February 2, 2018
Day 30: Puerto Morelos to Cancun Airport to Vancouver
We carried airport paranoia to an extreme today, leaving before dawn for our 4 p.m. flight, 26 km away. Dodie's dad used to say "When you go crazy, it starts in the head". But for us, it starts in the airport.
One unexpected consequence of being out on the road in the early morning was that we ran into Fernando, on his way to work - by bike of course. That gave us a chance to reaffirm that we would see him again next year, for as you will read in our summary, Yucatan is a winner for us.
Not so great, though, was the remainder of highway 307 as we followed it to the airport turn off. To be fair, it did offer a good shoulder all the way. The problem was the heavy volume of traffic, including a lot of buses and trucks. Added to this was a fair bit of what we know increases the closer one gets to Cancun - lanes merging and leaving on our right. These forced us to stop and walk the bikes across (in the case of merging lanes), or to wave our left arms, hoping that drivers would see us continuing straight as they attempted to swoop right.
Soon (really soon - given how much time we had) we arrived at Terminal 4, a gleaming example of ultra modern airport development. Finding it and getting access by bike, while not totally easy was far better than any other airport we know, including Schiphol in famously bike friendly Netherlands.
Inside the departure hall the main impression was of vast open space, all covered in gleaming tile. In this space there is not a single seat, except those tied to the Starbucks and to the fabulously overpriced restaurant (25 US dollars for a hamburger). We were greeted (with our bikes, helmets, panniers, water bottles, and other suspicious looking stuff) by a fearsome looking security guard at the door, but we have yet to encounter a local person who is anything but pleasant once you talk to them. So in seconds we had explained what we were about, and were reminiscing with the guard what it is like in Merida, and so forth.
We went to a quiet corner of the huge hall and in seconds had filled it with all sorts of bags and gear lying on the ground. We then began the process that we had allowed the time for - reorganizing the gear into the format that would get carried onto the plane, while unscrewing vulnerable bits from the bikes, trying to make the brake levers and such less stickey-out, turning the handlebars, and removing the pedals.
The pedals are always a source of concern, since we do not carry a heavy pedal wrench. Instead we have a 15 mm cone wrench. It is flimsy, but works unless the pedals are seized. During the ride I try to remember to loosen and tighten those pedals periodically, but it is easy to forget amidst all the fun.
This time Dodie's left side pedal refused to budge. I put some lube on it, not that the heavy oil would particularly penetrate anything in under a day. I was thinking about going outside to find a rock, my favourite Mexican emergency bike tool, when we were joined by Eric, who had noticed the Canadian flag on my back. Eric is from Calgary and is here with three kids of 5 and under for 10 days. In the confusion of arrival one of their bags was misplaced and Eric was back on his own to try to claim it. He said he could actually see it in the Westjet office, but the office was closed. So like us he had a few minutes to chat.
One advantage for us was that Eric and I were jointly able to muscle that pedal off. No Mexican bike-rocks needed this time. A possible advantage for Eric is that he talked about taking the kids camping - having already set up a tent in the house to introduce the idea. We offered the next step - the ultimate in protected wilderness experience- our back 10 acres. Maybe we will see them in summer, especially if we are stuck home recovering from knee surgery.
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We are resigned to ripoff pricing at airports, like $3 water, and of course there is the routine pricing of Starbucks. So we scarcely blinked as $7 each got shaken out of our wallets for coffee and hot chocolate. But the one we thought was really "rich" was the price of Ritter Sport in the convenience store on this level. We are sure our German friends will get a kick out of the photo. We have paid a low of 49 euro cents for this, and maybe the customary price for this in Germany and Canada is under 2 euros. So that's about 42 pesos. The price here: 149 pesos, or about 10 Canadian dollars. Strangely this is not only an airport phenomenon. We saw chocolate bars priced like that in Valladolid as well. Chocolate is native to this area but is just not common or cheap here.
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We are writing this while holding down some of those scarce Starbucks seats waiting for check in time. The next excitement will be when we see how Interjet reacts to our unboxed and and unbagged bikes. Stay tuned.
1 hour later... Well, that reaction was kind of unique. We had based the unboxed and unbagged approach on what Interjet had told us on the phone before we booked. And at Vancouver they had been true to their word. But here at Cancun they had some innovative craziness. They wanted all the lower bits of the bikes to be wrapped, in order to protect their airplane, they said.
There is a wrap your bag in plastic film service here, for $16 per bag, and I asked the agent if he was suggesting we spend $16 per wheel. If that's what it takes, I think was the reply. "And with the wheels all gummed up, how will the bikes move? " was my question. On a cart was the reply.
While we stood absorbing this silliness, the man came around with a roll of packing tape. "Use this" he suggested, which was kind of nice, I guess. He then gave a demonstration, taking several turns around a front wheel, and declaring that ok. So we gummed up the other three wheels. Then another man came to take the bikes away and with no wheels attempted to put them on a cart. We could have told him they would not fit - we've tried that before. "Ok,ok you carry one, I'll carry the other", I told him. So off we went carrying the bikes to the now familiar pre-loading room that airports have. Once there, man #2 decided to have an issue with Dodie's strapped on yellow pannier. He said something to me in Spanish and strode off to go squeal to man #1. Left standing there, but with bikes already in the back room, we just sauntered off to security. We will let them work it out. Meanwhile they should be happy, since their airplane is now protected by 2 ounces of packing tape!
I guess we need to wait until Vancouver to see how it all shakes down. Next time we are likely to bring and carry around on the trip some Westjet large plastic bags, to save Interjet from using up their packing tape.
Vancouver - the bikes came out totally undamaged and with everything we had strapped on still there. All the tape that Interjet had insisted on was pulled out of the way, since handlers had of course rolled the bikes.
Our welcome back to Canada was unusually swift. The usual not so easy to fill out custom form that they hand out on the plane was not there because it has been replaced by a touch screen questionnaire in the Vancouver terminal. It would have been nice if Interjet had told us that when we asked about the form. Instead they just shrugged.
When we presented ourselves to the immigration officer he literally said "Hi" "Bye". When we told him he should get a raise for such efficiency, he said he would settle for a contract, saying the officers had lacked one for three years. "Tell your MP, he called after us".
Now at the Accent Inn, despite all the nice things we will say about Mexico in a summary page coming soon, we must say that no hotel there at any price we paid comes vaguely close to this ordinary Canadian one. Here we have a huge space, proper lighting, solid beds, coffee maker, a desk where the chair height actually matches the desk height, solid wifi, a bathtub, multiple towels, hair dryer, hand lotion, conditioner, ice bucket, cookies, hot chocolate, etc. Of course, we also have rain, and we are freezing!
Today's ride: 26 km (16 miles)
Total: 1,362 km (846 miles)
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Nice job on the Journal.
Hope this comment takes as it's the second attempt at it.
6 years ago
6 years ago