The Riviera Maya gets its grades

The bicycle trip has ended on the Riviera Maya, the strip of highway in Quintana Roo the starts in the bright lights of Cancun and ends in humble Tulum. My explorations included Isla Mujeres, Cancun, Playa de Carman and Tulum. There are many other stop worth seeing such as Cozumel, Xcaret, Xel Ha, Akmal to name a few, but due to the knee, I was limited to buses and short walks. The scale is 1-4 stars, in honor of my favorite movie critic and Pulitzer winner Roger Ebert. They are being graded on Mexican authenticity, beautiful beaches, low tourist traffic, and bargains. So lets start the criticizing..

Isla Mujeres, 3 stars
To get away from the hectic Cancun area, take a 40 min. ferry to Isla Mujeres, it is well worth the 45 pesos. The authenticity is surprising, it has a normal pueblo with a normal center with normal people, but there is one walking street full of tiendas and restaurants that try to hustle you to buy stuff. The North beach is your typical Caribean beach, a little crowded, but not overwhelming, the rest of the island is cliff or marsh. I bike ride around the island takes 30 mins and the cliffs although not recommendable for swimming or climbing make for a great view. The tourist traffic was surprisingly low, it is the off-season but comparitivly low traffic for a major stop. The place is a bargain, the hostel Poc Na is a must stay, 65 pesos to camp, 100 for dorm and 250 for a cabin, and affiliated to Hostel Nomadas in Merida. It is right on the beach, has 2 bars and a full service kitchen. The price of food and drinks is reasonalbe as well, there are expensive restaurants, cheap restaurants and super markets, all normaly priced and 2 for 1 specails in every bar.

Isla Mujeres

Cancun, 2 stars
There are 2 faces to Canucn, the town and the hotel zone. The town is dangerous, Mexicans are afraid to go there, it's like a small Mexico City. In contrary, the hotel zone is clean, safe, and very American, McDonalds and malls on every corner shadowed by luxious hotels, reminds me of Vegas a bit, so 0 authenticity. The beaches are breathtaking, and they get bigger and better the farther south you go, I loved that part of Cancun. It is not cheap, nothing is cheap there, if you want cheap you have to brave the city, but it isn't worth your life. Cancun doesn't have an off-season there are always people everywhere and the majority are Americans. Cancun is what it is, built for American Spring-breakers and people that don't know what to do with all their dough. I did a tour of the hotel zone on thier 25km ciclopista stopping at all the happening public beaches.

Cancun

Playa de Carmen, 1 star
Playa de Carmen is good for 3 things, staying in an all inclusive resort, visiting thier fashionable (and pricey) 5th avenue, and taking the ferry to Cozumel, other than that the city doesn't have much to offer. Many of it's residents are like Mexico City and Cancun, impoverished indigenous workers (many build the resorts) from Chiapas. These are people looking for a better life, can't afford to cross the border, and try their hand at the Riviera Maya, many don't make it, which can create an unsafe street environment. As a result this was the first place I met homeless people in the hostals. It gets 1 star because I'm sure the resorts are really nice, but I would recommend my fellow backpacker or byciclist to pay the 110 pesos and take the ferry to Cozumel.


Tulum, 4 stars
I loved this place, it is my kind of destination. The pueblo is still a pueblo, and the beach (called Paila Boca) is a good mile away from it. A big white empty semi-nude caribean beach, what else do you want. Really low tourist traffic? It has it. Very afforadable? Definitly, I got my own cabin ON the beach for 200 pesos, it included an unobstructed view of the ruins and the ocean. The ruins are 100 yards from the cabins, they are on a cliff overlooking you beach (surreal), takes about an hour to see the whole thing and after the tour you can take a dip in the beach under the pyramid. Tulum is cool, there is not a lot to do there, beach bumming is the preferred past-time, and that just happens to be my specialty (biking is now no. 2).

