Topes Wreck and our Swiss Rescue

As we descended into a tiny village among the fruit plantations, we were greeted by our least favorite Mexican road feature. "Topes" is the term used to describe speed bumps; these are made of a variety of materials from old marine rope, to steel domes, or eroded concrete. Not wanting to lose precious momentum Karl weaved towards a gap in the topes that Holly already had lined up and we had a minor collision. Holly managed to stay her course but Karl couldn't recover and ditched his bike. Luckily Karl came out of it with only some minor bruises and road rash, but after tending to those injuries we found his front wheel to be irreparably damaged. Having had a hard time finding tubes for our 700C wheels in La Paz we were not sure where we were going to find a replacement wheel, but when a kind Swiss family rolled up in their world travel RV and offered us a ride south we decided our best bet was to hitch with them the ~130 km south to Puerto Vallarta and work from there. Cedric, Anna and their 3 kids Camille, Emilie and Theo welcomed us into their lives on the road and we enjoyed sharing travel stories and good food as we camped with them in Los de Marcos before continuing to Puerto Vallarta the next day. They not only haggled for a campsite where we could put up our tent alongside their RV, but cooked a delicious dinner, with fresh fish bought especially for Holly the pescatarian, and shared their delicious bread breakfast - even making sure to buy peanut butter for us Canadians (mmmm, bread with PB & H, so much better than oats!). As a result, we were able to make the most of the situation, and Holly even got to check out the beach while Karl relaxed to recover from the crash, before we chatted the evening away with Anna and Cedric, comparing our respective travel stories.Read more