Day 15 - La ReDonda Hostel, Sayulita

Following another banana pancake, we said our goodbyes, took a couple of photos of the lovely town of Sayulita, and headed east, inland, towards Tequila. The route out of Sayulita took us along some of the same roads that hugged the coastline that we had taken on the ride in. Not a bad thing as the roads were great and the glimpses of the ocean through the trees kept our spirits high. However, as we pulled on to the main highway towards Guadalajara, it got hot, ridiculously hot. The scenery wasn’t great, which I suppose is fair enough as we were just hammering the miles out on the highway, not taking the smaller, more interesting route through some of the villages. We wanted to cover distance and try to get to Tequila in time to take an afternoon tour of a tequila factory, so sticking to the main highway gave us the best shot in terms of timescales. Mexico is bloody massive, and it was a tough day riding to cover the miles in the heat. At 1 point, we got caught up in some road works and had to wait for about 15 minutes in a queue of traffic. Whilst the gear that Fly Racing have provided is awesome, and the vent system, particularly in the jacket, ensures that whilst you are moving, there is a flow of air that helps regulate your temperature, as soon as we are standing still, like in a traffic jam, or queue, the black jackets and trousers simply absorb heat. It was fucking hot, like red hot fire pokers sticking in your eyeballs hot! It took us around 4 hours riding to get to Tequila and once we had navigated the bustling streets to find the town centre, we pulled up in the side of the main street to grab a coke and get our bearings. We needed a hotel for the night, and we are still trying desperately to stick to a budget of around US $50 each per day, so a hotel needs to come in cheaper than that for us to ensure that food, fuel, and beers are covered. It appears to be getting cheaper as we travel south, but I am sure that some of the tourist spots, like I assume the town of Tequila is, will still be a bit pricey. Jorik found a hotel for about US$80 for the night and we thought, rather than go from 1 place to the next, let’s just try it out. The place was called the Hotel Colonial and was about 2 minutes’ walk from the main town square, or Plaza Principal. So not a bad location, and it ended up costing us MXN$500 for a twin room for the night. We even manged to get some laundry taken care of by the Senora that was looking after the place. She wasn’t very chatty, but she was happy to take the laundry and do it for us. So having gotten ourselves settled into the hotel, we wanted to find out about a tour of a local distillery, and check out the town. It was already getting relatively late in the afternoon after spending a fair amount of the day riding in the ridiculous heat, and once we got our bearings in the town and found the Jose Cuervo Distillery, it was too late to take the last tour of the day, which was at 5pm. The next tour was at 11:00 the next morning, so it looked like we would have to wait. We went into the town square, grabbed a Tequila drink in earthen mugs that they sell in the various stalls around the town centre for about MXN$100 (you get to keep the mug. We saw some crazy acrobatic shit from these 4 guys that climbed a pole that must be at least 100 feet and was located in the square (Danza de los Voladores – Dance of the Flyers). They then drop off the top of the pole, upside down, and swing back down to the ground. Bonkers, but cool to watch. We grabbed some dinner at a very colourful restaurant where they gave us bingo cards, which of course we had no idea what they were, until 1 of the servers started calling out the names of the pictures on the cards and the other people in the restaurant started covering up the pictures with seeds or nuts. I suppose it something to pass the time in the restaurant and most people seemed to get involved, but we were to slow of the mark to realise what it was all about. After dinner, it was back to hotel for a relatively early night as we were knackered, and whilst glad to be in the town of Tequila, we hadn’t really done much tequila related stuff. We wanted to do the tour in the morning, which would mean a late start and we still wanted to get some miles in for the day.