Day 12

Today we left the very large city of Albuquerque, NM for the small town of Cuba, NM. We all rode as a group out of Albuquerque for the first 10 miles. We look really impressive when we all ride together and draw a lot of attention. The landscape has changed dramatically over the past few days. It went from rolling plains to mountains very quickly. The dry heat here is much more bearable than the humidity of Texas. When we got to Cuba we went to a stop the violence rally that was being put on by some people from Albuquerque. The purpose of this rally was to speak to the youth of Cuba about gangs and violence and how to stay away from that sort of thing. They fed us supper there and we were able to speak with several members of the Cuba community about what we were doing. After the rally we went to the local Catholic churches' community center to get freshened up and set out our sleeping bags for the night. Some of us were still a little hungry so we went to a Mexican restaurant that was next door. While we were there we noticed three bicycles that we completely loaded down with about 50 pounds of gear each. When one of the bikes owners appeared I asked her what they were doing. It was one Dutch woman and two Dutch gentlemen. Apparently they are on a summer ride of their own. They are biking the continental divide from the border of Mexico to the border of Canada. They did not have a place to stay for the night so we decided to let them stay with us in the Catholic Church next door. They were a very interesting group and they have cycled in New Zealand, Australia, England, Denmark and numerous other places. They save up their vacation time and then take a few months off at a time to do trips like the one that they are doing now. These people are just a few of the many interesting individuals that I know I will meet this summer.