Another day, another head spin inducing coffee. I’m going through a very self indulgent pitying process of thought since having started reading Che’s adventures. It makes me wonder whether I’ll ever do something so cool. People do these riding across America bike trips all the time, but I take my hat off to those people going all the way down to Patagonia. That’s the shit. That’s the stuff with balls. It makes my trip feel miniscule.
One of my favourite passages from the book:
“At night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look out over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of his own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly – not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things; the outer limits would suffice.”
– Motorcycle Diaries, Ernesto Che Guevara
Another day wasted productively.
And another successful boarding of a bus with the bike. I’m kind of eager, in a screwed up sort of way, to be back on the bike. In Oaxaca I saw a lot more tourists than I’d seen in Puebla or Mexico D.F. and often it felt as though we were invading each others idea of a personal holiday in Mexico. Eye contact was often avoided; it was as if tourists were trying to pretend that they were the only foreign visitor in the town. It felt weird and almost a little hostile.
So while I bitch about feeling insignificant against the adventures of Guevara, I still feel a step away from the many tourists dragging around their backpacks. Meanwhile, I’m dragging around a bike from bus station to bus station! While walking the bike to the station tonight, pushing it from the handlebars, it seemed as if the frame flexed from side to side with the weight. It’s as if Stef is shuddering from the weight she is burdened with. But as soon as I pull myself into the saddle, she marches on without complaint. Like a true soldier, the beast, Stef, my always dependable, and too often neglected, friend and companion.
The thing I’ll miss most about Oaxaca is the amazing americano doble con leche on the side street North of my hotel. Best coffee I’ve ever had.
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