The Most Amazingly Terrible and Terribly Amazing Travel Day

I don't know how much you dear readers will enjoy this one, but I know I will relish writing it. Writing is one of my greatest comebacks for turmoil. It's therapeutic to unravel things out in words sometimes. Consider yourselves warned. I apologise not. We all have bodies and bad days. 

I finish writing this piece in the quiet comfort of my own apartment. Who knew one's own apartment could feel so rare and wonderful? 

Wednesday was a travel day and whenever I set an alarm for a terrible hour like 3:50am I wonder if I will wake up for it, and how it will feel. But I woke plenty early at 3am instead, feeling like a gurgling water bed had replaced my abdomen. Oh no. Of ALL days for this to occur. How about a day with four airports, immigration, customs, and all the while having in my care an enormous box and bag? 

After everything I had ever eaten, ever, had been relocated into the hotel bathroom, I rallied and carried my bicycle box, and then my hulking Pooh (poo, heh) Bear Bag out to the street. I sat on the sidewalk in the only time of day and night this city is quiet, that eerie hour between the night owls and the early birds, and wifi-ed for an Uber. 

My Uber then pulled up in a mini-muffin Mazda. How was this box going to fit? Thankfully I'd woken early enough to leave luxurious time for all the pushing and 3-D Tetris that Mr. Uber and I did together. Still, the back wouldn't shut, even with that box pushed all the way forward. I didn't have the Spanish word for "rope" or "bungi" but he knew what I was gesticulating about and shook his head no. We certainly weren't going to go anywhere with the back yawning entirely open. Then! I realized I was holding a strap myself, my handlebar bag. I unclipped it's strap, and we fastened it effectively and I folded myself next to the box, and off we set. What a good natured trooper this Mr. Uber was, and it was all I could do to get him to take my little tip of $2 in gratitude. 

After paying the exorbinant oversize bag fee (but it is SO worth it) and getting my tickets, I was so unbelievably hungry (at 4:30am, who does that?) I had to camp out for a while and consume a corn muffin before I could bare to face what was probably going to be, in my sorry state, a grueling trek through security. It's amazing how one's gut will dictate energy and make even the simplistic of tasks seemingly insurmountable. 

But eating felt mostly good and satisfying. Calories! 

Until I was deep in the no-man's-land of The Security Line. There is no less an accommodating or less compassionate location I can think of than an airport security line for the rolling timpanis of the gut to sound their warning. I'd rather be on a mountainside, in a dessert, anywhere. Could they see in the body scanner that my gut was once again churning like children playing on a waterbed? 

I leaned on the table of bins, made it through the scanner, and then the treacherous way to Immigration. Inside me was a bomb. I was actually a terrorist. But I cleared all the checks, willing myself to be patient and compliant through them, and then it took every fiber of focus in my body to walk my way to the victorious finish line of the nearest ladies room. 

That was so close. I kept thinking: this is amazing, this is just amazing. Amazement is what I was feeling, what an experience, so inarguably specific to be in this experience.

Time to do something I've never done before. Deploy the Imodium! Some incredible thing had blessed Jen to give me her pack before she left, and something else amazing had inspired me to pack it in my tiny carry-on rather than in my checked bag. 

Now to just swallow the thing. 

It being a Mexican airport the tap water was not to be drunk. And of course I could not take any liquids through security. And from my pathetic chair I was not about to move anywhere and navigate purchasing anything. My empty bottle (that old Gatorade thing, ha!) had the tiniest rattle of drop in the bottom. I had One Chance to get this thing down. The little chalky pill clung to the back of my tongue like a scared child on the wrong side of a diving board. That tiny swig of water barely pushed it where it needed to go, and I had to do some entertaining pelican-like movements to complete the task.  

I sat and waited for my flight to board. I couldn't get comfortable with my legs down and they ached bent upwards too. I had a wave of sweaty heat pass over me, and then a wave of chills. This was actually pretty terrible. For a little while I felt the impropriety of how good it would be to lie down. Bah! Who cares. So I climbed down to the grey tiles and fetal-positioned myself half under the row of seats. 

It was surprisingly comfortable to be in this way, and the knowledge that I was doing my best to care for myself also brought some fortitude, no matter what anyone thought about that crazy gringa. When I could keep my eyes open, I studied people's shoes. From the roof yesterday to the floor today. I saw a blue pair of sneakers that I liked, and I asked their owner: are you waiting in the line for Houston? He confirmed yes, in a kind and quiet voice, and I explained my predicament to him. Later he bent down and tapped me gently on the shoulder: "we're boarding now." He and his wife walked near me down the gang plank, and when I reached my seat, victoriously I could share with them: "I made it!" 

This is terrible. But "What will happen next?" Sometimes when things are not going my way, I can get freeing glimpses of letting go. Let's just wait and see. Something will happen. We will move through this terrible situation and it will eventually be over. A little curiosity, what will happen next? And then there will be the relishing of telling the story. 

Another thing I let go of was the level of feeling bad about feeling bad. Why be hard on yourself about a situation when you're already feeling icky? I tried to just accept that I might just poop myself blind through all these airports today and that was that and not resent myself for it. 

I was able to rest on the first flight and eat a little bit. Thank you Imodium! I plugged my phone into a charger in the floor and happily noted it was charging. Good to be prepared with a good fat battery fill-up. 

I woke to turbulence and the plane landing. People were pushing off and I reached instinctually for my phone. 

It was not there. The charging cord was not there. A little sweep if panic went over me. My phone is EVERYTHING: my blogging, my photos, texting people at home. I dislike being this attached to an item, a thing, but it is also a Tool. 

