| Location: | Costa Esmeralda |
| Mileage: | 8,500 |
By the time we come to leave San Miguel, riders are falling like files with Mexican belly. Nick is doubled up and can’t move from his bed and Ed “Rigsby” also spent the night up and down to the porcelain. Luckily Gerald feels recovered to ride and Ed, despite being weary wants to soldier on to get to Huejutla. Kevin has already dashed on ahead – Huejutla is not the sort of place that handles hotel bookings well! – and Julia, Al and Aaron stick with Ed for the day.
Ed manages valiantly, courtesy of Miss Jones’ homemade rehydration drink (8 parts sugar / 1 part salt in a ½ litre of water) and even eats a banana mid afternoon. The van carries Nick and Danielle rides pillion with Chris. We all make Hue before nightfall.
It’s a Sunday and we are in a small Mexican town not used to tourism. Most of the restaurants are closed, so half eat at the street taco bar, some manage to find take away pizza and others have a picnic on the hotel veranda.
Today is a landmark – we reach the ocean for the first time since leaving Anchorage. The rain in Huejutla was torrential. The sort that soaks you to the skin in a matter of seconds. Over breakfast, we think about sitting it out, but the skies are black and, if anything, it gets even more like a raging waterfall, so we just get on with it. The mountain roads need great care. There are a load of trucks, split diesel, tight bends and unsigned topes.
But the skies lighten, the roads widen and before we know it, the sea appears on our left. It’s the Caribbean! A row of white cabanas await, fronting the beach and the crashing waves of the Pacific. Fresh coconuts welcome us to our first tropical beach night.
Andy – our Australian – having ridden 9,000 miles to get this far and having just decided to continue the trip to Ushuaia (he was to go home in Panama) almost ends his trip prematurely by running out of breath trying to swim to the sand bank just off shore to play in the waves with some of the others. Luckily three came to his rescue and pulled him to safety. It would have been a bad way to end a bike trip!
