Dear Friends,
Arrived Kantunilkan earlier today and taking a break during the heat of the day before heading north to catch a ferry from Chichila to the island of Hol Box. There are friends of a friend there that I hope to connect with. Beyond, maybe bus south to Tulum.
I left Ciber Cafe Americano in Tizimin late in the day after the last posting. Howard, eight years in Mexico from Texas, was very helpful with directions. He suggested camping in the next town, Kil Kil and asking the commasario for permission. I arrived there and it didn't feel that comfortable, no privacy at all. Continued, asked the usual question. Rode past Estancia Retiro they were doing something with their cows. Was this the place? Turned around and asked Luis the in charge ranch hand if I could stay. It was okay. They were moving 30 head of cows gto Belice. The ranch name means retreat. It was. Carlos was the other worker there I met. Muggy and humid early then cooled off with clouds in the early AM accompanied by heavy dew. The wind came up, the wind mill spun. I filled water bottles and soaked my shirt for the air conditioning effect.
But before all that just after I got up went to the nearest horse stall and just rested my arims on the top boards about head high. These are smaller horse of Spanish descent. The mare was a pretty roan color about my height. I didn't speak words but gave it my best horse whisperer murmurings. And she came right up to my face with those big soft nostrils and smelled as I continued with the sweet nothings watching her ears. Then she did the most unexpected thing and rested her head on my shoulder and left it there for a time. It would seem communication was made on another level - love - just by being present with that energy. Way cool!
Well, you should know when I returned to the ranch late the following day after a foray north to Rio Largatos and Las Coloradas she was away to the fiesta in Tizimin. The next AM the lose stallion was hanging around outside her stall with sex on his mind. She remembered me but with some disinterest. Go figure!
The first day north I made it to a point short of Las Coloradas on the edge of huge commercial marine salt evaporating ponds. The wind was blowing hard and salt foam was crossing the pond dike in places. I found the largest bush to hunker down behind and pitch a tent. It was dense vegetation over sand. In the fading light I'm fixing dinner with my bike bag for a wind break. Eeek, I saw then a black scorpion crawling on the bag. Where did that come from? I managed to flick it off but checked all my things thereafter for its relatives.
One of the most unique places I visited on my way to LC was Peten Tucha. Here, subterranean water comes to the surface at a cenote pouring out in two places into the mangroves that form a part of Biosphere Rio Laguarto. A sign there said no swimming, crocodiles. I didn´t see any but didn't go swimming either. I learned there are four species of mangrove, red, black, white and one other not remembered. Some of these at least grew around PT.
The maybe plan was to try and reach Cuyo by beach road from LC but the pavement ended there and sand began thereafter. My skinny tired bike was unsuitable. I gave up the idea after talking to local fishermen. One was a Frenchman that spoke some English. He gave me some bottled water but it tasted funny. Water here is precious and I kept it for a time.
I have made a determined effort to not put any more plastic in circulation by buying bottled water. Luis at the ranch gave me one and I needed an extra liter. The other I brought with me. It was a discard by the roadside in Montana, as I recall. Individual choices we make matter. The same with plastic bags from a store but its not easy. We've conditioned to plastic bags that everywhere here are used to hold purchased goods. This is a monster we've yet to collectively tame. You almost get used to seeing the roadside littered with plastic basura, much of it with the Coca Cola label. Why? This is clearly intolerable. We've allowed our Mother Earth to be contaminated with all kinds of trashy things bad for all health and her long term welfare and this is one of them. Off the soap box!
My water tasted bad. I wanted to replace it as I headed downwind and south in a few clicks out of LC. I realize even traveling slow on a bike you can get sucked into seeing more places rather than enjoy the moments as they come. Peten Tucha cames to mind again, fresh water, a potential bath in an outlet stream during the heat of the day. Why not! It was a short bike in. I climbed the Mirador,, a viewing tower you could never duplicate in the States. My wet cloths dried in the breeze 41 wide steps later. I read the sign carefully on the way in, motorbikes prohibited, nothing about bicycles. I nearly forgot, seeing the red flamingos in the ponds around LC were worth the visit. I even saw an old "friend" there from the north somewhere, a yellow legs. And it sure looked like a line of tree swallows hanging out on a power line by one of the ponds.
Saturday night back at the ranch late. Loud music from the fiesta in Tizimin some clicks away could be heard in the still night air. It didn't abate until well into the AM. Ear plugs only partially helped. That night I sat on a bag of silage fed to the ranch bulls while Luis and Carlos were talking about work and pay and getting nowhere. I got up to go to bed and felt a wet back side. My hand came away sticky and reeking. I washed most of it out. But in the night air I could smell the silage pit upwind from my new camp site. A skunk passed sometime in the night. You don't forget that smell. A male Tom cat was yeowling for a lover. All-in-all not the soundest nigh'ts sleep I´ve had on the road. But then I didn't ask if Retiro was to be my home for the night either but it was.
Sunday I made my way into Tizimin with a crowd of fiesta goers. I'm thinking this is thief time. So I try to be present. I go to a local shop to buy a belt. I told Lorenzo I would return to buy one I liked if he got the right length for me. He had and I bought one. His handicapped daughter Marcila, I didn't hear her name cleary, helped him. I asked if he would take less and he said I don't have a tourist price. I liked that. In the process one glance across the street at the beginning should have been a forwarning. A man was sitting on the curb watching. In getting money out of my pack I failed to put my bag of toilettries back. With my back turned and distracted, not present, it got nicked. I didn't notice until several stops later.
Lessons not learned have a way of returning until we do. Being both in one's mind and out of it - present and aware of the energy around us is a learning process not yet mastered by yo mismo. Nothing significant gone, stuff. In the past I'd have beaten myself up about it but no longer. All of us are good enough, we make mistakes. From diapers we're just taking our first tentative steps into a new consciousness and way of being. The first person to show love and compassion towards is yourself. That one has taken me a long time as the chronometer clicked over to 70.
I looked in my bike mirror the other day to look at a nose bleed and was given quite as fright. I looked my age. But grateful to be doing what I´m doing.
From Tizimin to San Hippolito and camp behind the house of another Luis and Jose who kindly let me pitch my tent in a place where there was a bit of soil to hold my stakes in this rocky ground. It was good to be off the road as traffic was intense returning to Cancun from Tizimin.
Time for me git. It's three hours to Chichila on a bike maybe a little less and it's 3:00PM here.
Onward,
Don Peace Rider
PS Mistakes of editing or omission thoroughly my own. By the way I met Juan Pablo, he was in Kil Kil and gave me good directions. To that name I responded he´s in Rome, JP laughed.
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