YUCATAN

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Day One, Making the Dust Settle

I think I'm ready. The bags are packed, the cat is fed and most of my clients know I'll be gone for 2 weeks. The general idea is to tour around the Yucatan Peninsula by motorcycle. I'll leave at dawn tomorrow (Saturday, April 12, 2008) and be back in two weeks.

I'll be on the back roads as much as possible, they're a lot prettier and generally more fun on the bike. The route I'll try is from Cuernavaca, south to Yautepec, east to Huahuapan de Leon, north to Tehuacan then east to Tuxtepec where I'll spend the night. Day two, I should reach Ciudad del Carmen or maybe as far as Campeche.

From Campeche, I'll be taking it easy, touring the Mayan ruins and there are a lot! I think I'll be at least four days: Uxmal, Dzibilchaltun, Chichen Itza, Coba, Tulum and mabe Muyil. Of course, there'll be a day in Merida along the way.

Next, I have to take in the scuba around Playa del Carmen. I hear, there is some of the best reef diving in the world and also, the cenotes, underwater caves! That's going to be so cool!

After that, I'm not sure, it depends on how much time I have left. There's a Bio-reserve at Punta Allen, south of Tulum, that sounds great or maybe down toward Chetumal and then west from there.

The trip back will probably be uneventful, unless I have enough spare time to check out some of the highways through Oaxaca and Guerrero. I try to update this site to let you all know where I am.

Wish me luck! I was teasing some of my clients that if I find a cute little morenita on the beach, I might not come back at all!

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Day 2 - Cuernavaca to Jalapa, Oaxaca

That was a pretty good day! I got away from the house at about 7:30. Perfect weather, good time and nice scenery. I had already seen the first leg of the trip many times, the new stuff started from Huahuapam de Leon when I turned north toward Tehuacan. It's a pretty canyon about 110 km long that climbs to about 2000 meters altitude. That was just enough to cut the heat.

Arriving in Tehuacan, Puebla, I got lost. I spent nearly an hour zig-zagging across the city looking for the exit for the hiway south to Teotitlán. I stopped to ask directions at least a dozen times and each time they would steer me back the way I came. Kind of like a ping pong ball. It turned out that there are two exits for the highway I wanted so that's why I was being sent back and forth. Finally, I left the city and the highway was horrible. Full of pot holes, lots of traffic and one indistinguishable town after another, and speed bumps. I was beginning to regret the choice of that route. At least until I reach my next way point at Teotitlán.

I got slightly lost there again so I stopped in front of the "City Hall" to ask directions. The fellow told me where I was and how to get out of town and even about hotels and gas stations down the road. It was 4:30 pm so I still had about 3 hours of light left so I made a run for it.

This was one of the best highways I seen in all my travels. I'd guess the road climbs 1500m meters in 20 kms really narrow and windy, just the way I like. Almost no traffic, spectaculat views. I got so high and cold, I had to do up my jacket. I kept thinking that I had reached the summit but then around the next corner, I could see the road disappear over top of the next peak.

When I really had reached the summit, I found that the road didn't just drop down the other side of the mountain, it stayed on the top all the way along ridge after ridge.

It took about two hours to get to the next town. There I found the gas station closed. In most small towns on the back roads, where there is no gas station, people sell 10 liter jugs out of their home or business. There was no risk of being caught with an empty tank and I still had another hour of light, so I continued. I'm glad I did, because it just got more beautiful. The road was still hugging the peaks and ridges but now, around 7:00 pm, the clouds were gathering in the valleys and blowing up over the road. Everything was green, there were lots of people out doing stuff in front of their homes, I was driving extra slow... Just a great experience.

I pulled in to Jalapa, where I spent the night at 7:30. Just as it was getting dark. I asked a cab driver where they sold gas and he pointed me down the road, two speed bumps, and told me the is a hotel in the center, by the church.

So, I have gas, I have a room for the night, I had a bite, all I need now is a shower!

