Guadalajara – Acatic – San Diego de Alajandría – Guanajato: 286 km

Riding out of Guadalajara takes us the better part of the day. The traffic, the lights, the navigation; it’s always hard to get out of big cities. I might be back here very soon. For now, I ride into the uncertain, not sure what the future has in store for me, or how I’ll bend it to my will. These will also be Marijn and my last weeks together. That isn’t really sinking in yet. It feels far away, and we’re not even actually sure how far. Probably Mexico City, but who knows. Two weeks on a bike is 2 months in real life.

We have a couple of cities lined up we want to visit. Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende, and Querétaro. Word on the street is that they’re worth the extra kilometres on our way to Mexico City. We opt for the backroads instead of the highway. A good decision for the views, a pretty bad one for the surface. We ride for kilometres and kilometres over seriously bad cobblestones. Sharp ones, spaced out significantly, huge gaps between them. We nearly shake off our bikes, can’t enjoy our surroundings and we get grumpier and more annoyed with every paddle stroke. We move every so slowly. We can forget about our planned camp spot on the lake. And with my bike recently welded, I’m not feeling too comfortable with my setup on roads like these. We look for main arteries we can get back on but can’t find any. Furious and tired, our hands sore from the impact on our bars, we stop at a small convenience store next to a farm. Some rest and a coke. We decline the homegrown tobacco one of the characters there offers us. We complain to them about the roads. They say it will get better soon, in about 20 meters. What?! We were so tired and focussed on the next cobblestone we didn’t realise that right in front of this little store there’s a perfect stretch of asphalt that’ll take us all the way to Acatic. It’s not where we planned to overnight, but it’s a beautifully cute village. One we’ve seen many of since we left the coast. It feels familiar and communal and sweet. Like they so often do. We’re the attraction for the kids who like us cycle around, although we across the world, and they around the square. Maybe one day they will be us, the out of place weirdos on their bikes in a town far away where another generation of kids cycles around another square, who then also, later will… Well, you get where this is going. We play with them for a while before we find a camp spot in an, for this tiny town, absurdly big and well maintained park. The police check in on us and say they’ll keep an eye out during the night.

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With the cobblestones still fresh in our legs, bones and memories, we take somewhat bigger roads toward Guanajuato. We know we won’t make it there today but plan to take a big chunk out of the distance separating us with this apparently great little town. It turns out to be one of the rare boring days on the road. The weather is grey, the nature nothing to write home about, and the towns not overly inspiring. It is however unexpectedly hard, with constant and steep climbs. Tired we arrive in the town of San Diego de Alajandría, not more than a gas station, some highway restaurants, and an unusually large arc build over the central roundabout. Oh, and a hotel that we treat ourselves to.

Then comes the day we arrive in Guanajuato, the first of our sting of must-visit-cities-between-Guadalajara-and-CDMX. The road that takes us there is filled with heavy traffic that we narrowly avoid on the thin shoulders, full of debris. We have synchronised flat tires, which is both annoying and pretty cool at the same time. We’re in sync. Cycling into Guanajuato is spectacular. It’s a mountain town, known for its silver mining that has made this area wealthy compared to its neighbours. The houses are built into the mountains and they meander up and down the hills like brightly coloured waves. Every corner a new view, every hill a panorama. Half of the streets are stairs exclusively, just wide enough for a single person, and they weave through the town like an erratic, steep maze. Underneath the hills lies a vast network of tunnels that alleviate the city from the worst traffic. A truly impressive system, complete with traffic lights, signs and even underground crossings. Yet, even more than the tunnels, views, stairs and beauty of Guanajuato, what strikes us is the liveliness of this place. It’s exceptionally busy on the streets, on every other corner bands play traditional folklore music on fully dashed out stages with even more dashed out band members, the terraces bulge from visitors, dancing to the mariachi, shouting and laughing at each other. The bars possibly even fuller, the sound of Banda mixed with mezcal bottles rattling, drinks being poured and cigarettes being lit, comes to meet us as we cruise past them. Marijn and I soon find out we’ve hit the jackpot by accident; it’s El Cervantino. El Cervantino is a cultural festival, featuring theatre, music, craft and pretty much any other type of art. It’s legendary. As we tell this anecdote in the future to Mexicans, they look at us in awe; “I’ve always wanted to go.”

Luckily, we arrive early and, even though it’s a challenge to find a hostel at this time, we get to experience it. We stumble from one performance to the next, through seriously cramped streets. As night falls the focus of the festival is less on art and culture and more on drinking and dancing. We do not mind in the slightest. We stumble even more so now, this time from bar to bar, often taken along by swinging processions that are hard to avoid in these tight alleys. We have a blast. Let’s have another one! Let the sombrero-ed men take us under the wings of their hats, let us dance to the sound of traditional five-stringed guitars, let us kiss strangers and dance until time doesn’t exist, let us be engulfed in being away, let us drown in the unknown, let the night take us, for tomorrow is tomorrow, let’s live tonight!