January 16, 2018
Day 13: Izamal to Merida
Bloggable Breakfasts
We are suckers for the "breakfast included" line from Booking.com. It just seems like it would be so great to wake up and immediately get a hearty breakfast to prepare us for the road. It's shades of Germany, where breakfast was the best meal of the day.
But more often than not, in Mexico, it has been a disappointment. Today was a case in point. Breakfast was set to 7 a.m., so at that time we showed up at the breakfast room. At first there was no one there, but a staff lady did wander along and asked me to wait a few minutes because the coffee was not ready. It seemed strange, because the lady was not busy cutting up fruits, setting out bread, or anything. She quickly disappeared.
After a while Dodie went down to reception to see if she could scare up any action, and by 7:30, indeed, two pieces each of factory toast landed on our table. That plus the now ready coffee (which Dodie does not drink), was the sum total of the whole production.
We dragged our tails out into the street, and contemplated the ride ahead. We were looking for a smaller road into Merida, and negotiated the one way street network of Izamal until we figured we were onto a good route.
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Quite quickly an OXXO appeared, and we were thinking that some packaged food would be needed if we were to make it to Merida. But across the street people seemed to be cooking something. Not that there was any sign, of course. We went over and asked if they had anything breakfast like to sell. Indeed they did. There was Grandma and likely her daughter moulding a corn based dough into pockets and filling with a bean and cilantro mixture. These Grandma would deep fry in a wok powered by a wood fire. We asked for two each. I did not catch the name of this delicacy, but they were good. We are not sure if we were asked for 6 or 16 pesos, but we gave 20.
As we were finishing our four pieces, I think Grandma decided we still looked hungry and pathetic, and she brought out a tamale for us. This is again a corn based dough, filled in this case with a chicken mixture, and steamed in a banana leaf. Good! Merida was looking closer!
During our visit, the two kids came out, ready to go to school. Dodie was able to give them some Canada stickers before they both jumped on a motorcycle with Dad, and headed off.
Before we left, two month old Maria also came out to eventually sit in the stroller. Grandma held her for a while, while we admired. The love between Grandma and grandchild was very evident, and something we well understand. Grandma told us she has 10 grandchildren - but this must be the newest.
Out of town, the road was what we have come to expect - quiet, and remote feeling, with occasional traffic - mostly motorcycles, but also chicken busses. Agave was the main land use, though mostly we passed through scrub.
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In the village of Cacalchen, there was nothing special except that we enjoyed seeing the villagers going about their various activities. Old men were out on bikes, grannies were walking together, kids were having outings in strollers, chicken was being grilled on open charcoal, and people were going up and down in their various forms of bicycle based transport.
We naturally especially noticed this transport. Beyond the basic one speed rusty beach cruiser that Grandpa is riding, you have the pedal powered trike, with cargo bay out front. The next step up is when the pedal power is replaced by a motorcycle, connected directly behind the cargo bay. The final refinement has the base motorcycle moved to the left side, and a cargo or people enclosure is added to the right. This is now equivalent to the "tuk tuk"s found all over cities like Bankok.
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As we cycled along, we could not help but notice the insane amount of garbage thrown all along the roadside. Outside of towns it may cluster into bigger piles, but in any case it is everywhere. There are signs that say do not throw garbage by the road, but obviously there is zero enforcement or respect for that. We keep thinking that if the people happened to care to clean this up, a program of bottle deposits and plastic recycling would not be so hard to set up. And if the deposits would be at all reasonable, the poor would have employment for years, collecting the mountains of previously thrown bottles. Oh well.
The road into Merida did not remain quite like the little one in the picture earlier, but it did stay safe, with a good shoulder. Traffic increased, but it was fine.
This came to an abrupt end when we reached the ring road that surrounds Merida. The ring road is a flat out big city type thoroughfare, and the way to cross it was on an overpass. The overpass road, though, did not have a wide enough shoulder.
With lots of misgivings, we avoided the overpass and waited carefully for enough gaps in the traffic to hustle right across the ring road lanes. Oh my nerves!
Once we made it, our troubles were not over. Inside the ring were streets clogged with traffic, and no shoulders, let alone (ha,ha) bike lanes. The only saving grace was that drivers would stop or park or whatever in the right lane, so that traffic could not easily whiz along that one.
After making it through a gauntlet of bigger, busy roads, we got onto smaller ones, heading into downtown. For a time we passed sort of middle class neighbourhoods, and encountered a real oddity - a garbage truck with a crew making roadside pickups.
Very soon the character of our surroundings changed again, and we entered clogged slow moving downtown traffic. Most surprising were the sidewalks, now crowded with urban dwellers. After two weeks in the small villages, this felt all new. I haven't had the chance to get Dodie's reaction yet, but I no longer felt safe, or happy. A big Mexican city is a big unknown.
(Update: Dodie thinks Merida is busy, but fine.)
What did happen was with the wonderful help of GPS we made our way to the downtown cheap hotel we had booked. Dodie went in while I held on for dear life to our bikes and possessions. But Dodie came out with a big smile, because the desk clerk had been nice, and we were being invited to lead our bikes through the restaurant and into our room - easily big enough to swallow them.
Our room in the Hotel San Jose otherwise is "Mexican flophouse" style, with dubious sheets and mattresses, no windows, no A/C, two thin towels, no shower curtain, and no real door lock. But it does have warmish shower water, a working overhead fan, wifi, and tile floors. Held up against our standard - better than a tent? - it's great! And for 430 pesos ("Breakfast included"!) we are going to stay two nights!
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Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 604 km (375 miles)
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