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Carnival in Medira - Find the baloon vendor
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I had been looking for somewhere warm to tour over the winter, and selected the Yucatan after reading some of the book 'Bicycling Mexico'. The region known as the Yucatan Peninsula actually consists of three states, but I spent all of my time in Yucatan. The others are Quintana Roo (the Caribbean coast where Cancun is located) and Campeche to the southwest. I decided early on that I was willing to spend a little more for my airfare by flying into Merida, the capitol of Yucatan, and avoid the tourist region of Cancun altogether. I would say November to February is the best time to go; before that is the rainy season and after that it gets very hot and sticky. I had several hot days and one in the low 100's, but I don't do well in the heat and it never seemed over 80 to me because of the dryness and constant breezes.
Patterns
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I usually start my tours by riding my loaded bike to work in Boston and then taking the harbor shuttle to the airport, but with a 6 AM departure in early February I decided to pre-box the bike and use a taxi instead. I arrived in Merida about 3 PM and noticed the box had suffered somewhat from the three planes it had been on, but the bike was OK. In Merida I stayed at the downtown Hotel Delores Alba, which is mentioned in several of the guides and seemed to have about 75% American and European guests. The room was 210 pesos, with just under 10 pesos for a dollar. It had a ceiling fan, private bath and basic furniture, and the hotel had a pool as well as a very cooperative staff, obviously used to dealing with foreign travelers. Most of the hotel rooms I used during the trip were priced and furnished more or less comparably.
Saturated Colors
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Unintentionally I had arrived during Carnival and the town was packed with people. I did a short evening ride before sunset to get a sense of the place - it's actually a large city with close to a million in population. The streets in the downtown area were jammed with busses and some cars, but things quickly became quieter as you got away from the 'Centro'. After a shower and change I headed out for dinner, walking through the central plaza on the way. Something I had for dinner quickly became one of my favorites for the week - Sopa de Lima (lime soup) which has crispy fried tortillas, shredded chicken, and diced onions and peppers in a mild lime broth. I generally found that food prices at good quality restaurants (especially those that catered to tourists) were somewhat lower than in the states (beer was a lot less at $1 - $1.50; my favorite was Leon, a dark beer - at least by Mexican standards), while you could really save if you ate at the more local places. I tended to stay clear of the street vendors, although sometimes their offerings looked relatively clean. I also drank only bottled water for the week and had no real digestive problems. Leaving the restaurant I found a Carnival parade in full swing, consisting of motorized floats representing commercial interests - with the people on board often tossing free samples of the product to an expectant crowd - and groups of costumed dancers, mostly teenagers and younger with a few older leaders/escorts. Some of these groups performed in a very disciplined manner, while others were simply walking along more or less to the music.
Uxmal - Pyramid of the Magician
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I have heard from a number of sources that the Yucatan is perhaps the friendliest and safest area in Mexico, and my experience would confirm that it has both these qualities. I never felt even close to being threatened at any time during the week, and often felt that my bike would have been OK unlocked in many situations. The drivers are also among the best and most considerate I have encountered anywhere. Drivers stop at stop signs and yellow lights and are very conscious of bicycles (which are used by a lot of the population) and generally gave me plenty of room.
While I'm generalizing, let me give you the down sides of cycling in the Yucatan. It is almost completely, unrelentingly flat. I don't necessarily crave hills, but the flatness means tangent roads that go on for miles and miles, often with growth right up to the edge that is as unvarying as the road's direction. The other big negative is the almost continual stream of trash along the roads, consisting mostly of empty plastic bottles, but including everything else including used disposable diapers and the occasional animal carcass. I'm extremely visual, and it's the boredom - if not the ugliness - of the road/landscape that is why I'll probably never tour there again. However, if you just want a warm place where you can hammer out lots of miles and eat and sleep well and cheap at night, you can't do better than the Yucatan.