That's all for now, hopefully, more tomorrow.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Day 3 & 4 - Delayed by Rain

Who knew it was going to rain? It turns out that a cold front moved in over night all along the Gulf Coast. I was hoping to get to Villahermosa, at least, but by about 3:30 the rain started coming down in sheets, a real flood. I was caught on the open highway, so I took the first turn off. It happened to be a Pemex Training Center, I asked the guard if I could wait it out and he directed me to a covered parking area inside the gate. It was almost 3 hours before I could make a run for it about 5 km back the way I came to a hotel/truckstop.

I holed up there until the next morning hoping for a sign the rain was about to let up. I didn't want to spend another whole day there so about 11:30 I took a chance and took of. I got lucky. The rain was sporatic and light until I reached the coast, it was cloudy, cool and windy the rest of the day. The highways were fairly boring, mostly straight and flat but there was some nice scenery.

I pulled in to Campeche at about 5:30. It's a beautiful little city, clean and friendy. There's a long malecon (boardwalk along the coast) with lots of people, statues and photo ops. I found a Hostel a block off the main square that is realy nice. It's a refurbished colonial building. Here's my room, it has an arch in the ceiling!

Tomorrow, the plan is to go by Uxmal, a Mayan site, then on to Merida for night.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Day 5 - Missing Campeche

That was a nice little city, Campeche. I'm in Merida now and I'm not impressed. Campeche has a small town feel, a litle hippy-ish, right on the coast with a nice malecon (boardwalk). Merida is about 4 times the size, crowded, smoky, noisey busses. The people don't look at you, I can't get anyone to smile. I'll give it a pass next time. I'm in a hostel right on the main square and there's no parking. I had to leave the bike in a parking lot about a block away and they are going to charge me the full hourly rate overnight.

Travelling throught the back roads to Uxmal was pretty cool, except I was given some bad directions to get out of town. I wound up going 50 km further along some back roads before finding the highway I was supposed to be on. Still, it was pretty.

Uxmal, where I was today, is one of the earlier Mayan sites but it seems remarkably well preserved, there are still some wooden beams holding up a few doorways. Another thing is that many of the buildings and pyramids have rounded corners. That was interesting because on those back roads I saw, there are some huts/houses that have the same sort of floor plan, rectangle with the half-circle at each end.

It seems that Merida has had some problems with flooding recently...

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Day 6 & 7 - Chichen Itza and Valladolid

Two long days! I spend the first half of yesterday just trying to get out of Merida. I wanted to find some O-rings and white gas for my camp stove. After being bounced around the hardware stores in downtown Merida for a couple of hours I asked if there was a Home Depot in town. Sure enough there is but it's on the northern outskirts. After a lot of wrong turns and a lot of sightseeing, I found it and they had exactly what I needed, one packet left. Finally, back in the center I got the bike washed, got some cash, and took off.

Chichen Itza is only about 2 hours away but it was about 4:00 pm by then, so I decided to head into the nearest town and get an early start the next day. Valladolid is really nice. The people are friendly, it's pretty and the prices are good.

This morining I left as early as possible and got to Chichen Itza about 8:30. I was still cool and ther were very few people. I bought a guide book and took my time wandering around. I stopped to talk to the venders several times and got them to teach me a few words of Maya. They will pressure you a lot less if you say "No thanks" in Maya. I spent over an hour with one guy talking about everything from Mayan to Cosmology to Genetics! I mentioned that I'm an athist and the conversation took off! :-)

With all the talking it took me 8 hours to see the whole site but it was worth it. I sort of forgot to eat all day. I had a couple of apples in the morning but nothing else until I got back to Valladolid.

I should post some pictures but I forgot to bring the camera. Tomorrow night I should be in Playa del Carmen so I'll post some from there.

Well, I'm of to bed, I want to get an early start tomorrow. G'Nite!

