Hi to all my friends and family in the world.

Right now I am seating in a small internet cafe in the town of Puerto Marcez, a small town just near the city of Acapulco in the south of Mexico.

In the last month or so I started to understand the way of life in Mexico. The Mexicans are very funny and easy going people. I have so many funny stories to tell you all and I am happy to have photos to help you understand what�s going on.

Since I took a ferry from Baja California to the mainland of Mexico I have been cycling along the pacific coast.

Some times the view from the road reminds me of the coast in California but unlike California here I need to work hard to cycle along the coast�see, the road is very stiff and climbing to the top of the hill and then descending to a river and again climbing� I know that the climb is a good one when I see trucks on the side of the road stuck with a broken engine...  

But there were also flat days on a nice coast with many palm trees by the way.

 Mexico is a developing land. I can be one day in a small village where no one knows English with chickens and wild pigs around in the dirty streets and another day in a tourist town (Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco) where you can see a Starbucks cafe and Wal-Mart around and don�t worry about the language, because the taxi drivers also know French sometimes�

Back to the past or back to the future?

To Camp in a small village at someone's garden is a great way to know how simple the life of the local people are. They invite you to their small house and share with you dinner.

With my poor Spanish (still learning) I can understand some of the questions that they ask and we enjoy a good time together.

 I had the longest day in my trip (yet), I cycled 168 km in one day.  For those of you that think its too much I need to say that for me it was just like another long day in the office. The days are starting to be long, and I have many hours of strong sun to cycle.

I put tons of sunscreen every day ,sometimes I forgot to wash my hands and by the taste of my food I know if I put today the 45 s.p sunscreen or the 50 one�

 Anyway, in the small towns every restaurant is a family restaurant.  Most of them are inside the family house and I find myself mostly in the middle of the room with one child crying, one doing homework , the dad not doing anything and the mom washing cloth while making my breakfast.

One day I stopped in a small restaurant and I asked the father:

-"What do you have to eat here?"

-"We got everything! What do you want?" he asked.

-"ok, I want eggs with tomatoes and onions" I said.

Now he starts to shout at the children.

"Huavos (eggs), tomtas (tomato), savoya (onion), tortias (kind of a bread)!"

Immediately I saw all the children helping out.  One went to buy the tomatoes and the onions, one went to bring eggs and the third somehow got the tortillas�

I find myself thinking a lot about my past, as a small child (As a child I was never actually small in size�). When I see a child I see the past, but for many of my friends in may age when they see a child they see a future, their future but I am not in that stage yet...

Think for a moment: What runs through your head when you see children playing?

Back to the past or back to the future?

On the way someone asks me where I am going, I told him the name of the next town and he said:� Its only 1 hour by car so its 2 hours on a bicycle��

I saw in my map (which isn�t so accurate) that it�s like 80 km with some climbs, so I asked him if he ever cycled that road before:� No, but my friend did� he said.

After more than 3 hours I reached the town and I thought to myself that the friend of the Mexican must be Lance Armstrong�

In one rest stop I saw a spider walking near me, I am sorry but the right word is tarantula and not a spider. A spider is an animal that you can squeeze with your hand and a tarantula is bigger than your hand! He was so big and I was so excited to see him that I took photos of him and in the evening I showed the photos to one kid and he looked at me like he was an Israeli kid looking at a photo of a dog�It's only a tarantula he said to his mom and I felt like an idiot.

In the nights I am trying to sleep by the beach with amazing sunsets and a hummock, good life. Like the US navy sign says: no beach out of reach for me. 

Acapulco the city was the most complicated city that I crossed in my trip (yet...).  The city is located between 2 Mountains and is a very busy town but also very beautiful. On my way up the first climb after 10 minutes I started to �bless� all the drivers that almost hit me in all the blessings that I know:  English, Spanish, Hindi and Nepali (I know to curs in many languages�)

But only when I curs in Hebrew I really meant it.

In the center of the town I saw a tiger! Yes, yes, a real one. Just in front of me was a big car with two tigers inside� I asked the people what's going on and they told me that there is a circus in town so it's ok�it�s a very normal thing to see I thought�

And if you ask why I am not staying in the big town I will tell you that it�s not for me, I need to rest and it�s hard to do it in a big town that you don�t know anyone.

But there is another problem with the big and nice cities on the coast, actually it�s my problem.

They are too romantic for me, and as an adventurer that is cycling around the world, alone, it�s very hard for me.  I feel lonelier in those nice places, especially, when I see couples walking hand in hand with the sunset behind them, it reminded me of the past when I had a girl with me in this kind of places and how amazing those times were�

Now in days I can say that I feel lonelier in those romantic places with many people around me then out in the Himalayas alone in a snow storm.

Many of you would like to hear about the night I had company in my tent�.It was by a small village on the coast, I camped on the sand and went to sleep.  In 3am I felt something touching my shoulder and when I opened my eyes I saw a very special thing. Believe me that I saw special things during my journey: Bears, whales, and sharks in the water, crabs, tarantulas, tigers and when I opened my passport I saw my photo from 8 years ago.

But to open my eyes in the middle of the night and to see a big crab (Sartan in Hebrew) waving with his claw 5cm from my eye was a very special moment in my life...

I jumped from my sleeping bag and started to think what to do with him. (After I opened the camera�)I just brushed my teeth but I wasn�t hungry to kill him so I picked him up with my bike tools and lifted him away from my tent. Every time that I want to laugh, I just watch that film in my camera.  Fighting with a crab in the middle of the night �

 For the future:

In the next 2 weeks I will be on my way to Guatemala City.  I will go to see the ruins of the tikal and will take a bus to Costa Rica to meet my good friend Jeff that I stayed at his place in san Diego after all my stuff got stolen.

If you think that I am doing shortcut in my journey you don�t know me�I will take a bus back to Guatemala and will start to cycle again from the same bus stop south to panama and then to South America.The beaches are nice but I really miss the mountains

Back to the past or back to the future?

I hope that I made you smile with this mail and don�t forget to know where you going �

It is better to live one year as a tiger than one hundred years as a sheep.

Love you all and be good

Roei "Jinji" Sadan

BIKE.ICQ.COM