Day 21: Rio Lagartos to Tizimin

January 24, 2018

The Coast put on a glorious sunrise for us, as we turned south and away from what had been an excellent experience in the mangroves. As we re-entered cattle country a guardian white bull seemed to stand watch over our progress.

We were brought back down to earth, looking at an earnest request by a rancho for people not to throw garbage. But the roadside foliage remained interesting, and with little problem - but a lot of sweat - we rolled into Tizimin.

The sign says "Comrade, please do not throw garbage". It seems to be generally working in this area.

These long seed podded trees are very common here. Any idea what they are?

Back at our hotel of two days ago - the Pastora (350 pesos) - we again enjoyed the back garden and the plentiful hot water. We are plotting our next moves now, and have decided to shoot past the Ek Balam ruins on the way to Valladolid. That's a betrayal of the title of the blog, but stopping at Ek Balam would have made the day too long, and staying at the only hotel in Ek Balam was ruled out because they have no wifi. What babies.

But it gets worse. We read in a blog where the cyclist stayed at the swanky 1500 peso Maison del Marques in Valladolid. So of course we had to go. That sort of supports the blog title, as we jump on the Road to (financial) Ruin. Our next main objective, the Monkey Sanctuary, is also a costly treat.

We are sneaking back toward the Monkey Sanctuary, north of Tulum

The monkey sanctuary is apparently a serious conservation place, but according to one traveler's blog, you get to meet some in person at the end of the tour:

Source:https://www.thewonderforest.com/2017/04/visiting-akumal-monkey-sanctuary.html

We had not been in our room long when a brief but intense tropical downpour began. A rain like that is no big deal, since it is brief. Still it was fun to see the people scrambling and the streets flooding. The frog statues in our back garden seemed to like it as well!

We sauntered over to the nearest restaurant, the Tres Reyes (Three Kings) and were impressed by the number of appetizer dishes they put out before bringing the main course. Overall it was a nice spread.

Mangos and bean-like dip with ?? in the middle and ground corn/spinach ?? thing? oh my.

We then retired to our favourite activity, a walk through Super Aki. One thing we did not need was sweet buns. When we had arrived at the hotel, three large clear garbage bags were sitting on the lobby floor, filled with them. We assumed these were day olds, destined for the chickens. But actually they were fresh, or seemed fresh, and they ended up partitioned into little bags of abut six per bag, on a side table. There was no sign or anything, but I asked and found I could buy for 5 pesos per bag. I went up and checked with Dodie about what would be a good number at this price. Four, she said. Four! No way, not even for this cookie monster. But she had misunderstood, thinking 5 pesos would buy one bun , not six! The Super Aki price for these is 8 pesos each. We ended up with 12 individual buns, but there is no coffee here. Without coffee they are almost useless. Gotta go hunting some java up soon.

At Super Aki we noticed the sour oranges, presumably the ones that are used to marinate the Poc Chuc grilled chicken or pork. We also found sour orange as a marinade. A bottle of that is now hiding in the bottom of my pack, so we can try to replicate some Yucatan cuisine when we get home.

As I sit here typing, I am being serenaded by a combination of motorcycle noise and music from somebody's loudspeaker down the street. As mentioned before, it is an overall loud environment. But it's ok, unless top volume at midnight. I had a look at the clothing store across the street, which features a speaker trained out onto the road. It is a self amplified model from a maker of rock amplifiers, I think. It is possible to enjoy some of this stuff, actually. In the restaurant they had a TV with music videos. The first set was impassioned Latin love ballads - not bad. This was followed by what I take to be a combination of Latin hip hop with bhangra, also not bad!

This is not even particularly big, as things go here

Addendum: Coffee Culture Shock

Hotels here of the class that we seem to patronize do not provide in room coffee makers. In fact, I would venture to say that none do. But some have some kind of water boiling facility near the front desk. We ourselves have not brought our immersion heater and pot, so though we do have instant coffee powder, actual coffee is often lacking.

When we were here in Tiziman two days ago, I noticed that the tap water was almost boiling hot. So I began to think coffee. But we have no cup. Ok, we are next door to the full service Super Aki. At their deli counter they did not offer coffee, but you could buy stuff like potato salad in little styrofoam cups. I tried to get the lady to give me one. No way. To her credit, she did have second thoughts and consulted senior management. I though about buying some potato salad and then cleaning the styrofoam, but Dodie was already in the checkout, so I gave up.

Today I upped my game. I found out that there is an OXXO kitty corner to Super Aki. That is a no brainer, because OXXO is the goto place for take out coffee. They always have it in those thermos dispensers. But hey, my coffee was rather cool. No problem, I zapped it in their microwave. Now it was really hot, and I was planning to carry it in my hand back to the hotel, where awaited my discount sweet buns!

Using a tried and true North American coffee ploy, I simply put my cup into another one. I was feeling smug about it too, because during the wait at the checkout I knew my coffee was well insulated. When my turn came, the man looked at my double cut quizzically. He seemed to mention an extra charge, of 40, or something. I just gave him my patented dumb, innocent look. He tried to separate the cups, but they were stuck, and I warned him that the contents were really hot.

So he took the whole assembly away, presumably for a consultation with senior management. I am clearly putting a major strain on Mexican business administration! After a time he returned with the coffee in a single cup. I don't know if he or management decanted it into a single, or it by some engineering they separated it. One thing was true - after the delays I no longer needed the extra insulation. 14 pesos later, I was out the door.

And yes, I sure enjoyed that coffee and bun as I recorded this story!

Today's ride: 54 km (34 miles)
Total: 953 km (592 miles)

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