I could just rave and say how nice, how generous, how engaging our warmshowers host was in Cancun. But it sounds so hyperbolic and lacking in detail. And it is true. I would need such a long essay to encapsulate how magical this visit has been; we've been treated like queens. And only because we are two women on a bicycle trip. We were treated to a seafood dinner and then breakfast in a precious french restaurant, and weren't allowed to pay for anything ourselves.
Except there was a hold-up anytime we all had to pass thru a doorway; I was unthinkingly hoping to follow Snr. Host to whichever room was next, but it was supposed to be Ladies First. So there was a lot of waving of hands and patiently waiting aside as I bumbled about not actually passing thru the doorway.
We rode from Cancun to Play del Carmen today, which was totally unremarkable and not worth writing about.
Until the skies hardened and the grey rain began. A benign drizzle, at first, then increasing imperceptibly until we were encased in a world of wet. The only way out was through, unless we wanted to sulk pitifully under an overhang somewhere and "wait it out". Highway 307 had wide shoulders, thankfully, so we were out of the traffic, and it was raining so hard that they became rivers. Apparently this Mexican highway wasn't engineered with the goal of water management during downpours.
Each pedal stroke was a splashy swoosh as my foot dipped into the stretch of water. Swoosh swoosh swoosh. I admired the wide rippled wake that Jen was creating ahead of me ("do you mind if I ride in front?", she had asked at the beginning, eyeing the fountain of spray reaching from my rear wheel).
What is challenging about being in the rain is not wanting to be in the rain, and feeling offended by it. As soon as I embraced the wet gritty feet, the wet back, and cars schlarssing past, it got much better. I gave up being a cyclist and decided to be a speedboat. Then I kept grinning like a lunatic into the deluge and enjoying the bizarre sensation of the pull of water around my tires. I have never bicycled like this before.
The tractor trailer passed us in a particularly deep area of our shared river road. It scooped up a wave of water up and over and around us; I felt not so much like a speedboat in that moment, but like a water-skiier wiping out. I wiped the wave out of my face and felt all last dry spots of my shirt shudder and cling to me then. And laughed with the absurdity of all of this. Ahead of me, Jen made a hilarious show of wringing out the back of her shirt, as if that could accomplish anything.
A small red scooter carrying two be-plasticed people approached us. "Donde va?" they asked us, "Playa Carmen!" we shouted over the spray. And with that, they slowed down and fell back behind us. Some time later I looked into my mirror through the wet wall, and saw that they were still there. Chugging along, about 20 meters behind us, on the edge of the shoulder. Their four-ways were flashing.
After they'd been with us for at least 15 minutes, I realized we were being escorted. They had asked these two soaked bicycletta girls where they were going, and then followed us, placed in this protective position, their lights going, increasing our visibility and diverting traffic from coming too close.
Oh my wow. The goodness of people here. I could have cried from gratitude and humanity in the rain, and no one would have known.
As if this day needed more magnificence in it, I write with awe that tonight we are staying with my famous old Lady Elise, my bike partner of trips past. She just so happens to be at an Airbnb here with her Spanish amante, and Partner Jen and I are joining them. We three make a flurry of female traveler energy and it is phenomenal to be reunited for a little while.
"Let's run to the beach!" Elise declared, with zero warning, after we had picnicked on chicken, green salad, and wine on the floor. And thus we did, slapping down the empty night streets of this city, full of glee and joy, and arrived on the sand, with the lights of Isle Cozumel on the watery horizon, the Gulf of Mexico lapping gently. We pulled off our clothes and clambered into the velvet water. More water. How is this, we've been splattered unwelcomedly all afternoon with rain but whole bodies surrounded by ocean feels so soft and delicious.
An attempt at a New Yorker style 'Restaurant Review' photograph, going for unscripted, amateur-ish, over produced. Our delicious Airbnb floor picnic. 
Before the rain hit, before we got on the highway, this delightful bicycle path between a multi-lane road guided us out of Cancun. 
The requisite beach photo. Lunch stop at Puerto Morelos.
Precious and fancy French Cafe for breakfast in Cancun (forget not we are in Mexico), where our immensly generous host bought us breakfast. 
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