Friday, March 27 San Cristobal to Juchitan

I spent the morning walking around the town, reading the signs on the old churches and monestaries, and getting lost at the market. Although I had highly considered another night at the hotel, I decided against it, and by noon I was on the road.

The road down the mountains was a lot of fun - great views and banked turns, many of which came one right after the other, whipping the bike over like the sail on a sailboat.

I saw a sign for a tourist spot with a cave and natural pools, so I turned to check it out. It was only 10 pesos, so I got to enjoy the coolness of the cave and take some pictures.

After this, the road was very straight, and much longer than I expected. It was getting dark and I was log on gas - the first time this trip switching to reserve. I could have stopped at one of the "auto-hotels", but the town of Juchitan was coming up, and it was highlighted yellow on my map, which generally means it's tourist friendly.

The town didn't seem all that nice, and driving around after dark looking for inexpensive hotels was not fun. The best I could find was 300p, twice the cost of last night's room, and also without hot water. Very hungry, I went straight to some outdoor food stands in the central park for dinner. These are usually cheaper and just as good as restaurants, but not this one. The women there were not very nice and treated me like I was an idiot, not only assuming that I know no Spanish, but also assuming that I'm a dumbass. The food wasn't really all that great either. Dessert was good though - a guy was selling small milk cartons of frozen strawberries with yogurt over the top for 15p.

Since this room has a TV, I dealt with the messed up remote and found a movie in english. However there were frequent and long commercial breaks at very inopportune moments, and it really wasn't that good a movie - very disappointing.

Although I probably would have been happier staying in San Cristobal, I was have ended up here anyway. my plans right now are to ride up the coastline for the next couple days, and if that gets old, there are plenty of mountains nearby. Options are good - cold showers are not.