Uxmal - Pyramid of the Magician
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Back to the tour. I wanted to see the Uxmal Mayan ruins south of Merida on Monday and had reports that it was a boring and unpleasant 55 mile ride, so I took a bus. There are 1st and 2nd class busses, but I think the one I took to Uxmal was 3rd class. When I told the driver I had a bicicleta he handed me the crude metal key to open the storage bins underneath. He dropped me off at Rancho Uxmal, a few miles short of the ruins but the only reasonably-priced lodging in the area. I rode to the ruins and spent the entire afternoon there, some of it napping in the sun. I didn't do any historical research before the tour and was visually interested in the ruins, but it didn't really matter to me what symbols were carved where and what archeologists guessed the buildings were used for. I do take a lot of slides however (usually around 500 a week when on tour), and waited for the sweet light late in the afternoon for most of my shooting. The ruins closed at 5 PM, and by 4 PM all the large tour groups had gone and I could easily get shops of just the ruins without hordes of people in view. I headed back to the Rancho for a swim and cerveza, then had a fajita dinner at their restaurant.
Church Bells
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The next day I planned to follow the Puuc Hills route from the Bicycling Mexico book, which is a loop passing a number of smaller Mayan sites. By the way, 10 miles was the longest distance I had cycled over some three months before the tour, but it always amazes me how quickly the body reacts to the demands we place on it. After a late lunch I took the tour of the Loltun Caves, which I highly recommend. Actually, just before I reached the cave I rode what was without doubt the nicest several miles of the entire tour. I had turned off onto a narrow agricultural road with lime groves on both sides, and frequent irrigation channels - some of which had flowing water. It felt extremely lush, with many birds singing in the thick growth. I shook a lime off a tree, sliced it and dumped it into a water bottle. Pick-up trucks with some 20 men standing in the bed would move slowly down the road, interspersed with other trucks groaning under full loads of freshly-picked limes. At the caves they broke the visitors into two groups with Spanish and English-speaking guides. You walk 2 kilometers through some huge caverns with sometimes fantastic formations. You exit by climbing up a twisting path through a Cenote, which is a large circular opening in the limestone, often with a pool of water in it. The ground of the Yucatan is very porous, and I didn't see any rivers all week.
Bike Taxis in Ticul
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Leaving the Puuc Hills I had the only sustained downhill of the whole week into Oxkutzcab, hitting 37. I was considering staying here overnight, although all my books and contacts suggested that Ticul, 10 miles up the road, was a better choice. It was still carnival, and the town was crowded and raw but had a certain sweetness to it. I decided to go for Ticul, partly because it was a larger city with better bus service and I was leaning in that direction for the morning. The 10 miles was quite pleasant, not even considering the tailwind. Compared to the 45 previous miles that day it was downright scenic, with varied views of agricultural and cattle ranching landscape. Also, the couple of hours before sunset have always been my favorite time to ride. There was amazingly little traffic for a numbered road, but I decided everyone was busy at carnival in one of the cities at either end. Ticul is known for it's bicycle taxis, which are somewhat similar to an ice cream vending bike except that the cold chest is replaced with an open box built of steel tubes with a seat facing forward in front of the driver. Most are open, but some have a roof for sun/rain, and steering is controlled by a U-shaped bar extending backward from the top of the box. As I entered town I saw literally hundreds of them, some with occupants, others waiting by the side of the road for fares, and some being used to haul various goods. It was impossible to tell which had paying customers and which were being used to bring the taxi man's family to the carnival in the Centro. I saw these in all the towns I visited, but never again such a concentration of them.