My phone had shifted during flight apparently. Then did someone steal it? How far had it slid in that turbulence? 

I was down under the row of seats, deep in the land of stored Inflatable Vests and hanging seat buckles. No phone. I checked five rows ahead and behind. No phone.  By this point I was the only person left on the plane. 

Miss Flight Attendant suggested it would be best for me to "process myself" through customs, hoping that the cleaners somehow found it, to avoid wasting time and missing my connection. "And go talk with the United representatives after the baggage claim and have them radio back here to us at this gate to check." 

That sounded reasonable and like the best hope. Plus, I was not at my highest capacity for problem-solving right then. So I picked up my box and silly bag again, went past more compassion-less counters, through more scanners, and my heart would have broken when they through my avocado into the garbage, had I not been so deeply mourning my lost phone. 

I finally got to the Counter of Hope, the United airlines baggage representatives. "I lost my phone," I explained, "and I was at this gate and they said to radio them and check." I showed them my ticket.

"We can't do that," was the brusque reply from Ms Severe Blond Hair. 

What. This was all a blur. How was I possibly going to find this essential device of mine? I'd only backed up half my photos so far. I felt like crying. 

After hovering at that counter for a couple more pathetic moments, I realized "we can't do that" translated to "I actually don't know how to do that", because Ms Blond was conferring quietly with her partner, Ms Cornrows, "wait, how DO you radio gate E14." They looked something up on their single slow computer. "Gah. This thing never runs when I want it to", griped Ms Blond. "I know, right!" I commiserated. When she realized I was still there, and looking her in the face, and sharing her pain about her computer, she then launched into what was probably a very satisfying rant about slow technology and United not replacing their hulking ancient machines. My only seeming hope was to get these ladies to help me. After a few more moments of listening to her, and sharing about how sad I was about my phone, she began fussing about on her own phone. "Maybe I can call them from here", she said, then into her phone: "hey, Elaine, do you know anyone at Gate E14?" 

The airport is an enormous and incomprehensible system. They finally got to E14. My heart sank when I heard, "negative." No phone found. 

By the end of my time with Ms Blond she was calling me "hon", and had me come round to her console to fill out a Lost Item Form. How a little human connection can get you far. (Which is a thing I've noticed almost always lacking in airports, all these wearied travelers worried about their own selves and thus people are rude and self-entitled and ungrateful. Simply thanking a gate agent could be a huge change.) 

I then set off running to my next connection, which was about to board. Running was not a good feeling for my gut, but the sadness about the phone helped paint over that. 

At the gate of my next connection, on a total whim I went up to this agent...."I lost a phone...by any chance?..." And she goes, "Are you SAAAndra?" (This was Houston by the way) "We have your phone!" 

How?! It turned out that a man had found it under his seat and carried it off to the United Skymiles Club. He had somehow figured out my name from the phone (I keep it unlocked, I know I know, but I need to read maps one-handed while biking, and having to type in a PIN would be unwieldy) and then they figured out what was my next flight. All just in time for me to leave Houston. "Can I give you a hug?" I asked Ms Gate. I was so grateful I forgot everything else. "I'll pass it on to him", she said. It was my first hug in a week. 

I'll spare you all the details of the rest of the day: witnessing a fight break out over my row between two men impatient to get off the landed plane in Chicago (I saw a cane turn into a weapon), a delay, being so shivery cold in the airports in my sandals and single sweater, a missed connection, another delay. Finally getting into Rochester late at night, with intense nausea. But I was swept up by the Indefatigable Avi, brought to his house, was given blankets, warm socks, hot tea. To be with people I knew and loved. To be listened to and to release all the woe of this day. I felt so blessed and so ill. 

I was returned to Ithaca, thanks to the night owl transport services of a certain very lovely Mr Radio here I am getting to know. I could barely form sentences I was so tired and my gut on prison lock-down. 

This amazing day needed one final night-cap. I realized, due to stupid and complex circumstances, that I had locked myself out of my apartment. And it was 2am. I had been awake for 23 hours now. Bless Mr Radio for taking me in, judging me not for puking in his yard, setting up his guestroom, and going to Wegmans at 2:30am for Pedialyte and probiotics. 

Feeling very humbled by all this kindness. 

For all that discomfort and terrible travel day, this trip was never not worth it. I am just reveling in how those Yucatan biking days were so fat, so present, so rich, when traveling around a beautiful colorful sunny country. 

26 days, 881 miles, 2 jars of peanut butter, 2 flat tires (between the two of us), a group of 4 bicyclers, 2, and then solitude. 3 states, 6 ancient Mayan ruins, 4 cenotes. Carnival! Flamingos, pelicans, shooting stars. Palm trees, mango trees, ferns. The cities of Campeche, Valladolid, Tulum, Cancun, Merida. The Caribbean sea. The Gulf of Mexico. Deluging rains and amazing heat. Learning I could travel successfully in solitude. Practicing patience through discomfort, relishing the simplest of pleasures. Laughter, amazement, appreciation, gratitude.  

The last day

Today is my last day in the Yucatan. 

Last night I rode my last mile, the eight-hundredth and eighty-first mile. (This is like riding from New York to Iowa) That last mile was completed at the door of a small and hip bike shop across the city; I wheeled my beloved, long-suffering, absolutely filthy bicycle up the ramp and felt a wave of gratitude for my safety during all of those miles. People always say how crazy I am to ride in Latin America, please be safe, those drivers!, and I choose not to worry, and I ride with care but when it's all done wow am I grateful. 

