Day 5: Puerto Morelos to San Miguel de Cozumel

January 8, 2018

More photo captions added - more coming soon!

Breakfast always seems "weak" if it has only factory bread and no cheese or eggs, but really toast, coffee, yogurt, bananas, grapefruit, and watermelon(!) is good enough. Good enough to send us down highway 307 again. Still highway 307, like a US interstate, is not necessarily a great hunting ground if you are looking to learn about and understand a country.

Still, we did run in to a thing or two. For example there was a lone stork ? (Bill Shaneyfelt?- help!) . On the one hand we have seen no real wildlife here so far. But on the other hand, a stork is a stork and more than we have at home.

Next up was a jaguar. Well a picture of a jaguar. From what we have read this could only be a ploy to get gullible tourists like us to say wow!

On the other hand an article from a couple of years ago in the Yucatan Times says:

"Despite deforestation due to fires, human population growth and the spread of agriculture, jaguars have resisted encroachments of man and found ways to subsist in Yucatan’s remaining jungles.

It is believed that nearly half of Mexico’s estimated 4,000 jaguars currently inhabit the Peninsula."

"Jaguar" is a native word meaning "he who kills with one blow". Watch out Dodie!

The traffic on 307 seemed heavier and noisier than yesterday, and we periodically took to a pullout just for a little relative quiet. These pullouts, though were full of garbage, featuring the usual plastic waste. Too bad there is no drive to clean this up or stamp it out. The truck in the photo, by the way, was also left there - in case you need a late model fixer upper.

I think in the culture of this place, the street is not regarded as a place for beauty, but rather the attention is paid to inner courtyards and areas.So all along 307 there are elaborate gateways and landscaping marking the entrances to the major tourist resorts and condos, and who knows what, beyond. Here are a couple, but there were many more:

Unlike Puerto Morelos, the major parts of Playa del Carmen are all on the east side of the highway. But it is still possible to spot the parts. Right at the highway begins the town where the long term residents are. This features the standard crumbly but charming Mexican hodgepodge of buildings and activities. One that we liked was a little market that had two small fruit vendors. In fact one lady had strawberries only. We bought a pint or so, for 20 pesos. Interestingly, she asked us the same price as we had seen locals giving her. Unfortunately these were "Mexican" type strawberries (duh!), the ones we usually avoid back home, at least whenever our lovely local variety is available. Mexican strawberries uniquely have no flavor.

Mini market at the entrance to Playa del Carmen

Nice looking strawberries - too baf they're "Mexican"!

Our next stop, still just inside Playa, in the "real" not tourist city, was a stand selling filled, deep fried specialties. Technically the sign offered empanadas, panuchos, salbutes, tostadas, and flautas. And empanadas, for example, should be capable of having at least a choice of chicken or beef filling. So we enthusiastically told the lady our choices. But it became clear that like with Henry Ford's automobiles, you could have anything so long as it was a black Model T. We got cheese empanadas. And - they were great!

The lady only had empanadas, but she is happy!

The entrance to Playa - is typical for this region

We got on to 5th avenue, which further on became the main drag of the tourist town.And the deeper we went, the thicker the tourists became, until it was a real, and quite exciting, zoo. Our plan was to take the ferry over to Cozumel island and cycle on it a bit, before returning to our booked spot at Playa.

5th avenue Playa is a whole different scene

We asked directions to the ferry of a young man selling tour tickets in the street. It turned out he also was selling ferry tickets, and claimed he could give them to us for half price, and bicycles free. Without having any other information we decided to trust him, and it turned out to be true! There are three ferry companies that operate side by side, and our tickets were with the newest of them. No matter, there were no gotcha's in this. The boat was the same or better than the other two, great seats, great service. In that sense it was like the Interjet company we had flown with. Somewhere from our deep past comes the notion that you have to be extra cautious in doing transactions in Mexico. This is NOT the case, though normal caution is always good. We have accumulated now many examples of how we have been treated fairly here, receiving great value for money even when you might not expect it - such as in a restaurant on the beach or in the middle of a flood of tourists.

The ferry boats are large, but they seemed to pitch alarmingly, even at the dock. Staff helped the passengers negotiate the swaying gangway, and luggage such as our bikes was carefully stowed in the back. As our boat set out I was sure sea sickness was coming. The view out the window was of the horizon rising and falling as the boat wallowed. But we closed our eyes, then fell asleep, and soon - we were there.

(Sorry about no photo captions - bedtime has come too soon!)

