Vuelta a México

After a rough night covering the grito, and the eve of Mexican Independence Day, we awoke to wonderful weather, and a fresh start. As usual, it took us a while to get going, and we finally made it downtown, hoping to watch a parade, but just missed it, as we found out. Fire trucks were heading back to their stations and the street cleaners came out onto the main roadway, cleaning up litter, confetti, and scraps of tacos.
Street cleaners? Seemed a bit strange, since a few days of wind and traffic would suffice to blow the trash into another street…so I asked a cop what was going on the rest of the day, and he told us that there was a bike race at 2 p.m. Not any old little race, but the Mexican equivalent of the Tour de France, called the Vuelta a México. I had read about this stage race in a newspaper, but now we were going to get to watch it.
We made our way to the souvenir table and bought a couple of jerseys, hats and trinkets for gifts. The first person we met at the table was an Irishman, from the international cycling agency, the UCI, who was in charge of anti-doping, a big issue in professional cycling. It is his job to test many of the athletes each day after each stage for performance-enhancing drugs.
I finagled my way onto the route, hiding behind the other photographers who all had official press badges, and covered the race from the roadway. It was great to practice my two passions, photography and cycling, at the same time. The race was going to be 18 laps on a 4km circuit, but after about 6 laps, it poured rain, and the race was stopped. Deep puddles formed on the corners, and the riders waited it out, while the race officials decided to make this stage only ceremonial, and the results would not count. This decision, caused nearly all of the 100 or so riders to drop out, and the 15 that were left, restarted, and finished with a sprint after 5 more laps.
In the end, a Spaniard won the non-race, took his place on the podium, received his sombrero, ceremonial bottle of champagne and sprayed the photographers, as is tradition.
It was a great way to finish the two day festivities, which started pretty rough the night before. Missy was beaming ear to ear, watching the racers, and it was wonderful to see a mix of professionals in the race from Europe, with fancy high-end sponsorships, and teams from Guatemala and Cuba, who had no sponsors at all, and were outfitted in unmarked jerseys.
The race will finish in Mexico City in a few days, and apparently has enjoyed a bit of a comeback after being idle for a few years.
The race also proved to be a great place to meet people too, as I was approached by a dance student, Claudia, who kindly passed on my business card to some of her photography student friends at the University of Guadalajara. One of those students, Jorge Hernández, has expressed interest in helping me teach photography to the kids in CODENI. We met with him for a coffee a few days later to go over plans for the class.