Last week, the two sweet brothers of this bike shop had answered Jen's message about a bicycle box, and said $200 pesos for it. What!? That's $12 and pretty expensive for a cardboard box. But what they had meant was to take the bike apart for her, pack it into the box, and all that labor and all that cardboard would be $200 pesos. They would even deliver the box across the city to our hotel when done. Neither Jen nor I had anything to prove; we can take our bikes apart and reassemble them ourselves just fine. But to have a bit more time to wander this city, and to not have to worry about tools, and if these brothers wanted to do it, then what an amazing deal! So over I handed my machine and took an Uber back to my hotel. 

Senora Uber, a sweet grandmother, and I conversed in my favorite kind of way: a mix of simple Spanish and simple English, both providing what we could of the other's language. I told her about my bicycle trip and that this was my last day Tuesday. "Estoy muy triste!" I said, I am very sad. 

"No. You should celebrate!", she returned. Of course! What a wonderful and different mindset that is. Celebrate when something good is done, rather than mourn it being over. Celebrate someone's life and memory, like Day of the Dead. Thank you Mexico for this perspective, may I remember it and carry it back home with me. 

Sadness mixed with happiness, the Duality, there it is again. My trip is completed, yes, but I don't feel such the grip of mourning that I used to after a trip is over. I've painted memories, I have a picture book in my mind of all the places I saw and all the adventures and all the laughter and amazement. They exist for later day-dreaming. Also, my other life is wonderful, and I am happy to be going back to Ithaca, researching, my farmers, my pipe organ, my friends. And because of my obsession with the pen, say, on a disgusting rainy night in March, I can pour myself a bit of mescal, sit with my beloved cat, and flip through my journal. I will probably laugh in past-pity at the unbearable sun flogging, over the days of 17 toilet visits, smile at how Jen and I shared with each other bites of absolutely everything we ate ("here, I saved you this tiny wad of what was once a bigger tamarind wad.... isn't that attractive!") 

For all I've loved being here, I've started having intricate fantasies involving peanut butter, I haven't hugged anyone in a week's time, and I'm nearly desperate to eat kale and spinach. 

This morning, my last day, I slept in 'till the languid hour of 5:40am. I haven't slept in for days, and thus it felt like a Saturday. A whole Saturday, all earned, all celebrating, all free for nothing more epicurian than wandering and seeking various final pleasures, with that tinge of This Is The Last poignancy. And shopping! Since I am no longer restricted to two small paniers, I am buying mole, snacks, mescal, all these things for my beloved people back home. I also purchased a truly enormous, square, inarguably el-cheapo 70 peso "novidades" bag with...Winnie the Pooh on it. Can't wait to lug that saccharine atrocity, along with my boxed bicycle, through the airport surrounded by a bunch of serious adults.

Before I headed to the market I climbed up to the roof of my hotel to see the sunrise. The stairway to the third floor just led up there. The roofs in a colonial city are a world of their own: all flat, sometimes with slightly different levels. All the buildings in a block connect, I think, with courtyards amongst them rather than yards separating them. 

And so it was natural for me to take a little step from my roof to the neighbor's (ignore that chasm), then up this little ladder, climb over that wall thing, walk across a flat expanse under the sky. I peered down into one courtyard, the checkered floor, the layers of balconies with wrought iron fences, the palm growing through the middle of it. No one else was awake yet. The next courtyard seemed abandoned, it contained piles of rock, crawling with vines and plant life. What was the story there? Then I walked some more and watched from the edge the buses roaring on the street below, people moving along the sidewalk. 

There was a huge caimito tree that had been dropping little fruit bombs into the courtyard of my hotel; the staff were constantly chasing their splats around with brooms. I reached and picked four of them from the roof. You cut open and scrape out the white milky insides, avoiding the skin (which will leave your lips stuck with latex), and it tastes like Arroz Con Leche, complete with vanilla but in fruit form. I ate three of them before I thought to have scruples for my Future Self. After I climbed down and reentered the normal ground level sidewalk life, I felt I had x-ray vision, depicting in my mind all those hidden courtyards deep within that block, peered into from above. 

Being up there fired the imagination so much,  like fanciful fairy tales combined: Peter Pan because it was almost like flying invisible, the Secret Garden, and of course Mary Poppins for the chimney sweep scene dancing from roof to roof across the whole of London. 

The roof sunrise 

Courtyard peeking 

Shadow self portrait with roofs on roof 

Street view 

A Boring Sunday Post (except for the pepper spray part)

Today was Sunday, and like many Sundays in my other life, I rode my bicycle and watched the sunset. I've ridden my bicycle all days this week except Tuesday. I love riding. I love this. How lucky I am to be here. 

This is my second night of stay in the same place: Puerto Progreso, a delightfully touristy town north of the big city of Merida. It's delightful because it's not catering to white foreign tourists, instead it's all happy Mexican families on the beach. You can feel the happiness and family and friend love here. I sat in the sand and watched a family buffeted by the rigorous wind, all helping each other trying to get dressed over the sand under flapping towels. Hawkers sold popcorn and sweets along the beach, bachata music played from the beach-side bars, and there was endless good food for me to eat. I didn't even need to buy a bag of beans here! 

Today I rode my bicycle in nice little 40mile a loop (rather than using it as a means of transportation between two places). What else was I going to do today? Sit around? Um, no. 

I started riding with the sunrise behind me, past more vacation homes. Glorious. 

Except for the sudden and terrible awareness of a grey streak coming from behind the roadside palms. 

