December 8, 2021
Day 14: Merida to Uman
Feeling so sorry for myself!
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Our plan for today was to hop just 20 km closer to Celestun, by stopping at Uman, a spot with admittedly few supplies, but no less than we expect along the 90 km Celestun road. With such a short run, we could plan to visit the Merida main market, and the church, before setting off late in the day.
But last night turned into torture all the way through, with diarrhea, heart burn, and repeated leg cramps. Each of these is really a "pain", but try the diarrhea when your legs won't move! On seeing my condition in the morning, Dodie rolled out the Immodium, the Electrolytes, Peach Nectar, and Antacids. Since our cycling motto is "Never Give Up", We pried me off the bed and headed out to the Market, shoving a trekking pole in my hand to lean on.
I never realized how fast Dodie actually moves along, even while wielding those darn poles, and I always feel I am idling along, waiting for her. Now the tables were really turned, and she had to make a special effort not to lose me. The people of Merida took care not to knock over these two doddering old people.
The market was SO FAR away, 3 km return. But worse, what we saw despite all the guide book hype, was a very cluttered collection of little stalls, mostly selling knick knacks, the standard types of tortas seen everywhere, and quite random nothing special in content or presentation fruits. Eventually our noses led us to the fish mongers, where again we had quite random piles of fishes. Did we miss something? Here is what we saw:
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3 years ago
This was all I could do, and I trailed after Dodie with no idea of the way or distance home. When we did finally get there, she turned the AC on and lights out, and left me to live or die on the bed. Dodie then picked up the gauntlet, grabbing the camera and heading for the Cathedral.
She got a couple of decent shots, and tried a movie. She apologizes in this for her shaky hands, but she did like the recorded singing. This is her first try on a video ever.
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Note: watch for the second half of the day coming later. But there may not even be internet at Uman. See if the great world traveller can actually make 20km on a day.
Ok, well the short answer is "sort of". We set off south west from Merida, and definitely did not run into any clean streets or glitsy Costcos. Instead it was hot, dusty, and noisy, with quite heavy traffic on hwy 261. I followed along gamely behind Dodie. But after about 10 km I found I was very short of breath, but the bowels were ok. Dodie had found a bike path by the road, and that helped a lot. But finally I just careened off the path, ditched the bike, and just layed on the side panting. After a while lying there, I recovered, and was able to resume. Dodie poured water over me and cut the pace, and that helped a lot too. I decided that what took me off the bike was akin to a panic attack, with all the hyperventilating. But the next 10 km went ok, so maybe I am on the road to recovery.
While the 10 km was ok in terms of riding, it was not ok in terms of finding our Booking.com arranged refuge. We had phoned earlier to let the people know when we would be arriving. But whoever answered the phone denied in Spanish having ever heard of us. We got the desk clerk at the San Juan to phone for us, but now they refused to answer the phone. So we had set off and just made for the latitude and longitude that was in the booking. We arrived at the spot, and on the street given, but there was nothing there except barking dogs. The lady next door denied ever having heard of any "Casa Ruta Flamingos". We know the frustrating drill, we've seen it in Czech and we've seen it in France. You can call Booking and complain, but basically, out in the hot street, you're screwed!
So now we began looking for a place, on our phones and by asking several locals. We rode to one place cited by Google Maps, but it was out of business. Finally two very nice young men searched on their phones, and suggested another spot. We set off to find that one, but ran in to a decent Posada on the way. So we jumped in to it, and now we are all set. We also had fun phoning Booking to get them to investigate the listing. It's an easy scam to collect payment in advance for a B&B type thing and then lock your door and hide.
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3 years ago
It's across and down from the Pemex. If you zoom in on our track going out, it may show you the exact location. I'll check that myself now and let you know if that's correct. Very weak internet just now, so I am a little hampered.
Check the toilet 'cause ours had a broken flush lever!
We paid 545 pesos
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Today's ride: 22 km (14 miles)
Total: 601 km (373 miles)
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