Biking alongside a Mexican Highway

...is as wonderful and terrifying as it sounds.

I started cycling in college but was, admittedly, too afraid to ride on the streets (that were not safely nested inside campus) until my junior year. In Atlanta, I learned firsthand the truth behind th bumper sticker "share the road." Nameless faces in cars, at the least, would aggressively speed past me, passenger-door nearly touching my handle bars, just to be stopped by a red light (that I would usually glide through.) At the worst there were the ignoramuses yelling, "get off the road, you maniac!" not realizing that it is actually illegal to ride on the sidewalk. Atlanta taught me patience and to hold back the undeniable urge to key the cars of southern fools.

Mexico is different. Sure, part of it is me mourning the absence of my beloved bike, as I am now at the mercy of my German roommate's generosity, seeing how the bike is her possession. It is not, however, that the bike is not mine -- she never uses it anyhow. It is just that I twinge thinking of the now lonely, striped cycle and biking to work in a place where it never rains (which is only convenient if your ride to work with a laptop on your back.)

My morning ride to work is actually rather amazing -- that is, now that I have a hat, scarf, and what the Germans call "hand shoes." Coming down the steep and sinuous road, I can see mountains and Mexico City's sprawl. Aside from the occasional wolf-like dog darting in front of my path, the trek is as heartwarming as a box of kittens. That's, of course, until I reach the highway.

The gate to the highway consists of approximately twelve construction workers. Before I began my bike rides I was taking delightfully shady buses to work, now detoured by these workers' construction. It is for the best, really, for prior to the construction, the buses and the cars and the people trying to get to the other side of the highway had to traverse the oncoming traffic. The fiery crashes every other week (with a particularly deadly one just before the work began) prompted the local government to logically build a bridge.

The evolution of my relationship with these men is almost stagy. The first couple weeks the men whistled and hollered. The following weeks I was met with complete silence. And this week, amazingly, I have been met with daily buenos días: all I had to do was stay indifferent and deal with whatever the day's detour had install, which was usually ruining my new boots.

Having survived the dogs and charmed the construction workers, I am finally on the side of the highway heading towards oncoming traffic. Sure, there are parts that are not so near the many-wheeled trucks, but there also exist the moments where I am uncomfortably close to the death wagons, reminiscent of Atlanta's streets, only in the city the cars were forced to stop every block by stoplights. Desperately peddling, the thought creeps up that the driver behind that big truck might be just like that guy from one of the many b-rate horror films, deciding to veer into the American girl on the bike for the hell of it. I am not comforted by the overturned traffic cone.

The side of the highway, my so-called "bike-lane," is always littered with parked semis or trucks, making it impossible for me to pass. This usually results in my route intersecting the lot of a PEMEX station, where unlike my cultivated ties with the construction worker, the acquaintances last for mere seconds, meaning hoots and hollers. I finally reach my work's open gate. The cycle in is flat and the fields are now brown with fall. Soon, the wheat and maize will be harvested and I will have only the mountains or the cheap fireworks that seem to explode all day.

The day comes and goes and I am on the highway with the traffic to my back and a mountain to climb.