Chichen-Itza Jaguar Carving
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The center of town was a madhouse, but in a pleasant and non-threatening way. I managed to miss spotting the newer, nicer hotel on the plaza and paid 75 pesos for an OK room with a color cable TV. After enjoying the carnival atmosphere for a while, I was walking back to the hotel when I decided I really should try a cyclo-taxi ride while I was in town. I gave one of the drivers (one with a padded seat instead of bare plywood) five pesos and indicated with my hand and outstretched finger that I wanted to go in a circle. He headed off down one of the streets and just kept going. I had no idea how long a ride 5 pesos bought, but my original intent was just a quick loop around the plaza. When he got to the town limits (at least I saw a sign with Ticul facing the opposite direction), I started getting a little nervous and asked him to go back. As we got back near the middle of town I asked him to stop and indicated that I wanted to switch places. He was somewhat hesitant but agreed. I quickly discovered that it took some effort to keep this thing in a straight line, partly due to the dynamics of it and partly to the crudeness of the assembly and alignment. I tried hard to get us up to high speeds, but had to brake frequently for topes, nasty speed bumps placed at the approaches to towns (even on highways) and scattered around city streets. They're sometimes steep concrete mounds, other times multiple sharp concrete ridges, and nastiest of all a series of cast metal mounds bolted to the street. Sometimes there are smooth places on the edges for bikes, but far from always. I must admit I took particular pleasure in wheeling us back to our starting point, with him sheepishly responding to the questioning looks from his taxi-driving buddies, and can only wonder what the ensuing conversation was.
Chichen-Itza - El Castillo
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My original plan had been to cycle from Ticul to Piste, the town near Chichen Itza, but it would be an 80 mile day and I wasn't feeling up to it in the morning. There was no direct bus so I had to backtrack to Merida and then take another bus from there. However, after I got on the bus to Merida and found there was standing room only I was almost tempted to tell them to wait and let me get my bike back out from the luggage bay underneath. I wasn't looking forward to an hour plus trip standing in the aisle, but resigned myself to it. There was a young indian girl asleep in her mother's arms in the aisle seat near me. After a while she woke up and started playing with the bottom of my shirt, which was dangling outside my pants. I started playing with her, holding the edge of the shirt out so it almost covered her head. What I found remarkable was that the mother didn't intervene ("honey, don't bother that man") or feel mistrustful of me, even when we started playing 'handsies'. They got off the bus in Muna so I had a seat the rest of the way.
Chichen Itza - El Castillo looking down
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Arriving in Merida I checked the schedule board to see when I could get to Piste. There weren't a lot of busses going there, so I made a decision to go on to Valladolid - the planned stop the following night - and then backtrack to Piste in the morning. In Valladolid I mounted the panniers and set off for the center of town. Reaching the Centro I quickly booked into the Hotel Maria de la Luz on the plaza, and then had their comida corrida (set lunch - sort of a daily blue plate special). Virtually all Mexican towns and cities have a central plaza with the church on one side and the town hall or administrative offices on another. The streets in the center are invariably one way, so there are two major streets in each axis radiating out from the central plaza. My usual exploration pattern was to ride the street heading away from the Centro in one direction as far as I wanted, cut over to the parallel street heading in the other direction, then explore the next spoke once I got back to the central plaza. In many cases there will be a neighborhood plaza and corresponding church a certain distance out on some of the spokes. In Valladolid I found a plaza and church at the end of each spoke and made this my turnaround point. On one of the loops I stopped to watch a church yard soccer game for a while. At one point I was taking photos of the game and realized looking through my viewfinder that the ball was coming at speed right for my head, which was close to one of the goals. I managed to duck in time, perhaps to the disappointment of the players.
Chichen Itza - El Castillo looking up
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In the morning I had about a 30 mile ride to Piste and then the afternoon to visit Chichen Itza. I was going to be on route 180, the main east-west highway outside of the toll-based expressway, and had some (needless as it turned out) concerns about traffic. In fact, all week the roads were generally quite good and the traffic very sparse, often with perhaps 10-15 minutes going by without any vehicles at all. After quickly settling in at my hotel room in Piste and doing some laundry, I set off for the ruins. Chichen Itza is much larger a site than Uxmal, and is known for the 'El Castillo' pyramid which dominates the surrounding landscape. Based on my experience at Uxmal I decided to slowly explore the site and note those places that I wanted to photograph between 4-5 PM. Besides the Castillo, the Observatory is probably the most interesting and photogenic building at Chichen Itza. I got some good close-ups of large Iguana's climbing the base walls of the structure with the late afternoon sun on them.
