06/05 Something kind of strange happened during the night. About a block up the street from where I bought some water I saw a bull tied up to a telephone pole . Nothing terribly unusual there. It mostly just stood there as people walked or rode their bicycles by, every once in a while letting out a little bellow. Well this morning I went over to the store and where the bull once stood was a carcass. It actually looked like someone had butchered the thing right in the street. I didn’t ride over to get a closer look but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. Either that or someone ran it over with a lawnmower.

The ride north through the rain forest was a little disheartening. When I was flying over the Yucatan into Merida I could see where huge swathes of forest had been leveled to support the burgeoning population. It shouldn’t have surprised me when I saw it up close even though they try to mask the damage by leaving a strip of trees next to the road. You can’t hide much from a guy on a bike though (or Google’s satellite view which is what I used to see the damage on Vancouver Island or in the Yukon or in Alaska or in northern Alberta, etc.). If anything this trip has sure made me realize how brutally destructive we are.

Apparently I had a map/GPS/brain meltdown yesterday. I rode right by the archeological site of Mayapan. My GPS was right but the stupid IMTB map showed it way further to the northeast. I don’t know why I didn’t trust my GPS or clue in when I rode right through a town called Mayapan. I don’t remember seeing a sign so I’ll only take 99% of the blame.

It was wickedly hot again today. Getting up at six helped but the clouds usually burn off after lunch and then it gets toasty. I did some math and I spent about 40% of the time it took me to get here resting. For a 50 mile ride that makes for a long day.

I’m staying here for 2 nights so I can go check out the most famous of the Mayan sites, Chichen Itza. Looking forward to it.

Update: At the coffee shop I popped onto the internet for a minute to check the news since its been almost a week. AP had a story about the Gulf oil spill that I didn’t even want to keep reading. God I hate every one of those greedy SOB’s who caused this. Since moving to Florida in 1992 I’ve traveled countless times to the Gulf coast from The Keys up to New Orleans. To think of the devastation this is causing makes me sick. I can’t even imagine how bad this is going to get.

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02/24 Back in my tent for the first time in a long time. I missed it. Had it not been for the (Spanish speaking) bicycle tourists I met here at the ruins I’d be in a motel. After a pretty decent climb to the site here at Xochicalo I pulled up the place where you buy tickets and saw 2 fully loaded touring bikes leaning against the wall. Mazatlan was the last time I saw another touring rider so I was kind of excited. I paid the $51 pesos to get in and went to check out the ruins and see if I could find the bike riders.

I spotted them after a couple minutes. They are Marten and Karin from the Netherlands. They are on their way from Alaska to Bolivia. I knew they’d been in Alaska because they have a big old thing of bear spray attached to one of their bikes. They had already gotten an OK to camp up here right next to the museum so I went off to explore the ruins since they’d be here for the night.

What an amazing place. Basically the entire top of the (huge) hill was leveled and a city built on top of it. The area where the ruins are is much larger than I thought it would be. I grabbed some pics and then headed back to the museum.

I didn’t want to impose so I was going to head back downhill to a motel but Marten/Karin were cool with me camping up here too so I stayed. The people that run the site let us pitch our tents in the parking lot on a grassy section so that’s where we are–camped next to some old Mayan ruins.

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12/18 Here’s a short version of what happened over the last 24 hours. Rode 75 miles and made it to La Paz in one piece. Had a brutal headwind all day and some hills but nothing too bad. I was just really glad to be in La Paz. For the next couple hours I rode around the city checking out the huge street market and trying not to get run over. At 6pm, after finding a cheap motel (but not registering for a room yet), I headed over to an internet cafe. That’s when I discovered that the ferry to Mazatlan leaves in 2 hours and not again until Tuesday. There’s a Sunday ferry but I think that’s reserved for cows or hazardous materials or something.