This is an example of a traditional Mayan hut. Notice it's rounded at both ends.
I saw some guys building a similar hut, so I stopped to talk to them and asked why it was rounded at the the ends.
They said, "Just cuz".

This is the main plaza in Valladolid.
About half the women wear the traditional Huipil dress like this woman.

This the main pyramid at Chichen Itza.
Now that I think about it, the site at Teotihuacan is bigger, older,
and seems to have been better preserved than Chichen Itza. Still this was pretty cool.

This is the "Observatorio"

Typical dress.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Day 8 - Cobá and Playa del Carmen

It's hot and humid here! I'm in Playa del Carmen on the coast, south of Cancun. It was a nice day for biking. There was just a little sun and almost some rain. I left Valladolid at about 7:30 am and drove an hour and a half to Cobá. Cobá seems to have been occupied from 300 CE to the time the Spanish arrived. It has three areas of construction corresponding to different periods. It's really spread out so it was about 4 miles walk to cover everything.

I left Cobá about 10:30 and got to Playa del Carmen about 12:30.

I like this place! It's touristy but no as much as Acapulco, Cancun or Puerta Vallarta. The main reason for coming here is the scuba. I got a recommendation for a place called Scuba Libre, found it easily and signed up for a refresher, 2 dives on the reefs and 2 dives in a cenote (inland, fresh water cave). I start at 7:30 AM tomorrow.

Yesterday, I promised some pictures, we here we go!

Here's Cobá on the right. I think it covers 80 sq Kms, most of it still covered by jungle.

Below, the beach at Playa del Carmen. Also, I'm also going to go back to yesterdays post and add some photos of Chichen Itza.

By the way, tonights Internet Cafe also does laundry, a good combination!. Right now I'm sitting beside a dryer.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Day 9 & 10 - Scuba!

Two days of scuba, 4 dives, easily the best diving I've done! I have had 14 dives before in Veracruz, Huatulco, Acapulco and Cuba but they all pale in comparison to this.

Yesterday, we started at 7:30 AM with a refresher course.

After speaking in Spanish to the Instructor for a half an hour I ask her where she was from, she said she was born in Calgary! She had trained in Vancouver and was finishing her certification in Playa del Carmen. We finished the lesson in English. After a two hour break, eight of us jumped in the launch to head out to a reef about two km offshore. It was pretty spectacular. There was more sealife than I'd seen on all previous dives combined. Lobster, crabs, rays, some flat fish and a couple of big green eels about 5 feet long. There was a very gentle current that pulled us slowly along the length of the reef.

Although it was only about 14 meters deep, I had a lot of problems equalizing the pressure in my ears. I always do. As usual, I was the last one to the bottom. However, once I was down I forgot the discomfort and enjoyed the ride. It lasted about 45 minutes. After about an hour break during which we moved to a different spot, we dove in again. This area was identical to the first with a low reef running parallel to the shore at the same depth and a gentle current.

Today we started late, at 8:30 AM and drove about 40 minutes south to the cenote Dos Ojos. Geologically, the Yucatan Peninsula is basically one gigantic reef that is flooded or dry depending on the sea level. Each time the area rises above sea level, erosion opens up caves and sink holes that are partially filled by fresh water. There are about 1,000 known cenotes across northern Yucatan but no surface rivers or streams.

Anyway, it took until after 10:00 AM to get in the water. We had to prepare the equipment and get suited up above in the parking lot and then walk down to the entrance of the cenote wearing the thick wetsuit and carrying the tank, weights and all in humid, 30 C degree weather. The entrance is an oval-ish cavern half-filled with water. The water was cool, refreshing and increadibly clear, it felt like flying.

There are two guide lines laid throught the caves each dive took about 30 to 40 minutes. The first dive was through passages that were all partially open to the surface. Once we left the entrance, it got kind of spooky. Most the the roof and floor were covered by stalactites/stalagmites but no obvious life except for some tiny, friendly, little fish at the entrance. In a group of five, we moved slowly through one space after another, really like something out of National Geographic.