So I had an opportunity to deploy my self-defense pepper spray. With fancy vacation homes come well-fed and mean dogs. In the small simple towns, the dogs are totally ambivalent and see people riding bikes every day. But this morning, with all these special houses that needed protecting, a big grey dog came charging at me; and he wasn't barking, and he was angling for my trajectory, not just running along behind for fun. Jen has a theory about dogs, and I believe she is right: when a dog barks and is running, he is doing it for sport. When he is not barking and is running, he damn well means to catch you. 

But my pepper spray is at my right holster, and I grabbed it out, aimed behind me, and a marvelous stream of red flew into the face of that grey beast. And man, did he stop running right that instant. 

If you've ever taken out your contacts after chopping peppers and not washing your hands quite thoroughly, you might imagine how effective this is. I felt only the tiniest flare of guilt and pity, but mostly victory. Then I dealt with the fall-out of adrenaline charging loops around my veins, feeling shaky and hollow. I've been bitten in the butt before, and it's not anything I want repeated again. When biking in foreign places, my biggest heart pounding fear is dogs. 

Eventually the adrenaline subsided, and I found myself riding a bedraggled strip of road down the middle of a lagoon. The surface was potholes and huge wedges of gravel, and I'm amazed my bicycle didn't completely shimmy and shake loose. But I was completely alone. Just me and the still water and the shore birds and the mangroves. I sat for a long time on my helmet, in the center of this tranquil solitude and was so grateful for all of it.  

Then the road took me into a little town, and I thought with fondness how many little towns have supported me and Jen this whole trip. The couple of tiendas, the little bustling fruit and vegetable and bodies-of-chickens-for-sale-everywhere market, the tall church overlooking it all, the little children buying sweets and chasing each other around. 

I bought a food that I didn't know what it was, from a lady with a card table on the sidewalk, sat down in the shade next to a table stacked with bras for sale, and watched the Sunday morning bustle of this little town. My unknown food thing was hunk of cornmeal mush, with leaves and hard boiled eggs in it, topped with a brown sauce. The leaves were Chaya, I think, a local leafy perennial shrub thing here. Delicious, especially with the lip-fire of the salsa picante. 

Then I biked home to my hostel (tidy, quiet, dreamy), where I am the single guest. I made guacamole from produce in the market. I played in the surf. I walked in the sunset and watched the fisherman. 

I've absolutely transitioned to being in happy solitude. That first night alone, in Celestún, was the hardest. But since then I've settled into just being with me. Following any whim without needing to explain it. Writing is essential, or else I would combust from all the observations and narrations I have this inexplicable strong need to express.  

My days here in this lovely, spicy, loud, colorful, hot, happy, country are soon to end. I took time today to just sit and baste in the fact that I have been able to be here. 

Sunrise riding, bridge leaving Puerto Progreso. 

Under the Broiler

Dear readers in the north, 

How much might you resent me if I talk about the midday heat and sun being "too much"? I CAME here for heat and sun. What an ungrateful traitor I am. But... there is too much sun. I need to write about it. 

All the words for heat and sun are trite and useless to carry the meaning I aim to convey. "Roasting", "hotter than hell". Unremitting. Inescapable. Merciless. It's like riding your bike in an oven. These still don't get at how powerful it is. 

Before 9am the sun is low enough that there are little islands of shade on the road's surface. You ride from island to island and it's almost not too hot and still bearable. But after that time the shade islands have disintegrated, and unless you happen to be on a very tree-ful road (this is rare), you are completely exposed to the sun. 

The sun flays my skin, the heat clings to my back, my neck pulsates pink. It's in the nineties with high humidity, and with the effort of propelling a bicycle it's like working out in a sauna. Sometimes I have to consciously tell myself to inhale and exhale it's so intense. 

Shade breaks are essential, if I can find a tall enough tree or a building.  But then leaving any shade I can manage to find is like stepping off a cliff. My body does not want to go there. But I make it anyway because this is how I get around. 

Riding west 50 miles along the upper coast today was a particularly flogging day of sun. Basically no shade to be had. Just low scrub dotted with post-card perfect palm trees, or mangroves, and set back from the road were countless unhelpful vacation homes. And I was out later than usual because I had gone to the Mayan ruins of Xcambo (delightfully under-visited and very tidy and restored). The palm trees crackled in the hot wind with glimpses of the sea beyond.

It's 11am, the official Heat Of the Day. 19 more kilometers says a lone road sign. That's only 10. And then 9 more. I can do 10, and then 9, right. The little overheating engine that could. 

This may be hard to explain to you all in the clammy greyness up north, and to my past self who left there, and to my future self who returns back there, but in midday sun my Single Greatest Desire is to be removed out from under her. 

And I know a week from now I would wish to be back under this broiler. It's like contrasting a person who is dehydrated with one who is drowning. 

When you're this baked your butt doesn't hurt, you're not hungry, and your left hand hasn't gone numb. It's amazing how the broadcast signal of sun slam will silence all other discomforts.

My first shade break of desperate necessity was outside an Alcoholics Anonymous house with a tall tree at the road. It was one of the few scraps of shade left on the road, a dappling. I sat sprawled on the pavement and ate a carrot and drank some water, kept company by the music coming from the AA house on this otherwise empty road. 

My second shade break was an ice cream sandwich and a Gatorade in a tienda with a single fan. I stood in front of the fan guiltily and ate the rapidly melting sandwich, and marveled that I had just purchased a bottle of Gatorade. Yuck. What was I turning into? A shard of ice fell from the bag a boy had pulled from the tienda's freezer. I fetched it off the floor and held it to my wrists till it scooted away again like a bar of soap. I applied more sunscreen to my red pulsing pores.

