Mexico City and south on a bike
My Diary – San Cristobal to Chetumal
24/02/07 San Cristobal De Las Casas (Rest Day)
Bought 2 books: "Sherlock Holmes" A study in Scarlet and "Utopia" by Thomas Moore. Just read my books for most of the day.
25/02/07 San Cristobal De Las Casas (Rest Day)
I had finished both books by 11:00am the following morning. I went to the bookshop to exchange my books for some others but was horrified to find that it was closed for 2 days - I should have eked them out a bit longer. Bought some new sunglasses.
26/02/07 San Cristobal De Las Casas to San Juan Cancuc (36 miles)
Passed lots of interesting Indian villages: some of the people wore traditional clothing (including the men). I gave some English lessons to 3 chainsaw wielding Indians by the side of the road (At their request) and I learned and forgot the Spanish for chainsaw. Fairly flat tarmac road all day. I reached the Indian village of San Juan Cancuc in early afternoon. I was told by a taxi driver that there was no more accommodation for many miles so I took up his offer of staying at his house for the night. My room was an 8 foot by 8 foot concrete cubicle with a piece of cardboard for a bed: I was happy enough with it though and we had a chat sitting on the flat roof of his house which has a stunning view. After he had gone I was plagued by the local village children. I brought out the camera, took one photo and showed it to them on the tiny screen and that did it... I had to take about another 30 photos, and show them each photo.
27/02/07 San Juan Cancuc to Agua Azul falls (60 miles)
Big downhill rough dirt track to begin the day, followed by a very long steep climb, followed by another steep rough descent. I had a blowout on the rear tyre on the way down. I changed the tube and found that the valve was leaking and I do not have a tool to tighten it. I did the best I could with a small screwdriver. I stopped at the village of Sitala for some food and a 2 liter bottle of Coca Cola. The local kids were a bit of a pain in the arse. Children here, in rural areas often feel the need to shout "Gringo" as load as they can whenever they see one. It was tarmac all the way to Temo which is on the main road between San Cristobal and Palenque. I was hoping to find accommodation here as I was feeling pretty tired, but there was none so I decided to head for Agua Azul Falls. I pressed on for hours up and down in appalling heat (the sweat was dripping from both sleeves at faster than the rate of one drip per second) and I felt near to death when I arrived at the junction to Agua Azul falls. The sign said it was only 4km, but the road was uphill to I took a lift in a camionetta (small truck). It turned out that after a few meters the road was downhill all the way so I need not have spent 20 pesos, which was way over the odds anyway. I found a nice Cabaña I had been experiencing some cramp in my right calf muscle during the last 3 hours of the ride, and now I noticed that I was getting huge spasms in my calf muscle. It looked like there was a rat trapped inside there scrabbling away trying to get out. It was quite a scary experience. If I let my leg relax while lying down the calf muscle would fully contract with huge pain, so I had to lie with my feet to the headboard with a water bottle under the ball of my foot to keep the muscle extended. I wandered if this was going to be the end of the journey for me. After about an hour and a half it calmed down sufficiently for me to go and get some food. I talked to the restaurant owner for quite some time about cycling and then tucked into a huge meal of chicken, chips guacamole refried beans, salad and tortillas. I thought that perhaps the problem with my leg was partly due to lowered salt levels in my body due to excessive sweating so I piled on the salt.
28/02/07 Agua Azul Falls to Palenque (42 miles)
Had a look at the waterfalls: very picturesque. Had the same meal for breakfast as for supper the night before. Very hot again today. I cycled back up to the main road and had a reasonably easy ride (apart from the heat to the Misol Ha falls. Had a huge meal there with loads of salt! I had chips, rice, guacamole tortillas, chicken, steak and pork. This was the best meal I have had in Mexico. Did the last few miles to the city of Palenque and found a cheap hotel at 70 pesos per night. Calf muscle O.K.
Misol Ha falls.
1/03/07 Palenque (Rest day)
Very hot again - even in the shade I was constantly sweating. Did a lot of resting and today I started building this website.
2/03/07 Palenque (Rest day)
Very hot yet again. Visited the Mayan ruins of Palenque a few miles out of town. Went in a colectivo.
