06/18 Made it to San Ignacio safe and sound. There are a lot more hills in this part of Belize and it made for some great scenery along the last 20 miles today. I didn’t stop and take any pictures because a mean looking storm was chasing after me. Just as the first drops started falling I saw a shelter off to the side of the road so I rolled inside and talked to a guy who was also taking cover. It didn’t last very long but it gave me time to learn a little about how people get around here. Hitchhiking is extremely common. The buses don’t run very often so when people need a ride they just stand by the road and raise their arm up and down like you would if you were flipping someone off only with all your fingers extended. There’s probably a better way of describing it but that’s all I could come up with.

Given that I’m less than a days ride from Guatemala I was thinking about some of the differences I’ve noticed between Mexico and Belize. Other than Canada these were the first 2 foreign countries I’ve ever been to. Since I was only in Belize for a relatively short period of time I can’t judge too much but the couple things I noticed were that the major roads in Mexico are much better than in Belize, the trash problem is nothing in Belize like it is in Mexico and the people in Mexico are far more vocal in their greetings (honking/waving/whistling although when you do end up talking to someone in Belize they are extremely friendly). Couple other things: people don’t drink the tap water in Belize, Snickers bars can be found in most road-side stores here, there are a lot more private vehicles on the roads, shower curtains are standard and all toilets have seats on them. No flushing toilet paper here either–use the garbage cans for waste. Hot and cold water taps are rarely labeled and never on the same side in both countries. Chinese people seem to own almost all grocery stores and a lot of the restaurants in Belize.

I went over to grab some dinner tonight and realized that I’d forgotten to account for the time zone change when I flew back into Mexico from Florida. So for the last 2 weeks I’ve been an hour ahead of everyone else.

Monkey Bay ended up being a mess. A group of students staying there were up until 1am (my time) making a bunch of noise and then these stupid dogs started barking at 4:30am. The place they stick you to camp was also overrun with fire ants.

I haven’t mentioned the World Cup but let me tell you it’s all people talk about here and every TV has it on. When Mexico was playing last week at 7am or something like that every bar/store I passed was full of people watching the game. It’s just crazy yet I still couldn’t care less about soccer.

I’ll be in town for the next 3 nights hanging out and waiting for Karin and Marten’s arrival on Sunday night. There’s lots of things to see here so there’ll be more posts.

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06/02 I’m back. Not sure how to start… its been so long. As I mentioned in my last post things are great back in Calgary. My sister (hi Stephanie) is home and doing well. The circumstances sucked but it was great being able to spend time with my nephew Shane and my other sister Jennifer. This is probably the most I’ve seen my two sisters in over 20 years.

One thing that ended up being a surprise was the allergic reaction I had to the 3 cats living at Stephanie’s. I thought I was going to die after the 1st night but after taking Allegra(?) for 2 days I woke up on the 4th morning and didn’t need to take the allergy medicine. All the horrible symptoms I had just went away (and the cats are still alive). Not sure how that happened but it made the rest of the stay there much better.

After the often very stressful time in Calgary it was nice to just relax and spend time with my Dad and his gf Linda in Atlanta. As usual whenever I’m doing something I enjoy Microsoft comes along and tries to sabotage things just like it used to do when I was a 9-5 guy. I ended up spending almost 8 hours fixing a broken Windows repair install that took forever thanks to the strangest BIOS issue I’ve ever seen (the OS drive kept going away). All this just just to fix a broken installation of Office. In the end everything was fixed and I got some delicious homemade brownies out of it.

Florida was a blast. Spent a lot of time with family and friends. Wish I could have stayed longer. Big thanks to my Aunt Leigh Ann and Uncle Alan for letting me crash on the couch, drive the car and eat what’s sure to be my last home-cooked meals for a while.

The journey back into Mexico was easy enough. The guy who stamped my passport in Merida didn’t ask me a single question. Took a taxi to the bus station and only had to wait an hour for the bus to Hopelchen (mistake since I could have just caught the bus in front of the airport and saved myself from paying a way overpriced fare). My bike was right where I left it in the storage room. I can’t thank Hiram at Hotel Los Arcos enough for letting me keep it there for that long.

I hung out in Hopelchen yesterday trying to get my new bike stuff organized. My favorite new item is a GoLite umbrella. It has a really high UV protection rating and should be perfect for the times I need a break and shade isn’t available. I left my old front panniers at the motel in Hopelchen–maybe someone there will get some use out of them.

Today marked my first day back on the road in over a month and damn did I get beat up. It is so freaking hot here. I can’t even count how many times I had to stop just to get some shade. The first thing I did when I found a motel was turn on the cold water in the shower and just sit under the spray. I can’t even imagine trying to camp (or sleep) in my tent when it’s this hot. I’m in the shade under a ceiling fan now and I’m still sweating. I’m missing the AC in the motel last night. It was so cold I had to sleep in my sleeping bag.

The (large) ruins at Uxmal are 11 miles away so I’m going to stay here tomorrow and take a bus to the site. That way I don’t have to ride there just to have to ride back this way again. The ruins from today were from a place called Kabah. It was right off the road so I couldn’t pass it up. The size of the ruins came as a bit of a surprise. The two main buildings were huge. The sites in this area flourished around 800 AD and were built using an architectural style called Puuc. The highly decorative masks on the facades of the two main buildings definitely stood out from the other places I’ve seen. Saw a fat lizard hanging out under a tree too.

Mexico–I missed you and your crazy, ever-honking drivers, errant garbage piles, stray dogs, wandering livestock, loud noises and especially your incredibly generous and friendly people.