On the last few kilometers I was seeing a mirage of shade up ahead. I remembered how I had channeled a speedboat on that deluge water day, at the beginning of this trip last century. Could I become a solar panel? Sun powered? Could I preserve some of those rays for March in Ithaca? What a tragedy that it doesn't quite work like that. 

An arrival at a hotel (goodness how a roof does wonders!) after hours like this is just the most victorious experience. And a shower. And a bed under the shade of that wonderful roof. 

Then after lying down for a delicious while, I go around town eating the best things I've ever eaten. I am just amazed and delighted how I can go from wiped to energetic again, after rest, food, and shade. And then a night of sleep and I'm just raring to eat that bag of beans for 5:15am breakfast and go bake myself again. 

For all the exhaustion and toasting of the midday riding, the earliest morning hours are truly heavenly. The pastel sunrise colors on the clouds. Birds. I relish those ravishing few hours. This morning what made me sit higher on my bicycle seat and crow "Eee!" were flamingos, pelicans flapping heavily overhead, the reddish pink sand of the mangroves in the endless lagoons, and the swash of sunrise coloring everything peach. I was riding with a benevolent tailwind: for I had fought bitterly that very wind on this very road just yesterday, while cramming Emergency Backup Cookies into my veins, and now it was the gift that Past Me had given Current Me. 

Pelicans at dawn, leaving the tiny fishing village

I had to keep looking over my shoulder to take in this view

Pinky sands in the lagoons from the mangroves

Yes! 

Ruins at Xcambo. No tour buses there. 

Self portrait, with Heat and Bicycle, at First Necessary Shade Stop. 

Headwinds & Hotel Hardships

"I don't think I'll have anything to write about tonight", I thought half way through the day, plugging along on quiet straight roads, "I'll just post some photos that've been backlogged." 

And oh how I was wrong about that. Unfortunately I am pretty wearied, so please forgive any decrepitude in my writing. 

This is a story about being off the beaten path. 

This morning I again bicycled out of Merida (after delightedly consuming a SALAD and a real proper porter, both oh so rare otherwise. In your small town it would be pork instead of salad and some caramel-colored light cervesa---side note, googling "additives in beer" is highly disturbing). 

After the endless suburbs of Merida, I found myself in hacienda country. I rode through countless small towns: Baca, Sacapuc, Telchac, Dzibilatún, all quietly happening places, tidy, with many open shops and fruterias. I imagine these are healthy little towns supporting the many surrounding farms. Haciendas are plantations, and indeed, I was seeing agriculture, where much of our riding has passed low scrubby forest. The henequin plants are agave species, and they are grown for fiber. 

I enjoyed riding on these straight empty roads, quiet and carless, save for an occasional person on a motorbike or someone hacking away in a field with a machete. I was riding into a headwind, and my goal was to head up towards Dzilam de Bravo, a town that seemed to be the last coastal town on a reasonable road on my map. I would make a loop with this, banking my grueling headwind for a tailwind later, for an earned ride along the coast and towards Progreso and then back to Merida. 

I am learning about Google. You may zoom into your Google map with sensible foresight, seeing hotels and restaurants in a place; however, on the Yucatan peninsula this does not guarantee they actually will be open. Or even exist. 

I was imagining staying in the sweet coastal town of Santa Clara, even though there was a decent budget option hotel I had passed inland. And then in Santa Clara I found only empty streets of sand, rows of unoccupied vacation homes, two mean dogs, and one hotel right on the beach. I was like a corn tostado from the sun (even in protective long sleeves) and winded (sorry) from the wind. The hotel people were asking way more than I was used to for a stay, and I feel uncomfortable paying sums of money that reflect being a rich entitled American. And there was nothing else enticing me to stay in this tiny sandy town. Should I stay and treat myself? Go against the wind to Dzilam de Bravo? Go with the wind somewhere else? Decisions like this, when traveling in this manner, become not so much preferences but feel like they carry the heft of Life Decisions. Or maybe that just happens when you're tired.

I was so hot and bedraggled my brain was sweating out my armpits. Make a decision? Gah. How insurmountable.

Then I realized where I WAS. There was the SEA. So I left my bicycle on its kickstand and walked straight into the water wearing all of my clothes. 

And oh my goodness did that bring me life's energy back again. 

I decided to use the wet clothes as coolant, and to continue biking into the headwind, to Dzilam de Bravo, where Google maps showed many more restaurants and interesting things. 

How harsh are the elements! The winds bend the tall agave spikes, sweep sand, crest waves. There is no quiet for the roar of it. And the sun slams down midday on skin and pavement and glints off the water. I was biking now with the sea on my left and lagoons on my right. The sand in the lagoons was pink, a striking and eerie color; I felt like I was on the face of the moon...a place so foreign and empty and buffeted by the elements. I saw flamingos in those strange sands and laughed and cried simultaneously as I was blown wobbly by the wind. 

And then, lest this day let up in it's wildly heightened experiences, I bonked. Hit the wall, if you will. Aka: Blood sugar drop. I do this just frequently enough that I am an expert managing it. Emergency Backup Cookies! I deployed all of them. And they were the best things I had. ever. eaten. 

At the end of my 64 miler headwind day, I approached the yellow hotel in Dzilam with nothing short of an arrival in heaven. And Señor Hotel dismissively said he had no rooms available. How disheartening. I cruised around town, found it to be more of a closed-up fishing village than I had hoped, took a horizontality break in the empty park, and then asked someone in my terrible Spanish where was a hotel. Hoping upon hope there was a second.