The second dive was even better. We went deeper and although it was only to about 10 meters it seemed so far out of touch with the world it could have been on the moon. This path was even more crammed with rock columns and weird openings. It was pretty tough to remember all the technical points of maintaining proper bouyancy, keeping the right distance from the other divers, the floor and ceiling and enjoy the ride!

At one point I found that I was having trouble staying as low as I wanted so, I grabbed the Flotation Vest control and taped the button to let out some air. It didn't seem to be enough, so I hit it again, and again. I was rising faily quickly toward the stalagtites on the roof when I realized I was tapping the wrong button, filling the vest instead of emptying it. My problem was that, with all the ups and downs following the contours of the cave, I had become disoriented because of the nitrogen in my blood, a common effect. It's weird because the only way you can tell which way in up is to look at your bubbles.

Really, this was one of the most extraodinary experiences of my life!

Well, tomorrow I'm on the road again. I'm doing laundry now in the Internet cafe/Laundro-mat. Tomorrow, I'll leave early and stop at the aquarium at Xel-ha and then at the ruins at Tulum. I should be finished that before mid-afternoon so, I'll continue on toward Chetumal, or further toward Escarcega for the night.

Hmm, I just had a thought. There is a Nature Preserve just south of here, around Punta Allen. It looks like it's worth a visit but I'll have to talk to some locals to find out how the road is and what sort of accomodation there is before I decide to go or not.

In any event, I'm still planning to arrive in Cuernavaca on Friday, the 25th. Well, that's all for now. The laundry is about done and my butt hurts from sitting here for two hours.

Day 11 - Tulum and Punta Allen

No doubt, my friends and family who were following this blog though I had ridden off the edge of the earth. Well, not literally. As I write this now, it is the 14th of Sept, 2008, 5 months since the last entry. I just kinda got bust/lazy and didn't get around to continuing until now... I hope I remember what happened!

I left Playa del Carmen early as planned and stopped at Xel-ha hopping to see the aquarium. However, the Xel-ha charges something like $50 or $70 US just to get in so I gave up that idea and got to Tulum by about 9 A.M.

TULUM

It's quite a long walk from the parking area to the site. Wouldn't you know, after taking the very first photo, my batteries died. The spares were also dead so I had to walk back to the parking area to buy more.

I have to admit that by that time I was getting a bit spoiled with amazing archeological sites: Uxmal, Chichen Itza, Cobá and now Tulum... Mostly I just snapped a bunch of pics, did a quick lap around the site and got some lunch. Still, I recommend it if you are in the area. It has a nice beach, too.

I have to mention one incident that really ticked me off. I have found that the attitude that the locals have toward tourists, at any site in Mexico, falls between two extremes. On one hand the locals can be very friendly, helpful and glad that you have bothered to visit them. At other sites the prevailing attitude is quite different. MY experience, at Tulum, was that the shopkeepers were in the first category and everyone else I talked to was not. Particularly bad were the people in charge of maintaining the visitor's center. The bathrooms and public areas were dirty and in bad repair and the staff, rude, lazy and dishonest.

By the time I finished eating it was about 12 P.M. so I figured I had lots of time to get down to the Natural Preserve at Punta Allen.

PUNTA ALLEN

The road was great for the first 10 km or so, then it got "rural". It took about 1 1/2 hours to go the 45 kms but it was certainly passable. I followed the road as far as I could.

The town of Punta Allen has maybe 100 year-round residents. At the southern edge of the town, the pavement had ended and the drifting sand hid the sinkholes in the road. At that exact point I came to a very charming little beach-side camping/cabaña spot. I can't remember the name of the place or the owner (she was a very pleasant American lady) but just follow the road nearest the beach right to the end.

