Day 1 Cancun to Merida

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Yucatan Bicycle Tour

Day 1 Cancun to Merida

Paul assembles his bike.

Paul got in late last night. He assembled his bike while I arranged to leave our luggage at the hotel.

We planed to start our tour in the City of Merida, a four-hour bus ride from Cancun.

Paul went into a supermarket to buy water while I waited outside with our bikes. A young boy of about 10 or 11 years old was looking at our bikes. Wanting to try out my newly acquired language skills, I started a conversation Spanish. I showed him my hub generator and explained how makes electricity to power the front and rear lights. I asked him why he wasn't in school (it was 10 a.m. on a Wednesday). He told me he didn't go to school until the afternoon. His name is Francisco. He seemed like a really nice kid.

We rode several blocks to the bus station. A few hundred feet from the station, I got a flat. So we walked our bikes the rest of the way. I decided to wait until we arrived in Merida to fix the flat.

The bus ride was pretty boring. The bus traveled on a limited access highway. The only thing we saw was miles and miles of scrub. As we got closer to Merida, we saw lots of downed trees and utility poles that had been recently replaced due to hurricane Isadore in September.

We saw some American movies on the bus. All the other passengers were Mexican. The second movie was some teenage party flick. What an embarrassing representation of American culture and youth!

Upon our arrival, I fixed that flat. The tube I replaced contained Slime, a substance that is supposed to seal small punctures. However, I didn't have a puncture. The tube had a defect and burst, filling the entire tire casing with obnoxious fluorescent green goop.

A fountain in our hotel in Merida.

Once I completed the repair, we found a hotel downtown near the central plaza. We chained up our bikes to the plumbing fixtures in our room and set out on foot for dinner and sight seeing. Walking around the crowded streets of Merida, we experienced sensory overload. Sales clerks were constantly trying to lure us into their shops.

One younger guy managed to lure us into his friend's shop because he liked to talk about his Mayan heritage and came across as a very sincere person. I bought a nice Panama hat. The original asking price was 850 pesos ($85 US). I originally said yes, because I screwed up my math and figured the price at $8.50 U.S. When we tried to leave, the price started dropping like a stone. I wound up buying it for $300 pesos ($30 US). I wasn't trying to bargain with the guy. I was simply trying to get out of there. But, the hat was very nice to have when walking around Mayan sites I the hot sun.

So far I've found the Mexicans to be friendly, hard-working people. By the end of the trip, the constant badgering on the street got quite annoying. But they are just trying to make a living in a tough economy. However, the only places we were pestered on the trip were Cancun, Merida, and Playa del Carmen.

Cathedral

Flag Ceremony

Conquistador

After supper we went to the main plaza. It was one of the nicest municipal parks that I've seen anywhere. We watched a police band and honor guard lower the Mexican flag in an elaborate ceremony.

We visited the city hall with lots of beautiful art. Merida has lots of nice public art and architecture. We also visited an impressive cathedral.

Continue to Day 2