And there was another hotel! Around that corner. Heaven arrival again! "Hola?" "Hola!" I called around. Completely closed up. 

My goodness. What a day. 

A withered elderly lady came out of her house from across the street. I asked her, in my infantile Spanish, "hotel?". She had teeth only on the left side of her mouth and she explained a lot of fascinating things to me. None of which I understood. I think she was telling where to go to _find_ the hotel keeper. A treasure hunt in a language I struggled with? 

But the phone number of the hotel was helpfully listed on the front of the building. I was so grateful to Senora Left Teeth for calling the number for me on her phone. Miss Hotel would be right over. Hallelujah! Senora had me wait with her, telling me many illuminating things about the town and her life and her granddaughter and whatever else because I comprehended not a word of it. 

This young gringa visitor from out of town! Ah! How lovely it is to have someone new to talk to! But how she does listen with such a bemused expression. 

My room is very clean, with firm beds, gentle sweet lighting, and a shower curtain with the Eiffel tower on it (?). I have never relished a space so much. 

This was the wipest-outest I've felt on this trip so far. I padded slowly out to find dinner, after my first ever siesta (yes! there's a reason for these), and instead found mostly colorful fishing boats and more wind and the waves bristling with white caps. A single restaurant was open, where I was the only guest, and they cooked me an enormous platter of scrambled eggs. An entire egg carton of eggs probably. They were the best thing I had ever eaten since those E. B. Cookies. Until I set into them did I realize how famished I was and I ate the whole mess and felt amazing. 

I've sourced my squeeze feedbag packet of yummy refried beans from a basic tienda, kept the extra tortillas from dinner, and thus am ready to ride tomorrow's tailwind as early as I please. Tomorrow night I booked a room in the touristy town of Progreso, which will be an enormous contrast to tonight, a contrast that will be both irritating and welcome. 

Tonight's experience walking alone with the wind-beaten fishing boats, the swallowed sunset making the emptiness glow, is not what you will find written about in guide books. No tourist buses come through here. I felt like I was stepping into an untouched place. Challenging and barren-feeling. But precious and richer for that as well. 

 Harvested henequin

Henequin field

All the small towns I rode through today looked like this. Church with shade trees in park and loads of fenders selling fruit and tacos.

The eerie pink sands near Santa Clara

The emptiness of Dzilam de Bravo

Dzilam de Bravo

No tour buses here 

Dawn

I woke before my alarm at 4:40am, and decided to roll with this and rally earlier than I ever have before. I felt new from a good night's sleep, and settling into the transition into solitude, and a little concerned about the 30 miles of nothing road with headwind to traverse before the first town. Leaving at 5:25am felt like absconding in the middle of the night, to quietly unlatch the hotel gate and set off in the thick blackness. 

The street lights saw me through the small beach town and this meant I could safely negotiate toppes. 

At this hour I felt chilly, and was wearing my unattractive overshirt and a pair of knee warmers, which I had made for myself by slitting open the toes on my single pair of socks. Very dignified (ha). I also had a wonderfully bright tail light and a barely worthwhile headlight. 

It was fisherman's hour on the bridge over the lagoon; I wondered what they thought as a bizarre gringa biked past them over the dark water and then crossed out of the realm of street lights. We all wished each other good morning. And then it was the pitch darkness of the moonless mangroves. Because I had rode this road yesterday, I knew it was straight and pothole-less and trustworthy. And so thereunto I cruised. 

Frogs, which I hadn't heard in the daytime, chirped in a dense quiet chorus from the invisible swamp on either side of me. My tires hummed on the velvet road. I was riding due east, the earth spinning into the dawn and me pedaling fiercely towards it. It was breathlessly still out there, no wind. I am learning I can save myself the grief of headwind and undue heat by beating them awake. 

The faintest duffy pinprick of light appeared, like from the end of a tunnel, between the mangroves. I was zipping along at a glorious 15 mph and felt the buzz of how magnificent it was to ride in this kind of mood lighting. It was meditative and exhilarating together to move in the imperceptibly diminishing darkness. I've never stayed up all night to watch the sunrise, but it was amazing to witness it while pumping myself full of endorphins. 

And the birds! After fisherman's hour came bird watcher's hour. Parrots hacked their uncultured song, a flamingo flew over me and gave me chills, and a Baltimore oreo sang a thick warble of a thing I've never heard before. 

The light grew to a faraway gentle grey-orange glow at the end of my road tunnel. And then more and more day occurred, until it was normal lighting, as if nothing magic had ever happened back there. 

And I got over the entirety of that long empty road before the wind set in and the sun began her flogging. Twenty-eight miles before 8am. Now, I am a morning person, but this level of earliness was more tremendous than I had ever dreamed of. I felt so happy. After 10am the slogging began, with the sun and the wind, but I had the taste of those delicious early miles still on my tongue. 

And I was able to get through the gross dusty exhausty mess of outer Merida, and into my sweet hostel by lunchtime, for an afternoon of latte, art museum, and city wandering. 

5:46am

5:53am

6:07am

6:52am

I found what I think was an abandoned hacienda (an agave plant fibre plantation). Like visiting ruins or a museum without paying a ticket. 

Slogging time has begun. I like bikes because if needed you can carry them where a car can't go. Like over highway barriers.

A little bike path (ciclopista) on the side of the highway through the gritty industry area. 

Flamingos! And the poignancy of many other things.

Celestún. Requisite beach sunset photo sorry.

Today Jen and I said goodbye. "This was more amazing than I ever could have imagined", we both said to each other, in that way that is so sad to be ending and so happy in gratitude. And Jen went to the airport and I got on my bicycle and pedaled out of Merida. 

