Day 20 I can see water

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Distance driven today: 206 miles / 332 km

Cumulative distance driven: 5,734miles / 9,228km

Today’s trip: Heroica Puebla to Veracruz, Mexico

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I took another shorter riding day today. The goal is to arrive at Veracruz and wait for Zoe, who is flying in from Seattle later today. And so I took smaller country roads today, through the mountains separating the Puebla and Veracruz districts. I am not sure that I realized the actual elevation of that area before I rode into it. It turned out to be close to 2,000m (8,000ft) above sea level, even though it appears to be so close to the sea when you look at a map. The temperature dropped quickly to about 13C / 55F as I was riding through the mountain pass, only to rise to 33C / 90F within the next hour as I started riding southbound, and at the same time rapidly descend towards sea level. A 20C / 35F increase within 90 minutes!



Riding through the myriad of hairpin turns in the mountains, while rapidly descending toward the Mexican gulf, it become critical to monitor my speed as the grade got pretty steep at certain stretches of the road. As a reminder of yesterday’s blog post, about speed limits and traffic rules being interpreted more of a recommendation by drivers, I saw a big truck carrying 50 tons of cement bags, approach a cure way too fast. As a consequence, the truck did run off the edge of the road. The pictures I attach here are pretty telling. Luckily the driver wasn’t hurt. However, the tarmac and the surrounding hills, where full of cement dust. Next rainfall in this area (and the tropical rain comes every afternoon like a clockwork around here) will for sure have interesting effects when mixed with that cement dust!



After almost 3 weeks of constant riding through the northern America continent without having seen or smelled the sea, I finally got a glimpse this afternoon of the Mexican gulf and its blue waters. Salty and super humid sea breeze reached my nostrils as I was riding into Veracruz, and that sensation was very refreshing indeed. I have seen many mountains and hills, prairies and fields, rivers and lakes for the past 20 days, but I hadn’t seen the sea that surrounds this giant continent. Now I can see the water again, and it feels really good.

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