Muyil Site and Felipe Carrillo Puerto

December 14, 2022

Today was a scorcher - 88 at my destination, but with the humidity felt even warmer. So I started early and the Muyil Arch site broke the day up nicely. It was about ~12 miles or so from my charming hotel in Tulum (I had such a hard time leaving that place!). It rained a bit overnight, so I had to go through a few somewhat muddy roads leaving Tulum, but it wasn't too bad.

Muyil was an incredible site! The opened at 8:00, and I arrived about 8:40, and was waiting for some employees out front for the manager to arrive to open the place. I only had to wait about 10 min or so, then I was teh first one in. I guess that's just they way they operate here! The host at the hotel yesterday said breakfast opens at 8:00, although usually they don't show up until about 8:15. Anway, some artifacts there were dated back to about 350 BC! And then they had this really cool nature reserve with a boardwalk over swampy areas that led to a large lake. It had a large lookout tower there too. As my wife can surely attest to, I'm not a fan of heights. Stack on that the fact that these ladders were at about 75deg slope and missing and loose steps and you have a recipe for a lot screaming by me!

Then, it was off to Felipe Carrillo Puerto. There is absolutely nothing between Muyil and Felipe Carrillo Peurto. Not a gas station, nothing! I'm glad I had my music at least to Zen out to. I have to be honest though, at least for this stretch; I'd be hard pressed to find such a quality 50 miles of bikeable road anywhere in the US! No spiderlines of repaired cracks, no cracks at all, no rumblestrip, no reflectors, no road debris (since everyone drives in that lane too) - it was definitely a nice quality ride!

Felipe Carrillo Puerto is an extremely poor town, but as I like to think, it is a very cultured town! There are tons of dogs there too. More than I have seen in any town anywhere. Most are pretty friendly though. According to Wikipedia, this town of about 80,000 is a small town where doors are not locked, and if you want to see someone, you just shout from the street. After I checked into my hotel, I went and walked around for about a mile or so and felt completely safe.

El Castillo (the Castle) behind me, is the tallest Myan structure on the central coast

I just love how the large trees have grown right over this structure!

A whole lot of nothing out there - exactly like this for 50 miles!

These look like normal leaves in front of one house that I walked by, but...

Why does my shower have a hose bibb at the bottom?

Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 152 miles (245 km)

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