The sun has set by this point, the ferry is 13 miles from the cafe and I’m tired and quite starving by now. I decided that 5 more days in La Paz would be less than ideal so I turned on my front/rear lights and started riding. It was a terrible experience and I thought of turning back many times. Riding at night is bad enough but I was on a rural road with occasional semi’s, cars, no shoulders and zero street lights. I wasn’t even 100% sure where I was going or if that was even the right place to buy a ticket. It was probably a stupid move riding out there but I was careful to move off the road when I needed to. The worst part was how tired I was about half way.

Somehow I made it though. I’d even found the right place to buy tickets. So US $130 later my bike and I were in line to board. Only problem was ticket salesperson thought bicycles were “cargo” and had me in the wrong line. I found this out after standing there for 20 minutes. Now I have 10 minutes to ride another mile to get to the right place before the ferry leaves. Brutal. Complaining wouldn’t help so I jumped back on my bike and raced over to the right place.

Finally I was on board and ready to go. They didn’t even check to see if I had a ticket. In the area where they had me park my bike I was happy to see 3 other touring bikes.

Funny thing is the ferry didn’t end up leaving for another two and a half hours. Not sure what the hold up was but I was kicking myself for riding like a madman fr 3 miles.

The ride across the gulf was 12 hours and it went pretty fast. After eating (cafe on board) my next goal was sleep. I didn’t get a cabin so at 11pm I curled up on 2 seats called it a night. The next morning I grabbed some breakfast and met some of the other touring bicyclists on board. Byron is heading down to Argentina. Chris is another guy that I first met in Alaska (still amazes me that you can run into the same people thousands of miles away like this). There were also a couple from Montreal but I don’t remember their names. They are heading north up the coast.

Once the ferry landed we all packed up and rode into town. Byron and I had a similar plan to hang out here for a couple days and figure out where we’re going next. We gave that even more thought while drinking Coronas down by the beach all afternoon.

Mazatlan is easily my favorite place in Mexico so far. From the bustling city streets filled with vendors to the sidewalks that that are completely different in front of every building it just feels different from the other cities. The town square was amazing as was the huge church next to it. More pics tomorrow. Best part– the motel is US $10.83 a night. It has hot water and a fan so I’m good.

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12/16 Yesterday I hung out in Ciudad Constitucion and didn’t do much of anything except relax and work on my web site a bit. It was so rare to actually have a working internet connection in the room. Usually I have to go sit outside. I saw Roland and Belinda ride by about 3pm but they didn’t see me. I met them back up in Alaska. They are on their way to Argentina too. The 3 guys I ran into for the last couple days passed me too. Maybe I’ll see everyone in La Paz.

La Paz isn’t too far so when I left this morning I figured I’d be looking at a Friday arrival. Today was an easy day of riding, minus a headwind, so I’ll probably end up there on Thursday. The big challenge of the day will be to get a ferry ticket to Mazatlan.

Didn’t see much of interest on the road today. There were a lot of roadside memorials though. Some of them were pretty elaborate too. I did notice one thing that I’m surprised I didn’t pick up on earlier. There are no mailboxes…anywhere. Or if there are I’m not seeing them. I don’t even think any of the buildings alongside the highway have numbers on them. Weird. Maybe everyone has to drive into the nearest town if they want mail?

3 large, carnivorous dogs came tearing out of a yard while I was riding peacefully down the highway. I yelled at them and they decided I wasn’t worth consuming. My Dog Dazzer failed me again. I really need to find a nice bamboo stick.

People were acting kind of stupid today. This happened twice– I’d be riding down the road when an 18-wheeler would come up behind me and another vehicle would be approaching from the front. Instead of just maintaining their speed and maybe moving over to the right just a little, the cars would slow down and almost come to a complete stop right before they got to me. So now the truck can’t pass and has to slow down to a crawl. If they would have just kept going they would have only slowed down the truck for a few seconds.

Camping out in the desert was a no go thanks to fences on both side of the road. About an hour before dark I finally had enough riding for the day and asked the owner of a ranch/market if I could camp there. No problem. So here I am in my tent with goats, roosters, dogs, cows and donkeys all running around.

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