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04/10 Things kind of suck big time right now and I wasn’t going to write about it on here but if I go off the radar unexpectedly this is why. My youngest sister Stephanie (35) had a medical issue that we all knew to be serious but thought would be treatable. Well things went from bad to worse to really bad. She’s basically been in a coma now for almost 4 days and the doctors can’t figure out why. My Dad flew up there (she’s in Calgary) to help out my oldest sister and Stephanie’s 17 year old son Shane. I’ll find a way to get up there if there’s no change in the next day or two. There are buses in all of the cities that could get me to an airport fairly easily. The only thing I’d have to arrange would be a place to store my bike.

Quiet day riding. If I close my eyes I could almost imagine this being the Tamiami Trail in south Florida. That’s the highway that runs through the Florida Everglades from one side of the state to the other. It’s almost exactly like that here other than the cows and occasional ranch houses of which there are virtually none (if any) on US41. Saw a huge boa constrictor and a giant lizard on the road (both dead).

For maybe the 3rd time on my trip I donned my headphones and listened to some music while riding. That almost caused me to ride right by a guy who saw me and came running out of the restaurant where he was eating. Turns out he (Mark) is from Ireland and he’s been riding his awesome Koga bicycle around the world for 17 months now. His trip ends in Belize but we’re not heading the same way. I think he said I was the first rider he’s seen in Mexico since he got here.

I said this before but I’m never going to sleep next to a Penmax gas station again. This place closed at 10pm but all night trucks were coming in so the drivers could take a nap. The problem with that is there’s not one big rig in Mexico that has a muffler on it and they all use the engine to brake. I got maybe 2 hours sleep.

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03/24 Got down to the dock at 8am ready to head down the river. The tour left a little closer to 10am because they wanted a full boat (15 people) so we hung out and talked to a guy from Guatemala (OK, Pete talked to him; I listened).

The ride down the canyon was not disappointing. The first thing we saw was a crocodile sunning on the bank of the river. It wasn’t quite the first time I’ve ever seen a croc since there’s a place in Florida that has both alligators and crocodiles living in the same place but it was pretty sweet to see one 10 feet away (Flamingo in Everglades National Park has both and I think its the only place in the world that does). The massive canyon walls were also a sight. Seeing what 3,200 feet looks like when you are looking up from the bottom of it puts things in perspective when we just rode up 5000 feet the day before. It was also cool when you realize that the canyon was formed when the earth just split apart (the canyon is actually a fault line).

Next we spotted some spider monkeys in the huge trees lining the river. It was hard to get a good shot of them because they were pretty high up but we saw at least 3. We ended up seeing even more monkeys on the way back and another crocodile. Glad I wore a hat because there’s no shade and no canopy over the boat. At US $12 for a 2 hour guided tour it was money well spent.

I found another hotel close by (Hotel Posada Real) that is a million times better than this place so I’m moving this afternoon. They have internet access and AC so I was sold pretty quick. Pete will give my key to this place back to the guy in the morning because he’s staying here. I’m not going to ask for a refund it would be too much of a hassle for $7. I doubt I’d get it anyway. I barely got any sleep last night thanks to the traffic, people talking outside my window (that doesn’t close), alarms going off and the dogs barking. The pillows (with no pillow cases) look like they were rolled in mud and Pete said his blanket had glitter on it so it’s doubtful that was washed after the last guest/dancer slept in it.

Met up with Pete for dinner. On the way to get him Belinda spotted me walking down the street! Her and Roland just finished the boat tour and were on their way back out of town. How I keep running into them in such random places blows my mind.

The ride tomorrow is going to be crazy. I’m fairly certain that I’ll be climbing for over 5,600 feet. San Cristobal is basically uphill for 35 miles. I’ll also be on the toll road so water is going to be scarce and the temperature is probably going to break 100 F. Bring it!

03/23 Took off this morning with Pete riding in front to block the wind for me. Actually the wind wasn’t too bad but it was very hot. We rode on the toll road which worked out perfectly. This is the 1st time since riding with the German girl back in Florida that I rode with someone else for the entire day. Having some company was a nice change. It is a little harder to see things in front of you I found out. Toward the end of the day Pete had us on this epic detour (:)) down a road that’s seen better days. I ended up running into a pothole that caused my front pannier to pop off. Something on it snagged my rear tire on the way by and sheared the value stem right off. Kind of remarkable if you look at the odds of that happening. Of course the air inside went with it so we were delayed a bit while I popped a new tube in.

Nothing much in the way of scenery. The mountains were OK but I like trees on them and these are pretty bare. Tomorrow will be different. There are boat tours that run you up the Rio Grijalva, Mexico’s 2nd largest river so you can see the Canon del Sumidero. It’s an 18 mile long fault with canyon walls that reach heights up to 3,280 feet. The tour is about 6 hours so we’ll hang out here for another night.

US $7.94 for the el cheapo room at the motel we’re staying at. It’s the worst room I’ve ever stayed in though. Funny how that happens. I guess I can just say the worst thing about it to put things in perspective. There’s a used condom on the floor by the bathroom. The strange part is the fact that there were no curtains on the front window and it faces right out into the street. I hope I wasn’t expected to put on some kind of performance tonight because I’m too tired. I’m definitely using my sleeping bag tonight. Pete’s in the next room so I can yell over if any bugs try to devour me–one section of the adjoining wall doesn’t quite make it up to the ceiling. I’d change motels but the timing of the tour kind of screws things up a little. It’s the Hotel Posada de Sonia if anyone wants to visit.

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