then went across the Rio Grande into Mexico. The river was a little non moving creek. I rode over the bridge, and when I got to the half way point on the bridge the trash started. Now I was in Mexico, how exciting. I went to the city center and went to the various hotels and bargained but found out that they don't do that here, but it was still cheep, about 11 bucks for a room. The next day I got a tourist card and went back to America to get a translator computer and camel back water bladders because the boarder official said there was no water between Matamoros and the next town, San Fernande, 137 kilometers away, presumably against the wind in the heat. I was like ´this is going to be like Australia´. But it wasn't a challenge at all, there are taco stands and ´mini supers´ all along the route.

The next day I rode down south. Matamoros is a huge place and it took me a while to get out of the city, but when I did the terrain was nice and flat and the roads weren't too bad.

The first day I had my own lane and was thinking Mexico is made for bikers. My hotel room that night was 18 bucks but I had air conditioning for the first time, and it was nice and had a TV that played American movies in English all night which was very luxurious. The next morning this guy was all, 'you want dope´? and I was like, 'yes, all right'. He got me this quarter bag of good stuff from the south for six bucks. He said there were only three dope sellers in the town and the rest were crack sellers. I thought that was weird, he asked me if I wanted some crack as if I did. I have to say is that the drivers here are crazy and the roads are narrow.

After I got to Mexico I started having to ride during the day. But I am in good enough shape to ride in the day now and not wish I was dead or watching TV in an air-conditioned room or something. The first day in Mexico was with big 'ol shoulders on the road. And it was great, because I noticed almost immediately they don't give bikers the kind of space they do in America. Probably because there aren't as many bikers here. The first town I stayed in south of Matamoros was after a 137 km day. It was still against the wind, but not as bad as in America. I got an air conditioned room and watched movies on my TV in English. I was like, 'this ain't bad one single bit'. But the other TVs I got since then are all in Spanish, and my Spanish ain't that good yet to hear what they are saying. But I learn a little and still enjoy the Simpson's and stuff. Luckily this dude hooked me up with weed in that town, and I was set from then on out.

The next day was like 132 kilometers. Then I did 115. Then I wanted to rest and learn some Spanish from my phrase book, so I took a rest day. I didn´t totally learn Spanish that day, but it gave me an idea. Then I rode into Tampico, and two days after that to here, Poza Rica. This is an oil city of almost two hundred thousand people. Downtown is crazy, it is very crowded and has lots of weird stuff for sale, like 40 cent fruit juices. The food here is good and healthy.

I just came back from El Tajin, one of the 7 main Mayan ruins here in Mexico. It had eleven ball courts between pyramids. The biggest pyramid is 18 meters high. Back in the good old days 1500 to 2000 years ago, the loser got his heart cut off. I have taken pictures of hills that look like pyramids and wondering if they are pyramids buried under there that they don't know about. That is how El Tajin was until a couple hundred years ago when they found it and cleared it. El Tajin was definitely made by humans, but there are rocks there that look like they were cut by power tools that I took a picture of. (Written later: Actually I don't think El Tajin was made by humans.) At the entrance of the ruins they were doing a show that the Mayans used to do where they would climb to the top of a tall pole and tie themselves to rope and then let themselves fall as the rope unraveled.

I am psyched about the next ruin, Teotihuacan, which is one or two days riding from here. It has the third biggest pyramid in the world at 70 meters high, and the base is %97 the size of the great pyramid! It is in-between in size of the two biggest Egyptian pyramids. And there is a pyramid even bigger than the biggest Egyptian pyramid in a town called Pueblo near Mexico city but it is overgrown with vegetation.

I am entering the coolest week of my traveling career, and probably coolest I will ever have, because 50 miles from Teotihuacan is Mexico city, and then a 53 hundred meter mountain I want to climb just outside of the city right next to the smoking Volcan El Popo. Then I will go to the biggest pyramid in the world. Then a few km's down the road the third biggest mountain in north America at 56 hundred meters. Then all the other Mayan ruins after that.

Tomorrow I will hit the mountains for the first time in the trip. I am excited about that because so far I have been riding on the flats. I love to get stoned and ride, and then get really stoned half way through my ride again in the bushes and ride some more. I am into the rhythm now where I just ride like my legs are pistons that just gracefully go without me having to be constantly hammering or standing up and sitting down all the time because of crotch soreness. But I can stand up and sprint fast too, and go up the mountains at a good pace. The wind hasn't been against me but I think it may be with me on my way into the mountains. It's gonna be dope when I see the big 'ol winding road up the mountain and can say, ´yea, kick ass!´ and then proceed to kick ass as I cruise up the mountain with my tan legs glistening in the sun and slowly collecting dust until my buzz wears off. Then I go into the woods for part two, when my legs are warmed up and I really move along the road like a cowboy. I like this Trek bike I have, although these spokes I have are gonna start popping like corn as soon as I get to the mountains. But I am going really light so I feel like I am just on a pleasure cruise outside of my house.

