Nov

Survival Essentials for Adventure Cycling

by Eva Boynton on November 2, 2015

Biker riding with hands in the air, demonstrating the appreciation of living only with the survival essentials during adventure cycling along Mexican toll roads. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Living off the bare necessities and feeling on top of the world.
© Eva Boynton

How Mexican Toll Roads Change Perspective

There are two main roads weaving through Mexico: the calle libre (free road) and the autopista (toll road). When four friends and I, all engaged in adventure cycling, biked through Mexico, our choice in road shaped the future.

We chose the toll road. Not only did it develop our appreciation of the survival essentials, but it also irrevocably changed our perspective.

A toll road for cars with rain clouds above, illustrating the survival essentials for bikers engaged in adventure cycling along Mexican toll roads. (Image © iStock / aidaricci)

.A toll road has different meaning to a car driver than to an adventure cyclist.
© iStock / aidaricci

Toll roads are government-owned roads that require payment (free for bicycles!) for maintenance efforts. They are:

a direct path from one big city to another
time-savers—15 to 30 miles shorter than free roads
built to offer beautiful views from bridges, smoother pavement, and a spacious shoulder for cycling

But beware! With these welcoming attributes comes a set of challenges for the adventure cyclist. The fast track means a lack of off ramps and, therefore, a lack of resources.

Signs for upcoming cities and a place to find resources, illustrating the survival essentials for bikers engaged in adventure cycling on toll roads (Image © Eva Boynton).

Few and far between are signs of places to find water and food on the toll road.
© Eva Boynton

Toll roads, by design, bypass the smaller towns along free roads where food, water, and shelter are plentiful. They teach, through trial and error, the three survival essentials of choosing to travel on the toll road.

Survival Essential #1: Water

The first question for survival on a bicycle is: “How much water can you carry?”

Water bottles strapped onto a bicycle, showing a survival essential for adventure cycling along the toll roads of Mexico. (Image © Eva Boynton).

We may crawl like snails, but carrying an extra liter or two is worth the weight.
© Eva Boynton

Our team of cyclists learned the answer the hard way.

After a 4-hour-climb in the mountains of Guerrero, Mexico, our crew stopped to fix a flat tube. When we reached for water to hydrate, we realized our bottles were empty. The midday heat was kicking in, and there was no water resource in sight.

While most of us morosely shook the last drops of water onto our tongues, my friend grabbed his empty bottles and started waving them like a madman at cars zooming by.

An 18-wheeler truck driving on the highway, illustrating how adventure cycling on Mexican toll roads changes perspectives (Image © iStock/vitpho).

Although big trucks are normally intimidating with their size and roar,
this 18-wheeler became our best friend.
© iStock / vitpho

In an act of both desperation and creativity, we followed his lead. After many cars zoomed by, our 18-wheeler salvation arrived. A cargo truck rumbled toward us and slowed with a crunch-screech of breaks.

Catching up with our empty bottles in hand, we jogged underneath the passenger’s window. A pair of hands tossed out a gallon of water. We shrieked, “Muchas gracias!”, and the anonymous driver and truck rolled into the distance.

Woman hugging a gallon of water, showing the appreciation of a survival essential during adventure cycling on Mexican toll roads. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Pure joy and appreciation for a garrafón de agua
© Eva Boynton

Although water may be an obvious survival essential, our toll road environment changed our perspective. Water became a precious commodity due to rare access and the physical need from cycling for 6 or 7 hours a day.

When we were gifted water from a truck driver or passerby, we became giddy children opening presents on Christmas day. The value of things we carried changed. Excess items (like clothes, even electronics) were left behind and replaced with the weight of water.

Survival Essential #2: Shade

We found ourselves in a desert of sun, and shade became an essential during the hottest hours of the day.

At the mercy of the weather and climate, we began to form a daily routine, where the break in the middle of the day was the perfect time to find our shade “oasis”:

8:00 am: Hit the road
2:00 pm: Find shade
4:00 pm: Continue cycling
6:00 or 7:00 pm: Look for a place to camp

What was our cue to look for shade? When we heard the sizzle of our backs frying like eggs or felt the salty sweat roll down our faces.

Three cyclists resting in the shade during an adventure cycling tour along Mexican toll roads, showing that shade is a survival essential. (Image © Eva Boynton)

The first of many naps in the shade on our toll road adventures
© Eva Boynton

Sometimes, we began to see mirages. The shadow of a small tree became an umbrella planted in the white sand with a beach chair awaiting beneath. We stopped there.

A group of bicycles parked in the shade of a tree, showing a survival essential during adventure cycling on Mexican toll roads (Image © Eva Boynton)

We were not particular, learning to love shade in all its shapes and sizes.
© Eva Boynton

While resting near an overpass, I looked over to see our teammate Gaby fast asleep on a comfortable bed of cement. A memory foam mattress would not have given her better sleep or a softer surface.