I had resisted climbing El Castillo earlier and was glad of it. This is one of those classic Mayan structures with impossibly steep looking steps up each side, although in this case only two sides had been rebuilt to provide safe footing. I started quickly up the 91 steps of the 75 foot tall structure, but slowed significantly and was breathing hard by the top, although I had resolved not to stop to rest. It is truly glorious on top, especially at that time of day. I had brought a 20-35 mm wide-angle zoom lens with me specifically for the ruins, and was able to get some interesting shots looking down, including some showing my feet at the bottom of the frame and the horizon line at the top. I also grabbed some shots of the unhappy looks on the faces of people starting the steep climb back down. Most people went down facing into the structure (some anxiously clinging to the chain provided), but I found I was able to jaunt down at a fairly good pace as long as I was very precise with my steps.
Chichen-Itza - Iguana
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Since I had a TV in my room in Piste I stayed up until 2 AM watching movies, which I knew would mean a late start in the morning. However, it was only a 50-mile day and by now I was feeling fairly strong, even riding in the heat of the day. I had a breakfast called eggs Motulenos, which had diced ham, onions, cheese and peas on top of fried eggs. I asked for cream with my coffee, although all week that had just meant milk. However, the coffee took a while to arrive and then I noticed the owner's daughter returning with a small carton, assumedly from the local store next door. Moments later my coffee arrived with what was obviously real cream in it. I felt a little guilty that they had bought it just for me and hoped they would find a use for the rest of the cream. I left a large tip to cover the cost of the cream.
Three on a bike - Izamal
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From Piste I headed north to Dzitas, then west to Izamal. The roads were generally a delight, with good surface and virtually no traffic. In fact, I would pass more bicycles than cars, often trading greetings of Hola! (hello). Many of the bikes were carrying large amounts of wood, which I assumed were used for cooking in some of the smaller houses. In some cases there were 20 foot long sections strapped to the frame of the bike and it was pushed instead of pedaled. My map indicated the first section of road west of Dzitas was of a lesser quality, and indeed there were a fair number of well-defined potholes, but these were easily avoidable on a bike.
I had a reservation in Izamal at Mecan Che, a B&B run by Americans. They have a large part of a city block a bit out from the center of town with perhaps a dozen different buildings and lush plantings. There was an elder hostel
Cathedral bells in Izamal - the "Yellow City"
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group staying there and it was a nice break to be able to converse in English. There are a number of ruins in the town, but its main attraction for me was the Convent of Saint Anthony and the attached grass courtyard surrounded by arched colonnades. All of this is situated on top of a hill which had formerly been a Mayan temple, and the whole structure was painted an earthy yellow, as is much of the town. It was particularly dramatic in the warm light around 5 PM, and I took many, many slides. It is a very sweet town, with the taxis consisting of horse-drawn carriages which line up next to the convent. Many of the structures in town were made with a large arch filled in with thousands of small stones, all painted the official town yellow. In fact, Izamal is often referred to as "Cuidad Amarilla", the yellow city.
The breakfast buffet started at 7:30, although I had hoped for an earlier start knowing I was facing a 70 mile day. Watermelon juice was an unusual item, along with cereal, scrambled eggs, bread and meat. I finally got on the road at 9 AM, heading northwest for the city of Motul before turning due north towards the Gulf of Mexico. The beach city of
Cathedral Cloister in Izamal
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Progreso was my destination for the day. Only about 10 miles west of Izamal I saw a couple on ATB's with a full set of panniers on each bike. At first they didn't seem interested in stopping to chat, but halted just after I passed them. The guy was Irish, the girl French, and they had left Mexico City four weeks previously (or was it months?). In any event they were biking to Tierra del Fuego and then back up the east coast of South America to Rio. I was duly impressed. They said they might choose not to bike through Columbia due to all the current problems, but had met other travelers who said they got through OK. Since they were heading to Izamal for the night, I mentioned the B&B and told them there was going to be a fiesta at the ranch starting around noontime, and suggested they head straight there to try to catch it.