Dodie buys ferry tickets from a trustworthy street vendor

Trying to boot it to catch the ferry. Cycling is not permitted in this section.

We finally reached the beach and were struck by the stark beauty

That is, beauty looking out to sea, the beach looks like this

People pouring off the ferries as they return from Cozumel

Dodie's bike comes off safe and sound. Are you reading this - Westjet?

Coming into St Miguel on Cozumel by boat reverses the procedure for when you arrive in a town on 307. First you are in a tourist zoo, but this soon thins to a crumbly town, and finally there is the "countryside", which is fairly scrubby brush.

This was just a brief exploratory visit for us, so we set off on the road that crosses the island west to east. Once out of town, this has a wide bike lane and makes a pleasant, and of course level, ride. We decided we did not have time even to reach the east coast, let alone circle down and around the south of the island. There is also a ruin along the way - called San Beninto , but despite the title of this blog we decided instead to go research a restaurant (any restaurant) back downtown. When we got back, we found that the huge throngs had largely vanished, and for this reason we could easily find a table in a restaurant that earlier was in the middle of the action.

Our attitude toward "overattentive" staff is evolving a bit as we are here a bit longer. On the one hand, we still object to being jumped by sales people. But one today seemed taken aback when we told him to back off, saying it was just an attempt to provide good service. That time we were peeved by the attention, but on the other hand at the restaurant we were pleased that the waiter already had our chairs pulled out and menus in hand when we just began to park our bikes outside near the table.

Our next positive thought was that while this downtown beach side restaurant by rights should have been a ripoff, in fact it had reasonable prices, if a little on the high end. But for the bit of high end pricing there were compensations - fresh buns, as well as tortilla chips, excellent fresh salsa, large amount of top quality fresh guacamole. And that's before they brought your order.The order then came very quickly, and again, we certainly could not have done better ourselves, with the fajitas and the grilled chicken. The chicken, for example, also had cooked carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and jicama - all perfectly done. Total cost - 25 US dollars for us both. So not totally cheap, but still value for money.

The restaurant also had internet, and that gave us the chance to receive a late message from Booking saying that our night's booking back in Playa had to cancel because of some water problem. We re booked here on Cozumel, and that gave us occasion to walk back through the now much subdued tourist trap section. The trap was still working, however, as Dodie spotted some handmade identity bracelets on offer. If you could not find the name(s) you wanted, they could be made on the spot.

Surprisingly, most of the names of the next generation kids in our lives were already there. It would took only fifteen minutes to fill in the gaps.

During the fifteen minutes, as has happened so many times before, somebody interested in our trip came to talk to us. It was Gilberto and Coni - Gilberto from here and Coni from Chile. Gilberto had cycled from here to Chile, and if I got the tale right, had met Coni there. Coni had worked in Germany for two years, and had some interest in taking Gilberto to cycle there. They were concerned about hills, and so let themselves in for a 15 minute presentation on the River Routes of Europe. Tricia Graham - I could have used you as a guest lecturer. We ended anyway with an invitation to stay with Gilberto in Playa, and had to work hard to convince him we were staying in Cozumel. We know that this, or any "warm showers" type situation, means the blog will not get written!

The hotel we ended up at - the Sun Suites - gave us a really huge room for about 800 pesos, with the bikes stashed by the pool. The room is airy and cool and really couldn't be better. Tomorrow we will take the ferry back and make for Tulum. We will shoot for an early ferry, to be as cool as possible. But the sun here is quite intense. Even by 9 a.m. I can feel it burning through spf 30 sunscreen and have reluctantly donned sun sleeves.

As we made our way to this hotel I thought I spied a German style bakery. I will sign off now and go search for it online. If open tomorrow early it could be a lot of fun!

San Miguel Arcangel church, where the first catholic service was held in Mexico, around 1518

The island seems to have no fewer cars per capita, but adds flotillas of scooters

Cozumel - the road across the island. Outside of town it is great for cycling

Actually I found the jungle to be an even better free station

Back in San Miguel at what could or should be the most expensive restaurant in town.

The island, showing the town and the road east. We will come back to do the whole southern circle.

With the crowds all gone back to Playa, Dodie can calmly discuss a deal with one of the vendors.

The young man sets to work completing our order.

Gilberto and Coni. Gilberto has cycled Playa to Chile. He says people feared him as a Mexican, and in turn he was told they were dangerous. He emphasized that in fact people here and down there are as a vast majority totally sweet.

This guy lived just outside our room in Cozumel.

Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 176 km (109 miles)

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