We hadn’t been in Costa Rica for very long, but we already felt a lot more at ease here than we had in the countries before. The only downside was the comparatively high prices – almost as high as in Switzerland! Unlike in Mexico, where we could stop at every gas station to treat ourselves to cold drinks and ice cream, we couldn’t continue doing this in Costa Rica with a clear conscience. On our first morning in Costa Rica, we stopped in the shade next to a police checkpoint…
Long before arriving in Guatemala, we had decided to go on the famous hike up the Acatenango volcano. The inactive Acatenango offers the perfect viewing platform for the active twin volcano Fuego, which erupts very regularly and frequently. Just below the summit of Acatenango, countless tour operators have set up their basecamp and guide several hundreds to thousands of tourists there each day. As we had almost all the equipment we needed ourselves, and guided hikes aren’t really our thing anyway, we decided to do the hike on our own…
Before we knew it, we were cycling the last 35 kilometres in Mexico. We used our last cash for buying some delicious fresh coconut water from a stall next to the road. Slowly, we cycled through the Mexican border area. There wasn’t a single building on our side of the road and nobody who asked us for anything. It felt a bit odd, but as we had encountered borders like this before…
We left Oaxaca and cycled towards the mountains. One last mountain ranges was left to cross before we’d reach the coast for the first time in ages! Before though, just outside of Oaxaca, was a small highlight that we didn’t wanna miss: The Tree of Tule (Spanish Árbol de Tule). With a circumference of 46 metres it is the widest known tree of the world! Funnily enough, from far away it looks just like a fairly big, ordinary tree.
So there we were – finally on the mainland of Mexico! A few times we had heard of the Baja California being described as “Mexico light” and being noticeably different from the mainland. And to be honest, after a little time we could feel what they meant by that. The Baja Peninsula felt very touristic and we can’t remember a day without seeing at least one European, American or Canadian number plate. Around La Paz…
What I haven’t talked about in the last blog post about Mexico is how off the local time zone felt to us. Ever since we crossed into Mexico and started cycling on the Baja California, we had adapted our daily routine to match the sunrise and sunset. One of our unspoken rules in Mexico was (and still is) to avoid cycling in the dark as best as possible. Unfortunately for us, it was winter and the sun set super early at around 4:30 pm. In contrary…
Heading to Mexico from San Diego gave us two options: crossing the border in Tijuana or crossing it in Tecate. Tijuana would have been just south of San Diego, but the border crossing there is super busy, with lots and lots of lanes. On the map, Tecate looked a lot calmer, with only one small crossing point and the extra day of cycling seemed worth it to us. On top of that…
We left the city of Page and cycled over the Glen Canyon Dam. The weather continued to be nice and warm and our rain gear sank deeper and deeper into our bags. Our next stop: Buckskin Gulch, a beautiful slot canyon with red walls. In contrary to the Antilope Canyon, which is bigger and more popular, but at the same time very expensive, this one was open to anyone for just a few dollars. We…
Cycling out of Salt Lake City was way better than our last big-city-experience in Calgary. The first 40 km were almost entirely on cycling paths! We left quite late and it was dark, when we finally made it to the spot, where we had planned to camp – a fairly big park with camp site amenities. Unfortunately though…
Our first longer off-bike adventure was about to start! The two biggest logistical problems when bikepacking is – what to do with the bikes, and what to do with the stuff that’s not needed on the hike? We didn’t have a car to just lock everything in, like nearly everybody else. Fortunately for us the welcome center had lockers…
