We continue to ride a modest amount of miles each day. (average 30) We have decided to take the backroads and stay off the primary and most secondary roads. The wonderful outcome of this is we are really being able to see wonderful country, small villages and culture we would not have dreamed of.

What we thought were roads with little traffic was not what I had anticipated. The first part of our trip has brought us through heavy argicultural area. We passed miles and miles of avocado orchards.

We actual camped in an avocado grove. It was so beautiful. The bottom part of the trees are painted with white paint as an insect control. The trees are have rich green waxy leaves and are about 30 feet tall and spaced about 50 apart. We found a grove where some women were working at the harvest and got permission. I was a wonderful peaceful evening. And in the morning we had all the avacados we could eat.

Big trucks go with heavy agricultural areas. In one part of our journey we biked along miles of sugar cane fields which are being harvested. Huge trucks overflowed with the stalks which reminded me of bamboo stalks. The roads and the shoulders and the side slopes where covered with the stalks that fell of the the trucks. Luckly we just rode over them with our tires and continued our journey. All morning the trucks passed us on the narrow country roads.

The farmers are very attentive drivers and used to swerving to miss pedestrians, livestock, and slow moving vehicles like us. The drivers were for the most part very courteous. It did get intense when we screamed down the winding road, which had overgrowth to the edge of the asphalt. I rode as fast as I could down the mountain staying with the speed of the traffic. I got off the road only once to let traffic pass. At the bottom of the mountain we came into a sugar cane production facility. The monstrous trucks lined both sides of the road for as far as I could see. It was overwhelming to be a tiny biker weaving around such heavy industry. What a sight.

The town we were entering, Los Reyes, was a few miles past the sugar factory. That road had even more traffic. I walked most of it. If there was less traffic I mounted my steed and rode. Randy, on the other hand, got into the zen of it and peddled his bike and bob trailer in and out of the chaos. But we survived to bike another day.