After spending my whole life avoiding sandals, they're now the only shoes I own. I left my old running shoes behind in Juchitan, Mexico, and bought some simple sandals. The idea is simple: I don't have to wash out my socks every night. But there are loads of other benefits: I don't have to worry about riding in the rain, because nothing gets wet that matters. With shoes, you always have to think about what the shoes are going to be like the next day. And my feet, which are always prone to stinkiness, are now properly aerated!

By the way, both of us abandoned fancy clipless pedals and shoes some time ago (like in Victoria, British Columbia). For me, it's just that I want only one pair of shoes, and a clip isn't a very friendly thing on your one pair of shoes. For Nancy, it's that she never does get all that confident about the clipped-in thing. Anyway, we're just normal people with normal shoes these days. Or sandals, that is.

[Postscript: Two days after I wrote this, my sandal broke a strap, the fiend, leaving me with a significant equipment crisis, since these are my only shoes. We pushed a large safety pin in through the side of the sole to try to tack down the strap and I'll see if I can make it to a place where they sell sandals. So much for praising your equipment. It gets you nowhere!]

[Post Postscript: The following day we asked around about how to get my sandal fixed, and were directed to a stall in the market in Chimaltenango. I found the fellow, took off my sandal and showed him what was wrong. He started gluing and sewing, reinforced all the connections on both shoes, made them perfect again, and then didn't want to charge me anything. I finally convinced him to take 10 Quetzals, about US$1.30. What a wonderful thing is the can-do, can-fix attitude in Latin America.]