PowerCycle

06/08 It was sure nice to finally leave Mex-180. There’s a lot of traffic heading between the 2 big destinations on the Yucatan–Merida and Cancun and it didn’t help that there was major construction most of the way. I did get lucky and had a couple miles of unfinished, yet hard-packed road to myself and for a little while a very rare dedicated bike path. After Chemax I started heading south down to Coba on a brand new highway. It had a nice wide shoulder so I could check out the ever thickening rain-forest.

Just got back from hiking through the Coba archeological site. It was founded all the way back in the 7th century. The entire area encompasses 19 square miles although the main clusters of buildings are within a mile of each other. I still ended up walking at least 4 miles. You can rent bikes or hire a pedal-driven taxi cart but the raised causeways (called “sacbeob“”) to the different areas are under the forest canopy so there was lots of shade and I preferred to walk anyway. One of the sacbe actually leads to another site 62 miles away making it the longest known Mayan road.

All of the buildings were completely enclosed by the rain forest, much more so than any of the other places I’ve visited. The highest structure, Nohoch Mul, rose well over the tree tops offering a great view. Of course climbing up to the top wasn’t a problem but when I got there I stepped down off a rock to take a picture and almost twisted my ankle right off. It smarts pretty good and tomorrow I’m sure it’ll a lot of fun to ride on.

Staying at the only motel in town. Its not too bad although prices are always higher in touristy areas (or if you have the only motel). It was $300 pesos which isn’t horrible for a very clean room and decent shower. I did have to chase a scorpion around the room for a bit but I finally caught it and let it go outside. First time I’ve ever seen one. There’s some toilet paper stuck under the door now so it can’t get back in.

Sticker shock of the day was a bottle of sun screen (FPS 50 / ~8 fl oz). Cost US $15. I knew I should have picked up more in the States. The pharmacy also had some more malaria tablets which I’ve been looking for since I got back.

Broke 13,000 miles.

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06/07 Hanging out here in Valladolid after a short day. Need to rest up before heading over to Coba and more ruins tomorrow. I slept like a rock last night even though I had this weird dream that a guy who can shapeshift into a tiny bird stole my panniers when I was shopping.

The place I stayed was a pit though. It was like a zoo in my room. The bug count after 2 nights was: 1 moth, 1 monster cockroach (not kidding–it was so big I could see the different expressions on its face as I chased it), 1 smaller but equally repulsive cockroach, 2 long worm-looking things, many ants and a big, cute lizard. To top it off, the first night it felt like things were biting me while I was laying in bed. I ended up unpacking my tent, laying it on top of the sheets without using the poles and crawling into that. That lasted almost all night until I woke up in a panic because my arms were trapped in the netting and then I couldn’t unzip the door in the dark.

When the sun gets a little lower I’ll venture out and take more pictures–I’m enjoying the AC but this town has a bit of character and needs exploring. When I first got here I detoured off the main road to check out a monastery built by the Spanish back in 1560. Then it was into the centro area where I saw signs for the Cenote De Zaci. A cenote, for those unfamiliar with them, are sinkholes of various sizes whose roof collapsed thus creating reservoirs. All of the towns in the Yucatan are built around their own cenote since they are the only source of fresh drinking water on the peninsula. They are also very sacred and the ancient Mayans used to chuck people into them as human sacrifices so their gods would be happy. About 50 skulls were found in the cenote at Chichen Itza. The one here in Valladolid is smaller but it had a lot more going on visually. Birds were flying around, people and fish were swimming in the water and huge stalactites hung from the roof.

I stopped at another place a few miles outside Chichen Itza called the Balankanche Caves but never got to go inside. Unfortunately the folks that manage this place aren’t very business savy. It was 9:30am on a Monday when I got there. The parking lot was empty and no one else was around aside from the 3 guys working there. A sign said the 45 minutes tours leave on the hour assuming that a minimum of 6 people were in a group (no self-guided tours available). One of the guys said if just one more person showed up he’d take us down at 10am. Ten o’clock rolled around and of course no one else showed up. I waited 15 more minutes and left. Not sure why they didn’t take my $70 pesos and run me down there by myself.

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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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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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