Tulum

Off the Riviera Maya
Valladoid
Valladoid is a colonial city in the middle of the Yucatan Peninsula, makeing it a great hub to see some of the many attractions in the Yucatan. Cenotes abound, if you like cenotes they are all around and IN Vallaolid. Ruins, the famous ruins Chichen Itza are 40 mins west, the jungle ruins of Coba an hour east and the well restored ruins of Ek Balam 20 minutes north. From the same people that brought you hostal Poc Na in Isla Mujerees and Nomadas in Merida, bring you La Candalaria here, an excellent place to stay, right off a sleepy plaza and full of backpackers from around the world.

Valladolid

NEWS Flash
I actually met some Americans in the hostal in Valladolid, and they were from Austin of all places, came in for a wedding of a couple of bartenders at the Red Eye Fly on Red River. We split a 6 of beers and played some bones to comenorate the event.

The ruins of Ek-Balam 20km north of Valladolid, a lot more compact than most.

Ek Balam

Cenotes 5km from Valladolid, the pics blow but the caves derserve representation.

Cenotes in Dzitnup

COBA ruins (between Valladolid and Tulum)
These ruins cover a large area, 8,000 acres I believe, so I didn't get too far on my bad knee at the time but here are the few pics I did manage to rattle off.

Coba

San Felipe, Our pueblo

Well outside the reach of Merida, passed the abandoned tourist coast of Progresso-Dzhilam Bravo, on the other side of the Yasilhon desert, where a small coastal road of 30km starts, you will find San Felipe, our pueblo. To the untrained eye, you see your regular Mexican fishing community, a port full of small boats, a lighthouse, a sea wall, and thats it, and that's what I saw at first. What few outsiders see are the little hidden treasures, springs in the marsh, the sparkling beach on the isthmus protecting the port, the flamingos flying over head, and the occasional crocodile. These things are great, but they do not make up a pueblo, a pueblo is a community of people, each with their role in the master play that makes life worth living. We have the doctor, the old fisherman, the extentionist, the English teacher, the rancher and the gang. And one day, in the middle of Act 3, as a tense electon day came upon San Felipe, entered the Texan on his bike ...

The Doctor, Freddy (First guy on the right)

Four years of Medical school are over, 1 year of residency completed, all that lies between him and a diploma is 1 year of social service, a duty all Mexicans have. Like all medical students, his social service is 1 year working in a clinic in a pueblo, good fortune put him in San Felipe.
Merida has a great medical school that graduates 150 doctors per generation, they all go out at one time to do their social service in the Yucatan state. This creates a network of docs that know each other, and more importantly, know how to treat a bicycling gringo. Outside of Merida I've stayed in nothing but clinics, it's a bed (operating room), full bath, and a buddy.

The Old Fisherman, Don Gilberto Aguilar

Don Gil, worked most of his life as a carpinter in the nearby town of Panaba, when one day he uprooted his family to spend the last of his days as a fisherman in San Felipe, where he has lived for 20 years now. Don Gil no longer fishes, 3 months ago he was struck by a deabilitating disease that took away his power to walk and use his left arm. Months before this happened, he took his first international trip to Cuba. A widower, he fell in love for the 2nd time with a big dark Cuban woman. In the middle of the legal wranglings to get her off the island, he fell ill. With his daughter Isidra and the dream to go back to Cuba he works on gaining his mobility back, he now walks 400 yards every morning.

The extentionist, Geraldo

Geraldo lives with his family of 2 kids, Daniela and Alfredo, and his wife Sylvia 7km down the road in Rio Largatos. Growing up there and then later working as the director of the local reserve, Geraldo is an expert on the area. He now works in Kin Kualkin, Quintana Roo managing farming and fishing coops for the secretary of agriculture.
Geraldo was awesome enough to let me ride along while he worked one day. Here are some of the sites...

Rio Largatos

Cuyo

Holbox

The English teacher, Katrina

Katrina is the only daughter of a rancher, and the beautiful half of a set of twins (boy-girl twins). She has had a passion to learn English all her life and is now passing this on to young minds at the only high school in the area in Panaba. She is also the resident translator, when foriegners arrive without Spanish skills, she is called on to translate, and does it professionaly and always with a smile.