A girl sleeping on the side of the road during adventure cycling along Mexican toll roads, showing how shade is a survival essential. (Image © Eva Boynton).

Shade can make even the hardest surface seem soft.
© Eva Boynton

Our second survival essential was surely shade. We took it wherever we could find it. At midday, drivers looking out their car windows spotted five cyclists curled up in the toll road’s shady places and knew not to disturb.

Survival Essential #3: A Place to Camp

As the sun began to sink behind the mountains, exhaustion crept into our legs. We kept our eyes peeled for a place to stop, cook, and sleep.

People setting up camp under a tree during adventure cycling along Mexican toll roads, showing how a place to camp is a survival essential. (Image © Eva Boynton).

Luxurious toll road camping: finding shelter underneath a tree and out of sight from the highway.
© Eva Boynton

We began to have an eye for finding the “perfect” place to camp. A space with flat ground, enough room for three tents and perhaps a tree for rain cover. For an extra 10 points, the perfect spot was hidden from the view of traffic (avoiding car lights and any interested passersby).

Simple, but perfect for us.

Three tents set up on a space on the side of a highway, illustrating how a good place to camp is a survival essential during adventure cycling along Mexican toll roads. (Image © Gabriela Díaz Cortez).

Our horizons of mobility were widened as camping on the side of the autopista became routine.
© Gabriela Díaz Cortez

Our perspective on the perfect place to sleep changed when towns and hostels were nowhere in sight. Along the Mexican toll roads, a dirt turnout was often the only option for setting up camp. But because we carried our homes with us, the perfect place to sleep became less about the amenities and more about the freedom to stop and sleep anywhere we chose.

Appreciating the Small Things

Our time on the toll road was full of challenges that developed an appreciation for the smallest things. “Mi amor!” (My love!), I would shout in excitement for a patch of shade, a forgotten bottle of water, the beginning of a downhill, or a surprise snack at the bottom of my front basket.

A travel bicycle parked on the side of a Mexican toll road during an adventure cycling experience, showing the how the simple things are the survival essentials. (Image © Eva Boynton)

The small things became essential items of value.
© Eva Boynton

Oh, I see how traveling by bicycle on Mexican toll roads changed my view of what is essential—a cell phone or computer could not provide us the shade, a place to camp, or water to drink, the things that really mattered.

Things we took for granted, seemingly small, were now at the forefront of our attention. They were not only survival essentials, but the simple essentials.

A Mexican toll road at sunset, illustrating how the survival essentials during adventure cycling can change perspective (Image © Gabriela Díaz Cortez)

The toll road may offer challenges, but the change in perspective is worth the ride.
© Gabriela Díaz Cortez

In the end, when pedaling up to a fork in the road, a decision arises: autopista or calle libre? For adventure cycling, I recommend trying the autopista (toll road) at least once for the experience of learning your own survival essentials and perhaps a change in perspective.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton 3 Comments

Adventure Travel/Mexico

Aug

A Traveler’s Oasis: Toluca’s Cosmovitral

by Eva Boynton on August 10, 2015

Plant set against the stained-glass walls of the Cosmovitral, a botanical garden and traveler's oasis in Toluca, Mexico. (Image © Dia Glez)

At Toluca’s Cosmovitral—cultivating the cosmos and an entire botanical garden
© Dia Glez

A Botanical Garden Grows Under Glass

As I walked a stone path enveloped by plants from around the world, the light winked a blue-purple and then a red-orange. Plants dangled in the air. Behind supple foliage emerged hard lines of steel supports. Contrasting sounds hit me—bird song and human murmuring; water trickling and car engines rumbling.

What was this ethereal place of such contrasts?

I had stumbled into an unlikely oasis within the city of Toluca, Mexico. Here was both the largest art installation of stained glass in the world and a botanical garden with hundreds of plant species from around the world—the Cosmovitral.

The view of the length of the botanical garden in Toluca's Cosmovitral, a traveler's oasis in the city. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Gardens the length of a football field under a sky of glass
© Eva Boynton

The name Cosmovitral comes from a combination of cosmos and vitral, the Spanish words for “cosmos” and “stained glass.” It is a place where a beautiful work of human design—the glass mural—meets a marvel of nature’s design—the botanical garden. For me, it was a traveler’s oasis.

Stained glass panel at the Cosmovitral, a botanical garden and traveler's oasis in Toluca, Mexico. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Cosmic details of night and day in the ceiling panels at Toluca’s Cosmovitral.
© Eva Boynton

Venerable Roots and Worldwide Sprouts

At Cosmovitral, birds whiz from an African tree to the metal arches supporting the building that once was Toluca’s first grand market.