I used to do quite a bit of camping in Canada and I had brought the basics down to Mexico 12 years before but I had had only one chance to use it in all my time here. FINALLY! here was my chance to camp on the beach! I set up the tent in the perfect spot, under a palm grove, facing the ocean and spent the rest of the day snorkeling and wandering up the beach.

It is remote and isolated but not as "un-touched" as I had expected. Besides the ten or so foreign residents and visitors I met, the beaches are also visited by the ocean currents of the world and, therefore, its garbage.

As I picked my way south from the campsite, I found every meter of the beach covered in a layer of plastic bottles, jars, beach sandals, rope, boxes, plastic parts and pieces of anything imaginable, from the water line, into the jungle, maybe ten meters. I stopped and picked up a 1/2 liter bottle. It was a herbicide that was sold only in Central and South America, according to the label.

About then, I was distracted by a large blue crab in the water, about a meter away from my naked toes. I leaned over to get a better look. It scooped up a cloud of sand and buried itself before I could lift my camera.

As I continued along the beach, I saw the usual pelicans and other seabirds. I heard some unidentifiable noises in the forests and I came across a few fish and more crabs. Also, later, I was told that there were alligators, manatees, ocelots and larger cats in the reserve.

It occurred to me then that I was seeing an accumulation of perhaps fifty years of garbage; I doubt the beach had ever been cleaned. It would take a mighty effort to pick up all that trash, perhaps an even greater effort to haul it out and find a place to put it... At the end, it was/is a beautiful place and I will go back if I ever get the chance.

Dinner that night was in a rustic little restaurant on the beach with fabulous food. There were also two Canadian couples and a woman there, a landscape designer from New York who had a home outside of town and great stories.

I didn't get much sleep that night. Sand is hard and uncomfortable to sleep on. I hope I never have to do that again! And the camping stove that I've hauled around and stored for the last dozen years, I never got it to work. Anybody want to buy a tent, sleeping bag and stove?

Day 12 & 13 - Punta Allen to Tehuacan

There isn't much to say about this leg of the trip. I'd seen everything and done everything that I'd planned to do, so I just had to get home. From Punta Allen to Tulum was about 1 hour (45 km). From there I went south towards Chetumal. The two Canadian girls I met in Campeche had mentioned that Chetumal was not tourist oriented so I didn't bother going in. However, right at the turn off there was a kid at a bus stop, so I stopped to ask him directions to make sure I was going the right way. I was, and so was he. He said he lived just a little way down the road and asked for a ride. The last time I gave someone a lift, it turned out to be one of my best adventures in Mexico. I passed him the other helmet and we were off.

Funny coincidence, just as we approached his town, the local cops had set up a road block and the head cop was a friend of my passenger and funnier still, my drivers license had expired! Who knew? I got off with a small advance on the fine I would have had to pay. I took the kid to his mother's restaurant in the middle of town, had a quick bite and carried on before the cops started talking amongst themselves.

I carried on as far as Villahermosa that night. The next day, I took the same highway through Tuxtepec and the mountains to spend the next night Tehuacan in the state of Puebla. The road was prettier the second time. The weather was better although cool at times and I took my time and stopped here and there for snacks and pics.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Day 14 - Cholula and home

Last day.

I gotta say, when you're travelling by bike in Mexico, hands down, the best places to stay are the "No-Tell Motels"! You know, where they rent rooms by the hour. They are cheap, clean and on the highway. Most of them have a private covered garage with an electric door and pretty fair room service. Seriously, if you are travelling Mexico by bike, ask around for the "hotel de paso".

From Tehuacan, around Puebla to Cholula took about 3 hours. I'd always wanted to see Cholula, so I did. The archeological site at Cholula is one of the most interesting and education sites I've seen. The site has been constantly occupied since about 1000 BCE by each of the dominant civilizations as they rose and fell. The model above shows the layers on construction.

The photo above shows the church that the Spanish built on the peak of the pyramid.

And finally, my last shot and possibly the best of the entire trip, a hummingbird feeding outside the restaurant.