The Gang

Felipe, Joselo, Stefanie, Gaby, Roger, Santiago, Rosy Mary .... these are some of the names of the gang. Most are students, others work, but all of them come togther to hang out at Santiago's internet cafe to pass time in San Felipe.

The sites

San Felipe

(More pics coming soon)
The people of San Felipe have spend their free time in various places. The malecon that runs the shore line, this is where the fishermen spend their days by th pier, everyone else spends their nights by the kiosk, and Everyone spends the sunset. A cenedero is at the end of the malecon where the sunsets, built by Earth Corps, a 500km walk through the three types of mangrove that surrounds the port. Africa, a natural spring hidden in the mangrove, accesible by small boat and pole, is at the other end of the malecon. By boat there you can reach another spring Kuburna, it offers isolation and sirenity with the mangrove. Then there is always the beach, accessible by boat across a very shallow canal, a toll of 50 pesos will put you on an unpopulated island with a white beach, turqoise waters, and never-ending sunsets.
The whole coastal road runs along the reserve Rio Largatos, it provides nature walks, Flamingo viewings (there are 1000's everywhere), more natural springs like Chiquila, and beaches full of giant sea shells.

A typical day in San Felipe consists of everyone doing their work in the morning, then around 2 or 3 they are free. We would get together some pesos, buy a couple of cartons of beers, and head to the destination/party of the day, and if there isn't one, well someone is always willing to offer their patio. The patio is the best, everyone walks or rides a bike, so friends come for a beer, chat a while and then head off, you can see the whole town pass by while polishing off a carton of Sol.

The Campaign

Election day was a week off and campaining for PAN and PRI was in high gear. The town is nearly split in half between these 2 parties. Walls are painted (blue-PAN, red-PRI) with slogans, banners hang from every pole, the political headquarters (across the street from each other on main street) blare music with catchy slogans, and the fiestas. There was a party in the town discoteque with models for the PAN, the next day a street party with music, tortas and cokes free, then the PRI street party with the same, then free taco nights,

then ..... it was non stop party till 3 days before election day. By law campaigning ends 3 days before elections, they also prohibit the sell of liquor for those days (that doesn't make since, don't worry, we stockpiled the day before). For 24 hours, small bands of PRI and PAN go around the pueblo with cameras and binoculars making sure neither one of the parties is buying votes, it's kind of humorous actually. On election day, everyone votes, the parties are outside the school keeping tabs on the voters, and if you don't show, they will get you out of your house to vote. At 6 the polls close and at 8 they annouce the results. This was awesome, the whole pueblo outside the gates of the secondary school, waiting and hoping, the scene is tense, there are police everywhere to keep the crowd in check. Then it happened, a little man left a classroom with a poster, walked up to the gate, posted it, and a 100 cell phone lights lit up the results....

a victory for PAN roughly 400-600. They partied in the streets, a parade immediatly formed and ended at the campaign HQ where the new mayor, Maruca, gave his crowd a speech on how the town will improve by leaps and bounds. The next day was better, the final results for governor came in, the PRI won, the whole parade-party fiasco again.


Home is where I hang my bike helmet, and for10 days I gladly hung it in San Felipe, Our pueblo.

Hotel Merida

When you check in, believe me, you have no idea when you'll check out.
Merida is not an attractive city, the traffic is horrible, the streets are small, packed, and all one-way, there is no overwhelming reason to go to the city. There is however, Hostal Nomadas, a little place not far from the center that rents cabins and dorm beds cheap. They have hammocks hidden everywhere in their giant garden, several patios, a kitchen and nightly live music with salsa lessons. I planned on staying 2 nights tops, and stayed 5, what happened? The other travelers there were awesome, a group of 5 Swiss from ages 19-24, a crazy girl and guy from Germany, a German treasure hunter, a writer from Colima, Mexico(has done a central America motorcylce and bicycle tour), an English speaking Spaniard from Valencia (This is rare, Spaniards hate English), a tall blond English girl, a pair of easy going Canadians from the islands near Vancuver, and 6 Israelis celebrating their end of military service. Then there was me, a guy on a bike from Texas, no other Americans to be found, a Lone Ranger representing the red white and blue, this isn´t always an easy task.