My destination was 50 miles west, the beach town of Celestún. Pedaling alone through the morning pre-bustle of the city, leaving the colonial architecture, plowing through the characterless industrial suburbs, witnessing the gradual sloughing off of humanity's noise and mess and traffic, until I finally found myself on an empty, straight, seemingly-endless road through low trees. It was flat. It was almost entirely uninhabited. I had a tail wind. I cruised like I'd never cruised before, processing the solitude. Cars and tourist vans passed me with generous space, and I sent love to the ones who put their four-ways on to pass me. 

Later, in the restroom at the tourist center at my destination, two lovely Canadian retiree ladies: "did you ride your bike?! We SAW you!" Later, on the at a beach restaurant, I was adopted by another pair of Canadian snow-birds, who bought me a coffee and I sat with them and was happy to be talking in English. Hilariously, these two had visited Ithaca. Small world! 

Celestún town is set between the ocean and lagunas. Mangroves tangle lushly along the roadside, their fingers reaching stickily (heh) up for air out of the swamp. Pelicans fly along the beach. 

The first thing I did upon reaching town was to inquire about the boat tours to see the flamingos. It seemed they were mostly pre-packaged tour groups from Merida for the boats. I got really lucky; I asked a random guide how does one go about getting on a boat. "They are about 1,600 pesos to ride, for a group" he said.  I was certainly not a group. And that was certainly expensive. "But you could join mine", he said, "I have space for one. We leave in a little bit." So I locked up my bicycle, he got my 300 pesos and I got a spare space, joining some Canadians on their package tour. 

The boat sat six, with a little tarp roof, and we putted out into the lagoon. Then vroom, and engine pushing, we planed up and flew through the waters. The wind! The rush! How glorious. Especially having just come off a blast of a fifty mile ride.  

Flamingos are like Elvis or Santa or gnomes or unicorns. There is this fantastical love of them. And they are also overly-represented, so often chinzy, on tee-shirts, as dopey yard decorations, on coffee mugs. It's almost as if they are not real creatures after all. 

So when our boat carved through the lagoon, and in the distance I saw a spiky vague pink line above the water's surface: could it be?!, is that?! There they ARE. I actually choked up to see them. 

Who cries when they see flamingos? I mean, come on.  

But I was seriously moved. They were a shade of neon orange and pink mixed together that is unlike any other color. That such brightness EXISTS on this Earth. And with such graceful necks, those famous half-heart necks. The birds walked their strange back-knee bendy walk, and uncoiled their springy long necks to dip into the water, and were totally unawares of the wonder they were causing. 

A group of them stood in a rough line, and the first took off into flight. There's better fishing on the other side! And one by one, like school kids boarding a school bus, each took off. Each jogged a bit on the water, funny running legs, then tucked feet straight behind them, reaching cruising velocity, and glided away. 

To see them in flight with their distinguished black beaks tipping their long pink necks, was even more amazing than witnessing them in standing poses. 

Then I found a very basic hotel for $14 (it's hard to splurge on something fancier when you're not sharing it), with the necessary fan, screens, and wifi. Who cares if there's no toilet seat? 

The ocean was impressively calm, mirror flat, and teal and in I went. Swimming is one of the most delicious movements, so many planes of limb movement available, compared with biking which exists in a single plane. Amazingly, after I got out the wind picked up, blowing sand into drinks and tipping over umbrellas and cresting white caps on the water. How lucky was I! 

This town is lulled and empty, save for a few blissed out tourists, because it's not the weekend. I had a bit of a project sourcing things to eat for breakfast (but now I have fixings for banana-manchego-dulce-de-leche Tortillas Delight for the morning, in addition to my peanut butter, in addition to all the crab I could pack into my person tonight), because I know nothing will be open at the indecent hour at which I will leave tomorrow, to face the wall of headwind and the endless length of road waiting for me. That same wind which pushed me here so delightfully today. Perspective. Amazing how things can be so different when you head a different direction. I'm heading back to Merida for the night, and then on to more adventures north of that city. 

If you're reading, I'd love if you'd drop me a comment on the blog or on Facebook. I'm feeling pretty impecably lonely, as this is my first day as solo traveler. But there is no better way to study what something is than to do it. So here I go, and thus I will become an expert on solitude and see how I transition into my own headspace. Or maybe learn that I need friendship and companionship more than I ever knew. Anyway, here's sending you all every single ray of blistering sunlight that I can send! 

Finally outside the last valence of Merida and flying down an early morning empty flat road 

Flamingos! Baby flamingos are born white. Flamingos slowly grow to become pinker and pinker as they age, from the carotenoids in the crustaceans they eat. 

Flamingos take off to cross the lagoon. I was gaping wide-eyed at this sight.

The water in the lagoon is naturally red from the species of mangrove that grows here. This red color influences the crustaceans that live in it, and thus the flamingo that eat the crustaceans.

Cenote bubbling from a spring in the mangroves. Hordes of little tropical fish not shown.

Merida

I don't believe in the religious heaven, but I do believe that heaven shows up in moments here on Earth. And I encountered heaven in a beautiful shower at a courtyard-ed and shady hotel, with coffee, cold water free to drink, and functioning wifi. Clean rooms with towels and reading lights.

Actual reading lights! Not just a bared compact florescent stuck out of the wall. (We would stay in so many lovely rooms, plenty of hooks, nice towels, puffy pillows, pretty orange paint job. And the lighting would be that single naked compact florescent bulb. Go figure.) In addition to reading lights were two different soft fixtures set into the ceiling, and Jen and I flipped all the switches on and off, ooing with admiration. 