Built in art deco style, the original market building resembled a train station with clear glass above concrete walls. It opened in 1910 to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution and operated until 1975.

Thanks to Yolanda Sentíes, the first female mayor of Toluca, and artist Leopoldo Flores Valdés, the market building would have a creative new life.

Flores imagined the old glass walls of the market as a mural in stained-glass, with no beginning and no end. The city envisioned a botanical garden underneath. Five years later in 1980, the Cosmovitral opened. Today, more than 400 species from all over the world grow there.

Plants growing in Cosmovitral, a botanical garden and traveler's oasis in Toluca, Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton)

Plants from many countries, such as
South Africa and Japan (bottom), grow side by side in Cosmovitral.
© Fanny Murguia (images 1-3) and Eva Boynton (image 4)

Harvesting Light

It took 45 tons of glass in 28 different colors to create the 71 stained glass panels in the Cosmovitral. Imported from Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Japan, Canada and the USA, the glass lets light seep through walls and cast its colors on the gardens below.

Flying owl in a stained glass panel from the wall of the Cosmovitral, a botanical garden and traveler's oasis in Toluca, Mexico. (Image © Odette Barron Villegas)

Blue and purple reflections fall from a flying owl.
© Odette Barron Villegas

Leopoldo Flores and about 60 artisans created the windows across a 3-year period, using 25 tons of lead and about 500,000 pieces of glass. Blues are dominant on the north side with brighter colors on the south side.

Close-up showing the many pieces that make up a stained glass panel at Cosmovitral, a botanical garden and traveler's oasis in Toluca, Mexico. (Image © Jennifer Doofershmirtz)

Piece by piece, a masterpiece is made.
© Jennifer Doofershmirtz

The mural makes a statement on mankind’s connection to the universe. In the book El Estado de México, Gerardo Novo explains:

The theme depicted by the windows centers on universal dualities and antagonisms, the struggle between life and death, good and evil, day and night, and creation and destruction, all shown in cosmic continuum.

Light plays the essential role in illuminating the theme. As the sun moves through the sky, different stained glass windows take prominence. Here humans plunge through swirling reds, oranges, and yellows, colliding headfirst with life and death.

Humans seem to fly through tones of a red and orange stained glass window at the Cosmovitreal, a botanical garden and t raveler's oasis in Toluca, Mexico. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Stained glass often relates to places of worship.
Perhaps Cosmovitral is just that—a place to pay honor to a cosmic connection.
© Eva Boynton

At one end of the building, light pierces a wall of glass, revealing the awe-inspiring Hombre Sol (Sun Man) that has become the symbol for Toluca. Here mankind is depicted in harmony with the universe.

Stained glass of man with red orange colors at the Cosmovitral, a botanical garden and traveler's oasis in Toluca, Mexico. (Image © Eva Boynton)

With the alignment of the sun at the spring equinox,
Hombre Sol takes on a cosmic, fiery glow.
© Eva Boynton

Digging Deeper

With such light on the matter, Oh, I see the dualities in our universe.

I see how opposites—day and night, good and evil, life and death—have their own connection in the cosmos. I see the cycles of life. Even the plants growing at Cosmovitral are fed by nutrients of decaying organic matter with life and death ever present and ever important to the continuum.

The very dualisms represented in the vast murals are tightly connected, leaded together in fact, as they interact within the same universe.

Here, at my traveler’s oasis in the Cosmovitral botanical garden, I question if opposites are really opposing at all.

Exit at Cosmovitral, a botanical garden and a traveler's oasis in Toluca, Mexico. (Image © Eva Boynton).

A final glance through the exit back into the garden and
a last reflection on the dualities of our universe
© Eva Boynton

Find info on visiting Cosmovitral and more photos here.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton 3 Comments

Mexico/Nature Discovery/The World's Art & Design

May

Mexican Dances Step Across Cultures

by Eva Boynton on May 26, 2015

Female Mexican dancers in colorful costumes, showing one of many traditional Mexican dances that go across different cultures that make up Mexico. (Image © Eva Boynton)

One Stage, Many Colors

When you travel, timing is everything.

In a new city, any turn down a street can bring a surprise—like my walk down calle Miguel Hidalgo in Toluca, Mexico, that led me straight into a festival lit up with color, music, and dance. This was Toluca’s third Festival Cultural, highlighting National Teacher’s Day on May 15.

A single stage celebrated dances and music from around the world, showcasing performers of traditional Mexican dances side by side with those who embraced more modern influences. The event showed how Mexico goes across cultures to form an eclectic cultural identity.

