Colima

The next day we exited the sugar cane field without any drama and headed on towards Colima about 90 km away. From our vantage pointwe could clearly see Colima's two volcanoes off in the distance; the snow volcano and the fire volcano. 5 minutes into our ride the fire volcano erupts and smokes come billowing out its top! It was amazing to see it shoot up and drift away over about 10 minutes. (un?)fortunately there was no lava and apparently it erupts 3-4 times a day.
Back on the road the scenery certainly impressed. After making sure we were on the right road instead of the longer hilly road we made for the new flater road which turned out to be a toll road. We took the free road (the 54 instead of the 54D) instead unsure if we would be allowed on the toll road and experienced our first canyon of the day. There was a beautiful bridge above us as we zoomed down to the river and town at the bottom. We were then greeted by the sitchback uphill and then the gradual, hot and sweaty uphill until our next speedy race to the bottom of the next canyon. This same senario happened a few times all with the fancy toll highway bridge in sight over the canyon. Yes it was beautiful but it gets a little tiring after a while especially since Rigel kept telling me to go faster to make it to Colima.
Finally we came to a spot were we could join the toll road and we were all in agreement that it was the best option. So after a bite to eat at the Oxxo (which was a poor subsitute for food) we went around the toll booths hardly attracting anyones attention since it was quite busy. Once we were on it was like we were back in the states. Perfect pavement and super clean. Even the exhaust from the vehicles wasn't too bad.

Christmas presents! Cost more than we thought due to duty: new gloves, handebar wraps, jersey for Rigel, chain length checker, chain cleaning tool, chain breaker, rear light for Erin

After a few hills and some wonderful high bridges we started on a downward slope towards Colima. It was about 5 o clock and those last 22kms went by super quick. If that nice downhill was not there we would not have made it to the city that day. Once in town we got in touch with a couchsurfing host, had some coffee at starbucks, dinner at a teryaki restaurant and headed to her house.
We had planned to get many things done in Colima the next day but we ended up sitting in starbucks for most the day. Starbucks puts lots of money into air conditioning and we sure took advantage of it cause it was hot! That night we went to our next host in town, Tania. Her house was in a great spot too, right on the way out of town. Tania was wonderful, she's a bit of a Chilean wine connoisseur, has a wonderful dog and might come and visit us on a beach soon!