My encounters with foreigners usually start like this.
So where are you from (in Spanish or English) ?
I´m from Texas
I would of never guessed that, I thought you were
-Mexicans Say: Italian, Spanish or Argentinan
-Foreigners and Americans Say: Mexican, Italian, then it goes to something obscure like Serb
So you are a cowboy? (this is good)
So you know Goerge Bush?(this can get bad)
A response to the first comment is usually something to the effect
-Ya, I rode my horse trigger all the way down here, he's tied up out back.
For the second response, to avoid a political conversation, goes something like this
-Ya he's my uncle, we rope together on the ranch, he sure makes a hell of a rib sandwich
And then we go for some beers

No Mexican Woman is safe around this German

The English Language
Every school in the civilized world teaches English in their elementary schools (Mexico in Pre-K). When foriegners get together they all speak in English, eventhough not one of them is from an English speaking country. This is great for me because everyone communicates in this language, it just makes me wonder if America taught a 2nd language, like Spanish, as early as 3rd grade. Would Mexicans and Americans understand each other better? And if that was the case, would this problems between us like immigration even exist? A lot of people tell me they would do my trip if they knew Spanish, but what else could they do if they knew Spanish?

Languages in Switzerland

This country is bordered by 5 other countries and a Swiss person's native language depends on which country it borders. They speak Italian, German, Swiss'Germ (not a disease) and French. You are raised in one language and study another one of the 3 (Swiss'Germ not included) and English all through school. The normal Swiss person speaks 3 languages, a lot of them speak more (the ones I met there, 2 spoke Spanish).

The German, Swiss, and Texan people, man or woman, have something very beautiful in common, drinking a lot of beer. Having 7 of these guys for friends, made it tough to leave, we would tour something together, then drink together, then recover together. This is a tough pattern to break, it was like college again. But I kept my eye on the prize, dusted off the stallion, lubed up the R2 unit, and did leave, 3 days behind scheduled, but with 0 regrets.

Bier, Beer, Cerveza, Bere - It all goes down the same.

"Cenote", Sinkholes
The whole Yucatan state is limestone. Their roads are white (that´s coliche to yall Texans), the beaches are white, their ruins are white, even the dirt is white (white shirt rejoices). Limestone also happens to be very pourus, allowing for rain water to slide right on through creating a system of shallow underground rivers and lakes. This system is visible from 1000s of little holes in the Earth called "cenotes". It's beautiful, the limestone filters the water leaving it remarkably clean and clear. Here are some pics of the cenotes at Cuzaman, seeing and swimming in these in person was a rush.

Cuzaman Cenotes

Chichen Itza
I also did the required Yucatan trip to Chichen Itza. This is like the Disneyland of Mexican Mayan ruins, about 6000 visitors a day from Merida and Cancun flood the park to gawk at it's structures and hear their voices echo off the temples. These are some really nice ruins, I don´t know if it justifies so many people, but my point of view could be a bit skewed after seeing 20 archaeological sites. Here are some pics, check it out for yourself..

Chichen Itza

I did manage to get around Merida as well, took some of the usual pics, but like I said, not much to see.

Merida

Free Movie Friday

In the old theatre downtown a free movie is presented every Friday at 7. I love movies, it was Friday, I had no plans at 7, so I went to the showing. What do they show?.... "An Inconvenient Truth". 2 hours of Al Gore slicing and dicing the global warming problem and how Americans (the biggest polluters in the world) can fix it. I loved the movie, I had known about all the information before hand, but the former Vice President does a good job presenting it in a new light to a today's audience. BUT watching this in a theatre full of Mexicans made for an Inconvenient Free Movie Friday.

