Wheels

From Umar, I can take a crowded old bus for only 3 pesos. It's more than just cheap transportation. It's an adventure. Not knowing whether or not the bus I saw would be the last, I managed to squezze myself on but not quite in the bus one night. It was okay. Nobody stopped me. I had one foot on the first step and the other on the second. It felt fairly safe. Next night Thor and I hopped on. We each had a grip on the door and both feet more or less on the bottom step. It didn't feel that secure and it's a fast bus until we hit city limits. We were just pulling out when Thor reminded me to hang on tight. "Remember. You fall, you die." That was enough for me. We both jumped off before the driver peeled off on to the highway.

Thor gave me his bicycle that night. It needed a new seat to replace the torture rack he'd been using and a pedal. I replaced it all and haven't used the bus again. I discovered the shoulder of the highway is rough and dark at night and reminded myself to get a helmet but that's the sort of thing that can wait for indefinite tomorrows, like a haircut. My lunch hour trip to Santa Cruz moved the date up. I was almost there when I heard a Whumppp, then a truck horn and what sounded like a basketball bouncing behind me. I pulled over first before taking a look and the truck pulled over too. A coconut had fallen from a tree and completely demolished his windshield, before bouncing down the road after me. That could easily have been my head. I bought a helmet that very night. I've been encouraging everyone towear one ever since. Broken limbs and death are scary enough but head trauma and brain damage scare me the most. Even with the helmet, I'm not certain I would survive a coconut attack or if I'd be dependent on someone spoon feeding me for the rest of my life. At least there would be a fighting chance.

The coconut incident happened right about here.



So, thanks to Thor, I am independently mobile. He's leaving in a week and that's a shame for us all. He has a wealth of practical information and he's been my dependable answer man for just about every little problem. Good guy and brilliant. Korea is lucky to get him.

Thor thought he was just too big and heavy for the bike when the pedal came off. He is a bit of a giant but the flashiest looking bikes around here are FORDs. I was almost late for work on Friday when a pedal broke off. The spike remained on. It was bent like cheap aluminum or solder. I'm nowhere near as big as Thor, probably less than half his size, but my my bicycle legs came back to me after about a week and I've been taking the final hill on high gear and using more pressure. Still, this shouldn't happen. The only way one of these pedals could last is if someone stayed on the granny gear all the time and never rode up a hill. Any engineer would know how substandard these parts are. It's not right. For a lot of Mexicans, a bike represents a serious investment. They shouldn't have to replace pedals every 2 to 3 weeks. I wonder who's making this junk. A Mexican factory or some unscrupulous corporation from back home, held to basic standards locally but free to dump crap on southern soil. It wouldn't be tolerated up north, in Europe or Asia. God forbid, the status quo of the poor paying more should ever be unbalanced.

Problem solved. I took it back to the repair shop and asked for the strongest pedals available. My new Spanish for this week: "mas fuerte, por favor."