Embracing the Present

Los niños (the kids) launched the festivities with flair. In colorful costumes, they performed dance routines inspired by movies, musicals, and—in this case—music by Christina Aguilera and Michael Jackson.

Young girls dressed in pink outfits dancing to jazz music, illustrating how Mexican dances can go across cultures. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Groups of performers, each from a different preschool or elementary school, garnered smiles and applause even when a child missed the cue or ran into a fellow dancer in a pirouette across the stage.

Ballarinas dancing in a group, showing how Mexican dances can go across cultures. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Ballet, originating in Europe and Russia, is a part of modern Mexico and
sometimes mixes with traditional dance.
© Eva Boynton

The dancers’ earnest effort, costumes, choreographed moves, and elaborate set changes demonstrated their dedication to the cultural celebration.

I had never imagined being at a Mexican festival singing along to Hakuna Matata, It’s a Hard Knock Life, and other familiar songs from The Lion King, Peter Pan, Annie, The Wizard of Oz, Grease, Chicago, and Cats.

Mexican girl performing a dance as the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz, showing how performers in Mexico go across cultures in Mexican dances. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Yet, on this day at this Festival Cultural, jazz born in New Orleans and ballet originating in Europe seemed a natural part of modern Mexican traditions.

The performances celebrated these modern-day influences, and with a nod to the younger generations, they incorporated new colors of culture into Mexican tradition.

Crossing Paths with the Past

As Dorothy and Toto exited the stage, however, Aztec dancers entered the spotlight.

A shift in cultures, for sure. But as Mexico’s danzas folklóricas (folk or traditional dances) played out, it became apparent that these dances, from 31 different states, stepped across cultures and times themselves.

Each dance told a story of its origin and time, reflecting indigenous roots, local traditions, or historical events:

The Danza Azteca (Aztec Dance) comes from the state of Guerrero where Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor was laid to rest.

Traditional dancers dressed with feather headdresses, showing crossing cultures of Mexican tradition. (image © Eva Boynton)

Feather headdresses and the noisy seed leggings are part of the
traditional costumes worn for Aztec dances.
© Eva Boynton

Las Igüiris, with footsteps similar to the waltz, is a dance from Michoacán performed by women as a kind of bachelorette party. Such iconic dances have strong ties to indigenous culture since the region was less impacted by colonization.

Women dressed in red dresses and hats for a traditional Mexican dance, showing Mexican tradition. (image © Eva Boynton)

During the 1800s, miners from South America migrated toward the California Gold Rush and stopped in Mexico to rest. Forms of Peruvian and Chilean dance, with their synchronous and passionate twirling of scarves, were adopted and changed by locals to create Chilena dances.

Women and men dancing in white and twirling scarves, showing Peruvian and Chilean influences on traditional Mexican dances. (Image © Eva Boynton)

Chilena dances, like “El Toro Rabón” (The Bull Without a Tail) or “La Iguana,”
(The Iguana) are named after animals found in the local environment.
© Eva Boynton

Dances from La Huasteca, the southern part of the state of Tamaulipas, were influenced by its neighbors (Nuevo Leon to the west and Texas to the north), including the leather outfits that resemble the charro suit.

Women and men dressed in cowboy-like outfits balancing bottles on their heads, showing influences of border culture on traditional Mexican dances. (Image © Eva Boynton)

And because dances need music and movement, get a better feel for them from this video (5:11).

If video does not display, access it here.

A New View of Mexican Dances

Glued to my seat, I watched the dancers until Oh, I couldn’t see much longer! My eyes were killing me, and my legs had fallen asleep. But by the time I left I had a new understanding of what happens when people go across cultures.

Little did I know that by stumbling upon this festival I would get my own education in how a place can honor its past and present with national and international influences. It was a day to celebrate the vibrancy of Mexican dances and the ever-changing nature of cultural heritage.

And that was only my first day in town . . .

The Festival Cultural was sponsored by the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (National Union of Educational Workers) as part of their efforts to encourage teachers to foster an understanding of Mexican heritage and culture in their students.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton 3 Comments

Crossing Cultures/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/Mexico

World Views:

Topics

Author Archives: Eva Boynton

Survival Essentials for Adventure Cycling

How Mexican Toll Roads Change Perspective

Survival Essential #1: Water

Survival Essential #2: Shade

Survival Essential #3: A Place to Camp

Appreciating the Small Things

A Traveler’s Oasis: Toluca’s Cosmovitral

A Botanical Garden Grows Under Glass

Venerable Roots and Worldwide Sprouts

Harvesting Light

Digging Deeper

Mexican Dances Step Across Cultures

One Stage, Many Colors

Embracing the Present

Crossing Paths with the Past

A New View of Mexican Dances