Mexicans are cool, I feel like one of them. They don't blatantly stare and don't over react about me being a foreigner like waving and talking to me all the time like in Asia, and they are nice and try to communicate with me instead of getting grumpy angry like they do in France and Spain. I would consider Mexico a second world country. The peasants still live in thatch huts with limited electricity and running water, but they have cars and live lives very similar to us technology wise. Out of all the countries I have been to, it seems that mentally Mexico is the most similar to us; although I have only been here a little over a week. Hotels on average cost around 12 to 15 bucks a night, but the one I am staying in now is only 6.3 US dollars. They clean my room when I am gone when I stay more than one day. They took my can pipe. I gotsta watch it from now on.

The only worry I have now is if my bag a' weed lasts long enough to get me to Cancun or some cool town where I can get me more dope, cause at this stage in my life dope and biking might as well be the same word. I love this traveling stuff, in some ways I wish I didn't blow all my dads life insurance money when I had it. After I enroll in my Spanish class and live with a family in the town just north of Guatemala city for a month, I plan on riding to Panama city or San Jose Costa Rica, and flying to Ecuador. Then riding to the coast of Peru and teaching English there and making some more money. The longest left hand surf wave in the world is there 75 kilometers north of Trujillo. Over and out.

So´s I done gone to Mexico city. The ride up the digidy dog mountain was big just as I expected. It was flat from Poza Rica for a little bit, and then kaboom! straight the #%$!#$% up for an hour and a half. I rode near deep jungle gorges by big 'ol waterfalls and sawn vines on trees and all these trees growing off of sheer cliffs and whatnot. At the end of the climb I was at the same height of this mountain that I saw from the plains and remembered thinking to myself that mountain is as big to me as pikes peak is to Colorado Springs. But I thought, 'I betcha I'll go higher than that today', and I did cause I went down a little to a town and back up climbing, and down a couple of little descents until I done got hungry and stopped for food. But the dang place took a half hour to cook my fish a little. Then I did afternoon tokage, and went up again. This dude said 30 more km's of straight up, but is turned out to be more like 50 km's. Lucky for me pretty soon after I started riding up, this digidy rigidy came up on me all slow so I grabbed it and they hauled me up for like 45 minutes, and before I knew it I was amongst Pine trees and Aspens and grass and cool air. I was like, ´digidy dog´ I am in the Valle de Mexico.

It leveled off a bit and the dudes turned off and I waved goodbye and hammered up the last 30 km's to the town. At the beginning of the day I was at zero meters and at the end I was at 21 hundred meters and level with Mexico city, but my body was thrashed. I couldn't ride out of the saddle without my arms burning, because when I put my rack back on I put it high on the seat post and so when I rode out of the saddle it was like lifting weights. What happened a couple days beforehand was I was riding and I had just entered a town and was going slow up this climb and my rear wheel locked up and I looked back and discovered my rack cracked. So I took it and looked over and guess what I sawn, that's right, metal workers. So the dude said for fifteen bucks he would make me a new clamp portion of my rack in an hour. So in an hour I was on the road again; trippy huh? So anyway, I was getting excited cause now I was in a home-like climate and near the pyramids, city, and mountains. So I got up late the next day and rode to Teotihuacan and in two hours was there even though it was 50 km's away. I forgot how fast you can go when it ain't straight up. I pulled behind a truck for a while though.

I went over this hill, and saw this town with these two huge brown lumps in it and said 'yea, Teotihuacan', and went there and walked up the big one. It was cool and impressive but standing on it was far from geometrically even; no divine influence here like in Egypt. It was the 6th biggest city of its day is the 5th century. It is said to be situated on the northern slopes of the lake that existed 500 years ago. (Now it do think it was divinely influenced).

Then I rode the last 50 km's to the city, but by then we were in the suburbs of the city. I rode 25 km's, and then some guy led me what I thought to me the wrong way (I found out later he was telling the truth) for a bunch of kilometers because I went one direction a long way before turning around and going the other direction, because there is a big mountain to the north of the city that I couldn't figure out which way to go around. Then it rained so hard the six lane freeway turned into a river. Kids were holding on to poles to avoid being swept away, and cars were stopping. The buses were still gunning through it and me fighting, walking my bike against it. When I got to the top of the hill and rode down and through another river in the freeway. I held on to buses in the slow parts, and made it to the historic district just before sunset.

I had insomnia that night, but didn't mind cause I was reading the lonely planet book and the language book. Then at like 4, holy fuck! at 4 I had excruciating pain in my abdominal area, and then got the shits. In the morning I was so feverish I was having nightmares about leading Spanish armies to the annihilation of the Aztecs, and was freezing under my two blankies and sweating like a pig.

I went to the top of the tower anyway the next day and took pictures of the city. To the north I sawn hills close by, but the city is surrounded on most sides by big mountains. On the southwest side after maybe three km's, there was just a brown fog I took a picture of. The city is I think 2000 square kilometers. After the tower I bee-lined it home and went to bed for the rest of the day and didn't eat anything. That was two days ago.