Irish/French couple headed for Tierro del Fuego
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I had a tailwind riding west and it continued as I turned north for the coast. However, I could tell when I was approaching the Gulf because it suddenly transitioned into a headwind with a scent of the sea. Just before I arrived in the small town of Telchac Puerto (the port as opposed to Telchac Pueblo) I passed through an area of salt marsh and saw a goodly number of egrets and other shore birds. I rode right up to a small plaza next to the beach and just sat there for perhaps a half-hour taking it in. In general I'm much more of a mountain/woods person than a beach person, but I truly enjoyed sitting there looking at the bright blue water and watching pelicans dive for their lunch. One of the pelicans had a smaller scavenger bird following every move for leavings, and sometimes it looked like this other bird would actually sit on the pelican's back while it rested in the water. I've since gotten this description of these birds: "The locals call them El Pelequeno Pajaro Diablo (The Pelican Devil Bird). If you ask about them, they will just shrug their shoulders, point to their eye and say, "Muy Malo." That means they are so evil you don't even want to look at them."
Flamingos near the Gulf Coast
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I had read that the coastal road was nice, with the ocean on one side and the salt marshes on the other, but in practice neither was often in sight. There were many beach houses, most of them seasonal - I'm told the area is packed in July and August when hordes of folks from Mexico City arrive here to escape the mid-summer heat. The headwind I had approaching the coast became a quartering tail wind, so I was making excellent time along this stretch. Getting closer to Progreso I saw a gathering of several hundred flamingos in a lake on the inland side of the road. There was a dirt/sand drive leading down to it so I cycled over. As I got close some smaller birds started making noise and taking off, and the flamingos were soon to follow, but I already had my camera out and think I got several good shots of the sky filled with pink wings. I then noticed narrow pink bands along the shore some two miles across the lake and realized that there were thousands of flamingos in the area in several huge flocks.
Fisherman's Horse and Wagon in Progreso
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There were a lot more visitors in Progreso than I expected, and the first hotel I checked was already full for the night. I got a room overlooking the Gulf, but the downside was the jukebox in the café below me, and they said they didn't have any other rooms. Little did I know that the jukebox was to be a minor irritation compared to the disco next door that was still going strong at 3 AM. Fortunately my left ear is deaf so I can frequently just dig my right ear into the pillow, but this doesn't do anything for vibrations coming in through the building structure. I went to a beach-front restaurant and had a huge platter of Ceviche Mixte with shrimp, octopus and conch. If I had known how large the serving would be I wouldn't have bothered ordering a main course of fish. I went back to my room and finally wrote a large batch of postcards that I had been carrying around with me for days.
Wheeling home the cooking firewood
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There is a direct road from Progreso to Merida, but my senses told me to avoid it. Instead, I backtracked east about five miles to Chicxulub Puerto before turning south to Merida. This turned out to be a very small road with almost non-existent traffic and was clearly better than a dead-straight four-lane highway. I hadn't fully realized how far-flung Merida was previously and was amazed by how long I had to ride through industrial and residential suburbs before arriving back in the Centro. I had hoped to visit all the museums that had been closed the previous Sunday, but found the archeology and folk-craft museums closed again although they were officially scheduled to be open. The museum of contemporary art located on the main plaza was open, and I spent a good amount of time wandering through their extensive galleries. There was also a beautiful perspective of the towers of the next-door cathedral through trees in the museum's courtyard. I spent the remaining hours of daylight riding around the city Mean Street style, enjoying my last cycling in Mexico - at least for this trip.
Merida cathedral from museum courtyard
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I had dinner in a restaurant that I had enjoyed the previous week, then walked back to the hotel. I retrieved my battered bike box from the luggage room
Vases in museum courtyard - Merida
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and patched it as best I could with the packing tape I brought with me, but wondered how it would ever survive three more flights the following day. I asked the desk clerk to confirm my morning pickup with Alejandro, my taxi driver, and everything seemed set. I went to bed somewhat restless and not looking forward to the 16-hour travel day I faced in the morning. The way the flight schedules worked out I was leaving Merida at 9:45 AM and not getting back to Boston until 10:45 PM, but it ended up being almost midnight when we landed. It was a good tour and I'm not as set against going back as I indicated earlier, but there are so many other places to go and so little time!
© 2000 Charles River Wheelmen, Inc. All rights reserved. Revised: Monday, August 28, 2000
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