Package Bashing
Apparently the European thinks that Americans only buy packaged vacations, and that is their explanation for why I was alone at the hostal, why Chichen Itza is over-crowded, why Cancun and Playa de Carmen are no longer pueblos but giant bars and why they no longer visit the Yucatan and prefer Chiapas. I understand their pionts, but they don't see the other side of the argument, I do, I was a hard working American for 5 years, so I defended this one. First, the package deal can be a lot cheaper and less work than cutting and pasting a vacation together. Secondly, Americans have to work. Many Europeans get 30 vacation days a year not counting holidays. Spanish unemployment gives you 6 months of regular pay without having to be in country (this is called enparo). French people get a job and can not be fired. The English pound is so high compared to the peso (for example), it is not uncommon for them to work a year and take a year off here. So they have time to bum around Latin America, we are only given 4 or 5 days and then have to be back at the desk. Third, some of us just want to have fun thinkless vacations, little planning as possible without the hassle of speaking an unknown language. I don't use the package vacation, but if I had a job, a family, a mortgage, a car, (I don't have any of these, but I feel ya), I would entertain the package idea.

Small European Note
The majority of Swiss travelers I´ve met (around 10) are kids right out of high school that are taking a year off before going to college. I think this is a great idea, it gives the kid a chance to grow up on his own before taking on college. ALL the Israelis were taking a year off before college as well, but they had just finished their 2 years of mandatory military service (men and women). If you have seen a newsbraodcast only once over the past 30 years, you know there that they deserve it.

Isreal
My Isreal friends are all cool guys just hanging out. They invited me to see the area and passed me their emails. They say that it's a lot like Mexico, and the people treat foriegners spectacularly. That sounded strange to me, because of the all the problems they've had with the Muslim world, but they say that Isreal is next to America in it's diversity of races and religions because of the importance of it's cities in all faiths. Might have to give it a try one day.

Getting Used to Things
Food Poisoning
I eat in the open air markets because it's cheap and the food is authentic. Real authentic Mexican food has real authentic Mexican bacteria. In my first tour of Mexico, it took me a week to recover from such bugs, 20 episode later, I can now recover in 2-3 hours.

Insect bites
To narrow this even further, mesquito and ant bites. These critters are everywhere, you can´t avoid them, especially on the coast or near the wetlands. I´ve been bit a million times, and I´ll be bit a million more. I now just swat at every fifth one and avoid areas of high mosquito concentration after sunset. I think this is a sound technique, I mean you don´t see the locals slapping each other silly when you visit, and they never put on repelent.
Chisquitas
If you are on a Mexican beach and you feel a mosquito sucking at you but you can´t see it, it´s a Chisquita. They are very tiny green blood'suckers, but they are detracted by repellent and have the same schedule as the mosquito.

Heat
It is everywhere, it´s my invisible enemy, and I can't pedal away from him. You learn to live with him because there is no other option, and if you live long engough with out another option (cold), then that option seizes to exist and you don't miss it.

Campeche, Why Not?

Campeche, the other state in the Yucatan Peninsula, has been the sleeper highlight of my trip. Popular book guides such as Lonely Planet & Lets Go, provide next to no information of the state, only descriptions of Campeche City and a couple of their archeological sites. Take my advice, if you are in the area, give the city a couple of days.
Tell us more about Campeche
OK.
The trip started in Escarcega, I arrived at 11 in the morn, and according to my rules, I should of stayed, but I had been a week and a half without the road and it was calling me with a Willie Nelson twang, "Kyllleee, I want you're 3 cool wheels of steel on my black asphaulty face¨
I replied the only way the stallion and the R2 unit know how.

It was about 95 degrees, I took it for about an hour, but when you're brain starts to cook, you look for sings like iguanas giggling at you from the shade, and burros winking scandolously at the bike, to tell you it is time for a break, so I stopped at the first pueblo, and was attacked by their women.
Like this but imagine a little bike instead of a truck.


Everywhere ¨Tope¨

Tope is a rough translation for speed bump, it really means anything put in the road to slow you down. It is said that for every Mexican ran over, the people put up a tope, and a lot of people are ran over here. According to Mexican road engineers, the tope should not exist, but due to lack of police enforcement on the roads, the pueblo puts them up to slow traffic down, or do they? It is very suspicous how most topes have a store by them, or a whord of peddlers at their side. I welcome the tope (I say that now that I don´t have a car), anything that makes you slow down and look around is good.