Anyway. Heaven would not have been so delicious if Jen and I had not spent the morning hunkered down in beast mode on the hot highway shoulder, navigating around belching old buses, making our way into and through the crowded bumpy streets of Merida. This city is our biggest yet (890,000 people or so) and looking at the map was like trying to make sense of some huge cross-stitch project. 

It was the end of the Jen and Sandra portion of the tour, and Merida was our Final Destination. 579 miles in total. Jen has been a truly wonderful companion: positive, patient, clever. And we were so often on the same wavelength with our needs and timing and preferences. 

And Jen flies out tomorrow morning and I have a week left here. I'm going to make a little loop to the beach towns around Merida and experience some solitude and relish more time in this colorful, sunny, and very friendly country. Of all places in the entire world to set off alone with your trusty bike and your beloved jar of peanut butter, the Yucatan peninsula is likely the best place out there. 

My biggest concern is not my "safety" (I have an entire peninsula of good-hearted people looking out for me, and I feel safer here than in many cities I've visited in the US) but instead about not speaking the language and not having someone to share meals with or recount the day to. Maybe this will be like a retreat. Maybe I will do a lot of writing. Will the pleasures of a bike trip be as wonderful if I can't be immediately describing and recounting them to my companion? Or will they became more poignant because of the heightened energy around them with no other focal point? 

For our non-biking post-arrival celebration day in Merida today, Jen and I did something you just don't do in the states. We walked to Walmart. Walked. In the states that would be asinine, walking through parking lots and strip malls. 

I'm a thoroughly co-op girl hippy dip: carless, all thrift-shoppy, and I hate Walmart. But here I go for the cultural curiosity. 

And in Merida there was a Walmart on the gorgeously leafy Paseo de Montejo, a wide boulevard of monuments and stunningly ornate french-style huge homes. And you want to walk along this pretty road, admiring the coconut palms and the wrought iron. And then you go into the Walmart, which happens to have a Tortilleria inside it (!?), and you buy fruit cocktail from the fruit buffet, after clandestinely stealing a piece of papaya off the serving spoon to test if it's possibly palatable, and you're floored that this cut fruit in Walmart is the sweetest juiciest stuff. 

And then you buy some mescal for your friends back home for $13 because you couldn't find mescal for an approachable price in any other shops in the city. 

Anatomy of a Biking Day

4:58 Alarm goes off 

4:59am Wottttttt am I....doing with...my life 

5:00 Oh yeah!! We get to ride bikes today! 

5:05 Hope system will be able to wake up enough to use toilet. Hope hunger will come. 

5:07 BOTH hunger & toilet. NOW. 

5:32 First breakfast: beans from a bag and garlic and tortillas in hotel room.

5:45 Set out on dark cool roads. Glory. 

7:31 Second breakfast: mini bananas 

8:20 Third breakfast: amaranth bars

9:21 Twenty-five miles down

9:23 Pass flowering tree full of parakeets

9:36 Butt "awareness" sets in. Ow. 

10:10 First lunch: that leftover bag of refried beans extruded onto chips. Best thing we've ever eaten. 

10:31 Now it is Officially Oppressively Hot 

10:40 Zoning out and cruising. 

10:41 Whoa! That's a roll of electrical tape on the roadside. Curve a circle and pick it up. 

10:45 Sun and a hill. What the heck is a hill? Are we there yet?

10:47 Cloud, downhill. I could do this forever! 

11:17 Flogged by sun. Large ancient church: major shade break needed. 

11:28 Cruising and day dreaming about Anthropic Principle. 45 miles down.

12:10 Arrival at our destination town. Heat, sunlight. Find shade. Consult google maps for hotel plan. 

12:31 Hotel room shower deliciousness, snacking. Marveling at beds and towels and not being in the sun.  Wash some clothes in sink. 

2:12 Venture out, squinting, looking for food. Why is everything closed? 

2:34 Oppressive heat. Oh right, it's siesta. Pad back to hotel. Flop on delicious beds, journal.

2:35 Chop garlic bwith pocket knives for tomorrow's bag o' beans breakfast. Did they specify Garlic or Non-Garlic rooms here? 

2:41 Snacking on carrots and peanut butter. 

2:51 Oops. Too much peanut butter. Damn. Will I ever be hungry again? 

3:20 Hungry again. Thank you, Emergency Backup Cookies. 

4:14 Head across street for terrible light beer because it's actually 5pm 

5:14 Finally cool enough to stroll around town. Duck into 3 different tiendas to source breakfast fixings (another bag of refried beans, an avocado for 20 cents) and road snacks (peanuts, a mango) 

6:01 Loud birds flock into trees in the town square to roost for the night. Sit on park benches, like everyone (yup, everyone) else is doing  

6:56 Darkness comes to rest. Street food vendors roll their little three-wheeled carts into the park and set up. Children chase each other happily. 

7:11 Eat an elote, a corn on a stick spread with mayo, chile, and lime. Best thing I ever ate. 

7:14 Eat tacos from street vendor, sit on red plastic chairs. Best thing I ever ate.

8:01 Evening stroll. People watching. How many kissing couples on benches can you count? 

8:34 Hotel bed flop again, journaling. 

8:50 Can we legitimize sleeping yet? 

8:51 Interneting. Hotel plan for tomorrow night and mileage planning. 

9:40 Lights out. Listen to neighbor's loud dinner party. 

9:41 Over and out. (weeeee tomorrow we get to do this again!)