The road to Oaxaca, Mexico, is very long and very steep. Breni and Pepe decided they would leave their bikes for a few days and would get to Oaxaca by other means.
Time has an effect on memory, and it is possible that Breni and Pepe misremembered how easy, fun and safe their Hitch hiking adventures in the USA had been.
They got a ride with A Mexican courier who would drive them for the whole seven hours to Oaxaca.
Breni hasn’t been car sick since she was nine.
A. Hole in the bit where one of the poles needs to go. Also that pole is broken and must be supported with the aid of a bucket panier.
B. Small loops sewn on to sides to protect from rain and to stop the wind (should be a standard design feature, take note Quechua).
C. Other tent pole bent by 80mph winds one time when Pepe took the tent ice climbing and had to stay there over night.
D. Zipper that occasionally undoes itself, often during rain or investigation by raccoon.
E. The tent’s final flaw: an inner layer of tenty fabric instead of mesh, which is great for camping in the snow, but is TERRIBLE for camping in the tropics. Breni countered this lack of ventilation by creating a bright blue tulle ‘door’, to be attached to the door area with Velcro. Unfortunately, Breni was a little sparse with hey Velcro-ing, and there are many gaps for mosquitoes and ants to enter.
F. Duct tape to cover small holes that occurred when Breni and Pepe lived in a cold tepee and tried to light a fire with damp wood.
G. Tent is far too small for Pepe, so his big hair gets in the way all the time.
H. Funky smell developing after years of continual use.
It’s been real, tent, and many adventures were made less rainy, windy and mosquitoey because of you. But now Breni and Pepe have a better tent that is so great that they wonder every night why they even put up with you the first place.
Breni and Pepe drink and use about seven litres of water a day. This means that they have to fill their water bottles at least once a day. Sometimes they find a stream, but they usually go to the big Mexican gas station called Pemex.
Their steripen makes the water safe to drink.
At one Pemex, though, the lady had a better idea.
Now, Breni is aware that because she uses cartoons, that people might not believe all of her stories, but there were actually, like, 40 or 50 bees and fire ants and wasps and KILLER MEXICAN HORNETS all over the opening of that water tank. AND the water tasted like petrol. It may have even been flammable if there wasn’t so many bees in it.
Breni and Pepe waited until they found another Pemex.
Breni picked up a bad cough from somewhere
She was hoping for an easy recovery. She was misguided.
It is very hard to get well in Mexico.
Breni and Pepe needed to order a new tent. Their old one broke and Mexico doesn’t even have a word for tent, let alone a shop to buy them in.
Being savvy adventurers, they knew to give the address of a well known cafe so that it would be easy for the postie to find.
They waited at the well known cafe for three days until the cafe didn’t want them to stay there any longer. They called UPS every day and kept hearing the same thing: that the package would arrive by 8pm.
Little did they know, but UPS had already given the package to the Mexican courier, and they actually had no idea where the package was.
Still, Breni and Pepe had no option but to keep phoning UPS.
Finally, after almost two weeks of expecting the package to arrive by 8pm every day, Breni and Pepe became desperate.
A nice Mexican man took pity on them and made a mysterious phone call.
The package arrived immediately.
When Breni still lived in Australia, she had lots of nice things.
Now Breni wears things that are practical instead of stylish.
Some days are worse than others.
But Breni knows, at least for now, that some rules are made for a reason.
When cycling in Mexico, there is a game that Breni and Pepe don’t like to play. A question is posed…
… which is usually answered in a few seconds.
NB the items depicted were actually on the roadside in January 2014. Yes, that is a pile of burning nappies/diapers.
Breni and Pepe like animals. One day, a little spider moved into their tent. He looked so friendly and small that they decided to leave him there.
They accidentally forgot about him, folded up the tent, cycled for a day, and were happy to see that he was still doing well when they put the tent up again that evening. After a few days like this, the spider shed his skin and got bigger and a little bit scarier. Even this was ok with Breni and Pepe.
But then the next night, a line was crossed. Breni got in the tent, ready to sleep, when she noticed a large tarantula had positioned itself between her and the tent door. Breni had to be very brave and crawl past the tarantula to get out of the tent.
Breni realised that spiders cannot be trusted to respect the house rules, so both spiders are relocated to a nearby forest before they invited any more friends into the tent.
These are some of the things that have happened since Breni’s camera broke a month ago. It is very hard to have a camera posted to Mexico, and they don’t sell very good cameras in Mexico, so Breni still doesn’t have a camera.
Breni and Pepe cycled up some incredible hills and saw amazing views
They camped in some spectacular places that were very beautiful
They stayed at a turtle sanctuary
And they and four other cyclists caught a ride that defies belief
Breni hopes her new camera will arrive shortly.
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