Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Xela Bike




2/11/2008

This weekend Laura and Justin, being the extremely active and outdoorsy people that they are, biked over to Cabricán from San Lorenzo. This, while only about 7 miles, involves grueling up-hill climbs that I would never venture to attempt on a bike. (Brian, Aneth and I hiked to San Lorenzo in December and that was hard enough.) I was extremely excited to have my first visitors, and Laura and Justin make excellent guests as well as cook delicious (albeit vegetarian) food.

During the course of the evening Laura and Justin talked me into biking with them to Xela on the premise that we bus from Cabricán to San Carlos Sija, thereby passing the worst of the hills and the unpaved road, and bike from Sija to Xela. Justin put my bike together that evening (the wheels had been unattached ever since my APCD dropped the bike off in November), and the next morning I ran out to get the brakes fixed and put air in the tires. After throwing our bikes onto the top of a bus around 10 am, we were off.

Despite skipping the worst of the uphill climbs, the bike ride was challenging but beautiful. We stopped to eat lunch just outside of Sija in a beautifully forested area beside a small river, which unfortunately appears to have been adopted as a trash dump. The first part was easy going and downhill, but I was soon reminded that in a mountainous region what goes up must come down and vice versa. All our hard work paid off when we were able to cruise down the mountainside into Xela and witness an amazing view of the valley below.

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