Riding through the jungles of Chiapas and Guatemala

So we have finally began to ride our bicycles non stop through the deep jungles of Chiapas and made our way across the Guatemalan boarder where we currently are.
On our second or third day of non stop bicycle riding from Cometan, Chiapas, we came across a construction site. Now at first I thought it would be just an average construction site, but I was totally wrong. Apparently the river washed out some of the road which meant that there were cars lined up on both sides of the road with no way to pass over. There was a huge tractor scooping up a bunch of dirt and filling in the road. After the tractor smoothed over the road they started to let cars pass. After some cars passed by our whole bicycle gang of 8 bicyclist passed over the road with no problem. After a brief moment of excitement and jumping around we heard crying and people screaming. We all turned around immediatly and saw that the road that just got packed in started to crumble, which made a pick up truck fall in the dirt partially. Everyone evactuated the truck safely before we arrived on the scene. Kipchoge and I and some of the rest of the gang started to run towards the truck. As I arrived to the scene people started yelling at me in Spanish and English saying they wanted to use my light and that they needed a large chain that was in the back of their truck. Without thinking I quickly jumped into the back of the truck which was halfway off the road trying to find a chain. Shortly after throwing everything around in the back of the truck frantickly, I found the chain and then carefully jumped out. They connected the chain to the tractor and the tractor pulled the truck out which turned out to be a happy ending.
So after biking through the dense jungles of Chiapas and camping out in various places everynight, we have finally found ourselves in Guatemala. As soon as we crossed the boarder we realized that Guatemala is a little different compared to Mexico. The roads, the clothing, the food, the langauge, and the money have all changed.
So now we are currently in Coban, Guatemala trying to figure out where our adventure will bring us next.

Oaxaca and San Pedro Cajonos

So we took another bus to the beautiful city of Oaxaca Mexico. We played a really cool show in a small cafe called Cafe Central, the place was packed full of people and it was a pretty cool atmosphere. The show went well, there system only shut down once for a couple of seconds. There werent that many volunteers though, the crew including me pedaled the bikes a lot. And the same volunteers kept coming up for more. There were a lot of girls with high heels pedaling, which seems like it wouldn´t be too fun. Then after the show I danced all night until about 430 am. The next day I Kipchoge, Corey, Laughter, and Dave took a cab up to San Pedro Cajonos for a fiesta. Cara, Matt,Jared, an awesome indeginous guy, and me hitchhiked on the back of a pick up truck to the same fiesta. We arrived to the fiesta and met up with the others. We paid 50 pesos to get inside. The music wasn´t very good at first. It was really really loud and not a lot of people were dancing at first. Then after a couple hours a lot of alchohol for everyone else besides me, it started to get a little fun. I started dancing solo among the large crowd with traditional mexican music. Then Corey tackled Jared and the police with the big guns came after and pretty much kept an eye on us, which wasnt cool. Then we left shortly after that and slept at an awesome community center. They gave us bowls of hot chocolate and bread that night. Then in the morning we woke up to the band of horns, drums, and symbols walking into the community center where we were sleeping. I took a short little video of some of it. It was one of the best wake up calls I ever had in my life. Then I walked around the beautiful town of San Pedro Cajonos. I got invited into a nice little house and met a couple of children and Antonio who spoke english. Then I went back to go find the rest of the crew. We firgured out that there was a huge protest against the price of diesel gas. Which meant that there were no buses are taxis coming in or out of town. So we all split up in pairs of two and hitch hiked. Me and Dave hitch hiked together, before we left the town. this awesome family invited us in for lunch. We taught them a little bit of english while they taught us some Spanish. My Spanish is getting much better. I am more confident to out on my own to get food or just to have small conversations with people. Today we are taking our final bus to San Cristobal, Chiapas. From there we will start to ride non stop to Panama. I am excited and a little nervous for the epic journey ahead. Hopefully I will try to post up some pictures and Videos in the near future.

One more last blog worthy story=
So on the way out of Mexico City we rode our bikes to the bus station. On the bus station the whole gang stopped at this section of stores that were all music stores. There were about 10 different music stores. So we all split up and walked around while Kipchoge and Jared were looking for a new mixer. Dave went into a cafe and brought his back pack with his computer, cell phone, and chargers in there. The guy at the cafe was really nice and kind and knew a little bit of english. Then the crew regrouped and we rode to the bus station. About five minutes after we got to the bus station, Dave remembered he forgot his backpack with all of his valuables in it. He started flipping out and was going to ride his bike back to the cafe which was about a 15 or 20 minute ride. Then we all sugegsted that he should take a taxi. So right when he ran to grab a taxi, the guy from the cafe comes out of no where and starts running towards us covered from head to toe in sweat. It turns out that he ran all the way from the cafe to the bus station on stop with daves bag. Someone ran and got dave to tell him. We all gave him hugs and gave him 20 pesos for doing so. It was unbelievable and very awesome. That shows you how nice people really are, especially in Mexico. Everyone has been so kind and generous to us. I am having an excellent time, and I think it will only get better.