3/03/07 Palenque to Mamantel (105 miles)
Amazingly it rained in the night and today it was overcast and relatively cool. This was the first of a 4 day blast along major roads to the city of Chetumal close to the border crossing to Belize. Today it mercifully remained cool and the terrain was flat so that I averaged 13 mph (for the time I was on the bike) I thought I would be cycling in Jungle but this whole area was long ago cleared for farming. The landscape was fairly dull and monotonous for the next few days, but it made a nice change to get some big mileages done. I crossed into the state of Tobasco and shortly after crossed the border to the state of Campeche. I reached Mamantel at 7:15. As I cycled into the night I saw the dancing specks of light of fire flies. Mamantel was a major trucking stop town.
These are the 34 wheeled 100 foot long 70 ton beasts I have to do battle with on the major roads.
4/03/07 Mamantel to Conhuas (86 miles)
Still flattish but a few more hills so my average speed dropped to 12 mph. I found that the locals around here have a different accent and I found it very difficult to understand them. There was some rain today - for a while very heavy. As it was getting dark and I was close to my destination I saw another cycle tourist coming towards me. He was Michael Oefele from Germany. We had a brief meeting as he did not like riding in the dark for safety reasons. He had started his trip in Costa Rica and gone south to Panama before turning around and heading up here to Mexico. His website is. www.mikeonbike.de
These are a couple of pictures of Michael I lifted from his website. What more can I say?
I stopped at a roadside restaurant, whose owners also rented thatched roof Cabañ¡³¬ and had a meal with a Canadian couple who had driven down from Cancun in a hire car on a bird watching and Mayan ruins visiting holiday. She was originally from Britain. It started really pissing it down then and continued into the night. Found a scorpion in my Cabaña
Don’t try this at home children!
5/03/07 Conhuas to Nicolas Bravo (68 miles)
More rain today. Only just warm enough for a T-shirt. I crossed the state boarder into Quinta Roo. Flattish road again today. My rear tyre which had been bulging in a few places exploded today - so I changed it for a nice new German Schwalbe spare tyre. Nicolas Bravo seemed a bit of a dump when I got to it, but some inquiries turned up some nice accommodation for 100 pesos with a TV and comfortable bed.
6/03/07 Nicolas Bravo to Chetumal (46 miles)
A bright day today but still quite nice and cool. I felt really good on the bike today. Chetumal was a bit of a disappointment. It was ruined by a hurricane in the 1950?s and the rebuild leaves a lot to be desired. I found a hotel for 200 pesos. The receptionist led me to believe that I would have cable TV for this price but there was no TV. I complained but she denied telling me that I would have a room with a TV for that price - for a TV I must pay 230. Bitch! As I arrived early I did some more work on this website.
7/03/07 Chetumal (Rest day)
I should have put sun cream on my right leg, above the knee, where some skin had peeled. Today there was a huge bulging blister there. I had a look at my bank statement on the internet and to my horror found about 10 card transactions mostly to companies in Israel totaling 195 pounds. Bastards. I had to ring my bank and they cancelled my card. This left me with the problem of how to access my money. They suggested I get at it through my credit card, for which I had no PIN number or by transferring the money from my bank to a bank in here in Mexico.
On the up-side I found a cheap supply of purified water for 17 pesos for 5 litres (I have paid up to 10 pesos for 1.5 litres), in all day internet access for 35 pesos, a hotel for 120 pesos and a nice Chinease restaurant that does all you can eat buffets for 55 pesos. I ate two big platefuls.
8/03/07 Chetumal (Rest day)
Rang my bank to try to arrange a money transfer. I was told that I would have to ring the "international money transfer team" between 9:00am and 5:00pm (British time). This meant trying again the next day.
9/03/07 Chetumal (Rest day)
Rang the "international money transfer team" who said that the earliest I would receive my money would be by the 15th, so I decided to try other means. I looked into using Western Union. I visited one of the agencies here and then gave my Dad a ring to ask him to send money to me via Western Union, which I would then repay by transferring money to his bank account on the internet. Amazingly the PIN number had arrived so he gave me that and it worked. I celebrated by having a massive Chinese meal, a hair cut and a shave! I think I have spent about 50 pounds on international phone calls trying to sort this financial crisis.