Yesterday I went to the Aztec ruins of the pyramids and temples and saw the museum. This down town area is on the site of the island that was the Aztec capital of the big lake that they drained. Now all these buildings are tilting over from the bog, because back yonder the town beyond the pyramid-fortified capital island of maybe 7 km's in diameter was build up bogs of grass nailed to the lake floor that grew their food. These neighborhoods were built up around the various islands in the lake connected by floating bridges. The people lived on their little islands and got around on gridded causeways of water on boats. But they got waxed by the Spanish in 1521. In all the murals around town the Spanish look like devils with crooked noses, evil squinty eyes, and pointy chins as they stick guns in serene looking Aztec bellies.

Today I feel well enough to move around, but it is Sunday and I am in a Catholic country so everything's closed. I can't even go to the big ass park with the zoo because I have shorts on. So I will stay here tomorrow and hopefully will have the energy on Tuesday to make it up to the 14 thousand foot town at the base of the smoking volcano just 80 kms from here. Tomorrow I will get maps and advice about what clothes to buy for it. Last night I just watched Sex in the City, this jail movie, the Chris Rock show, and some other movies. I forgot how raunchy and vulgar HBO is. It is chill to toke it and drink big 'ol cheap beers and watch American cable in a nice hotel and then go out and explore this awesome city. The city has this huge boulevard from the historic part that goes straight for like 5 kms to this hill in the park. I couldn't go where the old palace was, but there are lots of huge palaces here. The guard actually yelled at me and was mad just cause I wanted to enter the park. Like I should have known on Sundays you don't do that, and that you can't lock your bike to any fences. Then I started to notice they are very somber here in this country; I attributed that to their poorness. But there are lots of rich people too. Their Denney's-like restaurants are just as expensive as they are at home, but the food stalls are cheap. I keep being a fool and going to the restaurants. You can save SO much money if you just stick to the mom and pop food places. I hope I remember to go there before I run out of money. So anyway, these volcanoes look like cones in the post card, so I think I can climb it. I hope I am well day after tomorrow, cause I am already jonesing for some altitude gain. There are a lot of French people here, which is interesting because they are nowhere to be found anywhere else in the world except France. I bet ya they'll be in America del Sur too.

Mexico City is a very interesting city because of all the Aztec ruins scattered throughout the place. The central plaza is situated on the central plaza of the old Aztec capital, and the old Aztec pyramids are literally just across the street from the Cathedral about 30 feet away. I saw some other pyramids in another part of the city also. The layout of the avenue that goes straight from the plaza to the hill where the old governors palace is was quite artistic. From the porch of the palace you can look right down the avenue straight to the plaza. The city still has remains of the old canals from the Aztec days in the southern part of the city.

It took a while to get out of the city because it is so big and the traffic is so bad. I remember it took me forever to get onto the highway because there was a constant street of cars driving down the exit that I needed to cross. I arrived at the town at the base of the mountain in the afternoon. I rode up the road almost to timberline the next day but turned around I think because it was colder than I expected, so I bought some clothes in the market and climbed the mountain the next day.

The ride up to the mountain was beautiful. After I turned off onto the road that goes straight up the mountain the road got very steep and passed a little village. Then it entered a pine forest and winded up through the cold mist until I got above timberline and was surprised to see a little village. I looked over and saw El Popo there and it was tempting to climb but illegal and I didn't want to risk getting busted so I rode north up the road until I got to the base of the trail that goes up the mountain. I locked my bike to a post and hiked up the trail through thick fog. After a couple of hours I arrived to where the snow starts and hiked up to the top. When I got to the top I was impressed to see an old Japanese guy up there. The view from the top on this clear day beautiful. I could see the smog blanket of mexico city to the west and El Popo to the south that looked about as high as I was, and Puebla in the arid plains to the east with the third largest mountain in north America a little beyond. When I got back to where I locked my bike I discovered the lock had been cut and it was stolen. I deserved it though because I was stupid enough to have a cheap lock as I had lost my good lock a couple days beforehand. I had to hitch hike back to the town I was staying at. The Mexicans who drove me back told me that someone must have followed me up there and ripped me off because I was American.

The next day I took a bus back to the city and got a bus straight to Belize as I had lost my motivation to tour the Yukitan without my bike. I had some extra time so I took the metro to the University and walked around campus a bit. The campus was nicely situated at the base of some mountains and out of the reach of the fog. The metro in Mexico was interesting because there was a large underground labyrinth of narrow tunnels solidly lined with shops.

The bus ride to Puebla would have been a cool bike ride because the descent into the town at the base of the mountain was huge. The bus ride through the Yukitan was kind of boring because it was just straight roads lined by jungle. Every so often the bus was stopped and searched by soldiers. At the time there were problems with Yukitan separatists.

I got off the bus at a boarder town with Belize where I got a bus ride to Belize City.