Last Day In Mexico City

So today is my last day in Mexico City. I had a fantastic time and I had some times that I will never forget. Last night me and my new found couch surfing friends all went to a free jazz concert in Coyoacon. It was a really great show. Then on the last three songs the saxophonist daughter came out on stage and sang. It was really great and entertaining. Then after the show we spoke with her for a while and played with some really cool children. They were the children of some local merchants selling jewelery on the street. Then after that we walked to a park and saw this great Mexican guitar player playing a traditional mexican guitar with 7 strings. Then after a few songs he asked if any of us played and everyone pointed to me. So I got next to him and played a beautiful classical guitar while he played his traditional guitar. It was an amazing expeirience. It was great music that I will never forget. I needed that, It made me feel so powerful and creative. I just let everything flow through me and into the guitar. Everyone enjoyed it and there is a video of 2 of the songs. I will post up a link to it after it is posted up online.
So tonight we are going to take a bus to Oaxaca. There will be 10 of us. Enio is a new addition to the pleasant revolution. He has got us a lot of shows and will continue to do so. He is the tour manager I believe. Which is good because we definitly needed a tour manager.
So I have been feeling a little better after I took some anti biotics but I have also been feeling a little weird. Sometimes it feels like the floor is moving when I am standing still, and it kind of feels like everything around me is pulsating sometimes , which is wierd. If it gets worse I will see a real doctor in Oaxaca. I would love to go to a beach in Oaxaca but I don´t think we will. But Kipchoge said we will go to some beachs in Central America. I can´t wait.

My battle with pollution, amibas and loco driving in Mexico City

So it has been an intense week for me so far. We have been working on the bicycle generators because we keep having multiple problems on stage at pretty much every show. But we still manage to have a great time and have really cool shows. I keep meeting a lot of cool people and I am learning more and more about the Mexican culture everyday.
So the other day Dave,Dante and I rode our bicycles to Dantes shop where we worked on the generators. The ride there was nuts. It was really conjested traffic and the pollution was unbelievable. The ride wouldn't of been so bad if there wasn't so much pollution. The pollution is so bad that you can see it everyday. It just lurks over the city and hangs out in the tops of the trees. But I survived.
Anyways I apparently ate some dirty delicous street food which gave me some amibas in my blood stream which made me have bloody poop. It was awful. It was the most blood I ever seen come out of mi ano ever. But I went to a really small medico clinic that was the size of my bedroom. There were about 40 people in line waiting for care. I eventually saw the doctor who didn't speak any english. He prescribed me some antibiotic pills which kills the bacteria. I am taking three different pills all at the same time. I feel a little weird but I hope it helps. He said I can't drink alchohol for two weeks and can't have greasy food, condiments, or street vendor food. Mexico is full of all of those things. It is really hard to eat pretty healthy here because everything is so tempting! But I will get over it.
So we are taking a bus to Oaxaca tomorrow night and will arrive there in the morning. Mexico City has been really great and awesome but I am ready to move on for now. Hopefully I will come back here in the future.

Jesus Ride a Bike bike shop and Coyoacon

So on sunday we rode on the Ciclo Pista Bike trail to the Glorieta Andgel De La Independencia. We were supposed to arrive there around 930 am, we didnt end up getting there until around 12. We were supposed to play for the Mexican Minister of enviromental awareness, or something similar to that. But it didnt work out because of multiple scenerarios within the morning. It was a valuable lesson for the whole crew and we all learned a lot from our mistake. I learned that my critical thinking isnt so critical. I get shocked and scared and nervous and lazy sometimes when an emergency or problematic situation occurs. I usually rely on others to help me out or fix the whole problem for me. I have been doing this my whole life, and this tour is helping me relize this. I am very greatful for these kinds of expeirences and I am learning a lot from each problem that occurs.
Anyways... we ended up playing the show anyways even though were really late. The minister wasnt there but we still had a good crowd with us. The film maker who is making the Ginger Ninjas documentary was there and video taped the show. The show went very well I thought. Dante the engineer was there to guide us a little with the system but I think I did a good job setting it up with little help. My spanish is getting a little better. I am so glad that I am meeting people who speak a little english. My notebook keeps getting filled everyday with more and more spanish phrases and words.
So we stayed at the Jesus ride a bike bike shop in col. Santa Ma. la Ribera Mexico DF for two nights. Pablo is a great bike mechanic who runs the shop. He helped fix matt and daves bike. He also helped me out a little while I fixed Andreas bike. Her bike was in really rough shape. The gears barely shifted, the cables were really worn out, the housing was bad, and her handle bars were really small and uncomfortable. I replaced both shifter cables, the brake cable, cleaned her bearings and repacked her cones, and replaced a her front derailer shifter. I also changed her handle bars to cruiser bars which are very wide and pretty comfy. I plan on coming back here after the trip to visit and help coordinate an earn a bike program possibly.
After we finished all the bicycle repairs we helped clean up the room we stayed in by bagging up some trash and debris that was lying around. Dave and Corey went to meet up with the rest of the band for band practice while Matt stayed at the shop so he could go to Dantes work the next morning to help him work on the generators. Andrea and I rode to Destiny's house in Coyoacon. It took us about an hour and a half to 2 hours. It was around 8 pm and was pretty effing dangerous. More dangerous than Boston rush hour traffic. We met another bicyclist who was going our way so he pointed us out in the correct direction. We finally got to Destiny's house. We were very hungry, thirsty and tired. We walked in the apartment and met about 10 or 12 other travelers. It was a unique expeirence that I enjoyed. Everyone came from another part ofthe world. There were people from Austria, Canada, France, and other parts of Mexico. It was awesome. They just cooked noodles with squash and gave us some beer to go with it. We exchanged stories about our travels and went to bed shortly after. So Now I am in a Internet cafe about a block away from Destiny's wondering what the bands next plans are. We might play a show tonight after a huge critical mass like ride. But it is still undecided. So I was thinking about doing a little shopping. If you would like to send me a postcard with a little story on it give me an email with your address at jshchadwick(at sign)yahoo.com