Day 5: Playa del Carmen to Cozumel

December 17, 2023

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`We were glad of the meagre breakfast offered as always by the hotel, because we knew the ferry ride to Cozumel is always rather rough. We cruised over to the ferry dock and admired the various views of beach and water side development in that key area.

At the ferry ticket office, the staff were skeptical about our bikes. The bikes are stored on an outside railing, they explained, and its windy so they could end in the sea. We bought the tickets anyway and told the staff that if the problem was too great, we'd be back.

We went down to the dock, avoided an overhead walkway accessed by steps, and lined up where wheelchairs, blind people, and such are welcomed.

They have thought of many sorts of handicapped riders, but not us!

As we sat waiting for the ferry, we thought through how it all might go down. If crew were going to hoick our bikes up and over a railing, then clearly the bags needed to be off. We got a jump on this by taking all the luggage off right there, and loading the panniers into our large Walmart carry bags. But then how to get bikes and all those liberated bags down a long pier to the boat? We found to our relief that we could hang the bags on the handlebars, and then roll the whole show quite easily along. This could be a good trick for some future train stations as well.

When the boat came and we did our roll down, there were a couple of more wrinkles. The boat was heaving by the pier, moving up and down about two feet, and there was a gangway that was compensating by rolling back and forth. It turned out we were expected to put our bikes on the boat, in what was really a very secure railed area at the rear. But the bags needed to go into shelving inside at the front. That's where having a two person team helped. I negotiated the swinging gangway with the bikes, and then Dodie set about securing them while I dragged the bags to another gangway at the front. Our forethought made it all happen effectively, and we later congratulated ourselves for good thinking. Each half witted partner had added up to the needed one capable traveler. We even had time to shoot what we take to be a Ruddy Turnstone, which would be a new bird for us.

We chose seats as close to the left/right and forward/aft centre of the boat as possible, hoping that movement would be least there.

On board a video played, showing the fun that was coming. We opposed motorized things in natural areas, but we were interested to see what the trails might be like.

At the Cozumel dock, the wind was higher and the waves jumpier, but Dodie jockeyed the bikes down the gangway on her own. Very good.

My job was to move these bags up and down the pier. But not the turquoise one, and the tall blue one. I was watching those for another cyclist.

More boats from our same company. The other company is called Ultramar. There used to be a third, cheaper, competitor but they had their boat blown up. To our knowledge, no one was held to account for the attack.

We pedaled a short distance from the dock and stopped to better arrange our gear. We turned out to be just at a church, with a Sunday service ongoing. A plaque nearby said that catholic services have been happening on the island since 1518. This is the earliest date of any mass in Mexico.

A hard to understand main stained glass window.

San Miguel, the town on the Cozumel island, is a typically humble Mexican place. The people are very industrious, but things always look haphazard.

We rolled by our "hotel" just to be sure about where it is. It's the BEA, shown below. It's humble appearance hides a surprise, that we found later.

A little further and we hit the market. Hooray, we love markets.

We didn't take time for a real cruise around the market, but rather just ran it buy some fruit and take a few pictures. Fruit here is just as it comes from the trees - not polished or sorted or graded. But it looked pretty good here, certainly better than at a supermarket we visited later.

The market was surrounded by small food fair type restaurants, and also had this lunch coujter set up inside:

I always like seeing the seafood, though we seldom eat it.

The market also featured many small shops selling - not sure what.

Our idea at this point was to cut across the island to the south east coast. This would pass by one of the archeological sites, that we might have a peek at. The road across is also the main road of the town, but once out of the town a bit the traffic drops right off and a cycle way makes an appearance. This makes for really pleasant riding.

That right lane is ours. Also, this part of the island is not desert at all, but rather jungle.

We reached the first Mayan site, which was again a pleasant 6 km ride down a quiet road. The ticket price was 13 US dollars, causing us to say y'know we have already seen lots of these. But we did like the cycle in.

A selection of what could cross our road.

The quiet main road was occasionally disrupted by fleets semi-off road vehicles.

We were doing well, but now we were watched by black vultures.

They must have seen something more interesting to check out.

Here was a weird one - a building with piles of what must have been theme park props, stacked randomly on its roof.

As we approached the far side shore, the land became flooded and mangroves took over the jungle.

Where the cross island road hits the sea and turns to go around the south end, there are some restaurants and gift shops.

Among the semi off road vehicles, various types of Volkswagens are favoured.

There were lots of birds about, but mostly they were Kingbirds, or like this one, a Mockingbird.

Jungle honey is a thing down here. We passed this place offering tours and told ourselves we would catch it on the way back. But when we returned, it was closed.

This would be interesting, but now it was getting a little late.

We returned to town, and were surprised to find that the BEA hides a lovely garden, and that our room could easily fit the bikes, has a fridge and microwave, A/C, lots of plugs, and an adjoining available kitchen!

In the garden:

We walked out to the market, but found it closed. Still, some of the surrounding restaurants were in operation. We chose Loncheria Chelly, where prices for a main dish were about 150 pesos. This is about 25% more than what we remember, and with the exchange rate about 10% worse than what we have had in the past, it comes to 35% or so more. Dodie thinks it's no use grousing, but we will surely be stopping at groceries more, or splitting "poison" sandwiches at OXXO.

350 pesos ($28). This was a purely local non tourist restaurant. Quite steep, I thought, but there were also two drinks included.

We found the grocery uninspiring, for quality and for price. We'll rely as much as possible on small fruit stores, or markets, and OXXO. OXXO does not even exist in the west of the Yucatan. Oh, oh.

The sour oranges on the left are good for making PocChuc!

Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 81 km (50 miles)

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