Day 18 & 19: The last couple days Hans and I spent together in the mountain town of Iturbide, 2-3 hours southwest of Monterrey. We rented the upper floor of a duplex for $26 each night. Yesterday we met up with a Czech guy that Hans knows, named Radko. I at first suspected he was not really Czech, because when I greeted him in his native tongue, he just looked at me funny.

We descended Las Encondidas, which is a series of 12 rappels down a cascade of nearly a vertical kilometer. It reminded me very much of a canyon in the San Gabriel mtns north of LA -- low flow, thigh deep pools at the bottom, lots of foliage next to the waterflow. Radko was a kick -- he is a professor and on the hike back to the top he kept grabbing different species of plants and telling me to eat them -- some tasted like spearmint, another like sugar, etc. Then he'd tell me the scientific name (in Spanish, so none of the names stuck with me), but at least I trusted him that I wasn't eating anything harmful :) It was a pleasant way to spend the day, and the lady of the house was really sweet, bringing us tea and cookies afterward.

Today Hans and I drove to a sculptor's house in a nearby town, saw the sculptor's alabaster mine, and went to his house where Hans asked to include him in a project of local artisans that he's working on. The sculptor was a really nice grandfatherly type -- well dressed, and showed us many of his current and past projects. Now, I'm back at the hostel, planning where to ride south, on the next phase of my trip.