The pueblo of Revolution, a pueblo ravished by the man migration north, has left mostly women to run the show. They mainly sell fruit to tope bycomers, including this new fruit guy
The nut of India

I spent a couple of hours there chatting them up, eating thier fruit, I was tempted to stay, but the dangers of so many woman and so little Kyle in a pueblo can lead to the famous Mexican machete lynching, so I broke a hundred hearts and departed. NOt before taking pics, and when I whip out the camera to mark the ocassion, everyone wanted a pic, even the horses, and then with the horses.

Revolucion

I didn´t make it to far after this, my destination was still another 20 miles away, and it started to rain. Luckily I was by a military checkpoint. After a couple of bad jokes, we were good friends, they spent 30 mins waving down cars trying to get me a ride, one dood eventually agreed.

Military Points
Up and down the coast, mainly routes going north, Mexican highways are littered with military stops, I see an average of one a day. They pick out cars and buses by random and search ém through. They are checking for drugs and illegal immigrants (yes Mexico has an illegal immigration problem as bad as the US), so I advise the reader to not transport those particular items ever in Mexico, they are not afraid to put foriegners in jail.

I'm back to my beloved Gulf Coast, in the sleepy seaside city of Champoton. Got their late and left early, so apart from this photo session the only other impression I got from the town is it´s nonstop heat.

Champoton

Coastline, goodbye sweaty Champoton, hello sweaty Campeche coast. Little pueblos have dug themselves into the rocky shores of Campeche, they all derserve a look around, I did this is in Sebyaplaya. It´s 6 in the morning on Sunday and the market is bustling, apart from buying fruit, I buy a liter of my beloved Chocmil con Platano (Chocalte Milk with Banana, ooooo). Every open market in Mexico will never fail to have a stand that sells chocolate milk with the option of bananas, the perfect boost for the biker.

Seybaplaya

Leaving Seybaplaya with the perfect banana chocolate milk mix in my stomach, I powered through to Campeche City, Campeche. This is an amazing place. Why is Mexico keeping this town a secret? (It doesn't have a beach, so I guess it's a hard sale)
I don´t care, it´s better without all the tourist anyway. If the reader never has the good fortune to see the city of Cordoba or Seville in Spain, go to Campeche, they are VERY similar in structure. From 1771 till the late 1800´s Campeche made major fortification efforts in the way of bulwarts strewn about the city, many connected by giant stone walls, almost all of these still exist today. The forts are now first class muesems, the walls make for excellent strolls, and the historic center they protect, a living tribute to 17th century Spain. Anothe neat detail is the lack of Mestizo people in the population, everone here has strong Mayan roots, it feels like these Spanish buildings fell onto their coast, and left the Spaniards behind. I stayed 2 days, could of stayed a lot more, spent most of my time walking the city and its malecon (seawall/boardwalk), the best one I´ve seen in Mexico and had the pleasure of being there on a Sunday night, when the town's best bingo players take the plaza.

Campeche

I did make a side trip to the ruins of Edzna that lie just south of Campeche. It is a little difficult to get there, you have to manage the largest market I´ve seen in Mexico, but once you find the right people, it´s a breeze, and worth it....

Edzná

Trucking North again, heading towards Merida, Yucatan, via the ruin heavy Ruta Puuc, but some pueblo hopping must be done first. Pochu, home of traditional baking, that is what the sign on the highway said, so I stopped to see what is up.

10km north of there puts me in a slightly bigger pueblo, Hecelchukan, where I caught the LAST day of their town fair. To experience the real Mexico, you have to attend a pueblo´s fair, a quinceaños, a batptism or a wedding, they are nonstop days of dancing, eating, drinking, and making friends, that's all me baby.

Hecechakan

Today I have done the impossible, I washed my clothes, by hand, like I do everyday, and somehow I still washed my wallet.

Merida Blog coming soon, I'm on the coast again in Telucha Puerto and should be in Cancun within the week.