Day 17: Homun to Oxkutzcab

December 29, 2023

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The clean airy room and comfy bed at the Papagrande were super restful and left us in the morning with plenty of get up and go. We did that very early, taking a bit of pleasure in rousting out the lady to get the front gate unlocked.

Packing up at the Papagrande and getting ready to call on the lady to unlock the gate.

Here is our street, looking so much like the streets of all the western Yucatan towns. We pedaled around to the main square (Plaza Principale), where the town has its name in coloured letters. From there, of course, we could see the church, which is the expected combination of a large rectangular shape, some towers, and maybe a dome at the back.

Somebody's yard, on the way out of Homun.

Out here in western Yucatan, but southeast of Merida, we are in a special area. The government calls it the Culture Route, and we have also read the term Convent Route. The region has quite a density of little towns, most with a significant colonial church, and with Mayan ruins, and also many cenotes, lying about.

The two maps below give a good idea of all the roads and towns and churches and such that fill the region. We copied the maps from a billboard down the road, so the "you are here" does not correspond to where we actually are in today's story. Homun, where we are still, is a little north of the "you are here".

Our adventure today involves wandering from town to town, in each one absorbing the ambiance of the people going about their business (usually with push powered or moto adapted cargo bikes), checking out the central square and iconic church of each place, and yes, even running into a few surprises.

To make our way down to Oxkutzcab we began with the route that Google Maps had set out as suitable for bikes. Here below is the beginning of that route. It looks reasonable, so here we go!

But wait, it's a classic Grampies trap. You get sucked in so far, and then it's trash.

We looked on the GPS, with the "bike route" in purple/blue and decided to hell with it. Instead we would backtrack to the yellow roads. In fact, out here there is almost no way to go wrong, when you choose a bigger road. The traffic and the drivers will still be gentle, and even a big looking one on the map is probably quite small.

So we turned around, but still ran into these Muscovy ducks, before getting back into town, and also two cute cows.

Back in town, though early, the butcher shop was swinging into operation. I have spared us a photo of a pig's head looking out of a bucket in a nearby wheelbarrow. But one shot I would have liked to get was of a cargo bike going with a huge pig sitting calmly where one would usually put abuela. The bike flashed by in the other direction and disappeared. Later I was trying to replay the scene, wondering if the pig was being held in in some way. I think not.

Also before finally leaving Homun we stopped at a little grocery, to stock up on survival cookies.

We have already learned that OXXO has a quasi bank function, taking payments for bills of various types. But outside the grocery I saw that it too had a function like that. Mainly it seemed to deal with streaming video services, but also handled telephone. It was surprising to see how many streaming things the people here might be involved with.

We set off out of town now. See the thoroughfare we are on! It's one of the yellow roads on the GPS. We so much appreciate having the street filled with cargo bikes (even if motorised) as opposed to car traffic.

I liked this flower in the box. Calla Lily?

We had not gone far before we ran into this version of a French "route barree". Here we have not one but three dogs sleeping in the street. Should we let them lie?

Finally we had our desired clear shot on a good road. Here below is what it looked like. This is the kind of cycling we enjoy coming here for.

We were soon at our next town, Cuzama, with it colourede letters, square, and church.

This lady is not doing the laundry, but setting out clothes in the square for sale.

We grabbed another thoroughfare out of town.

Here is a house of typical Mayan construction.

I think this horse has a job pulling carts of customers to a nearby cenote.

But I couldn't get a clear answer on it out of him.

Mayan style can be seen quite a bit in this area.

The black roofing is not metal but is rather tar papery.

This place could have used some of that paper.

A smokestack in the middle of nowhere. We could not see what this might have been part of.

We have rolled into Chunkanan, with its church. It was so small that if not for the photo I would have forgotten that we were there.

Here now is something that we found really fascinating. Hanging in the trees like a termite nest, this thing was covered with its inhabitants. From the distance we were thinking of crawling ants. But these guys fly, and look wasp like. They were going in and out of a hole in the bottom. ID anyone?

Here, Dodie liked the blue vine among the pale yellow flowers. You have to look for a bit to see the blue.

Past San Isidro Ochil we had more dogs in the road. In fact dogs were everywhere today. We like to note them sleeping in the road because it's an indication of the extent of road (non) traffic. Many dogs barked at us, many ignored us, some begged for food, but none were an actual problem.

People can often be seen out at random looking points of the road collecting either firewood, or greenery, as in this case. A cargo bike is great for these purposes, though we saw one man trying to load a pile of firewood on his moto.

You can see in this shot how the road is beginning to undulate. We are approaching the hillier Puuc region.

We were trying to show some kind of hill with this shot.

We got a surprise not far out of Tekit, when we encountered another set of touring cyclists coming our way. This turned out to be Marie, and Matt from New Zealand, with young Liam in the trailer. These three had started in Cancun and taken the bus out to Merida. I think they will cycle around until Valladolid, before taking the bus back east to Cancun. They did mention having a mind to cycle to Cancun, but they will not want to be taking the trailer on 307.

A couple of their moves are a little bolder than what we want to do. They threw their bikes and gear under the bus for the trip across from Cancun, and they have hired a Cancun bike shop to pack the bikes and later give them lift to the airport. They also did not seem to get quite so ripped off by Quantas for bringing over all the gear: The bike boxes were treated as ordinary checked baggage, the trailer rode free, as a kid stroller, two of their panniers were free carry on bags, and so forth.

They think this will be their last trip quite like this, because the little one will have outgrown the trailer. But we put them in mind of a WeeHoo, or other bigger kid solutions. Marie noticed my Icebreaker (New Zealand) wool shirt with pleasure. I snapped her photo with their New Zealand flag. I figure Trisha Graham in particular will get a kick out of it.

It was not long before we were entering Tekit, where the New Zealanders had spent the night. It was again the quiet streets with the gentle cargo bikes, and the coloured lettering with the town name. But Tekit has a special claim to fame, styling itself the world capital of the Guayabera. "Guayaberas , also known as Yucatan shirts , are men's clothing that covers the upper part of the body, similar to a shirt and usually made with long sleeves . They are decorated with vertical tucks, and sometimes with embroidery, and have pockets on the chest and skirts. "

We found a shady bench in the square in which to eat our bananas and yogurt. Looking around, we saw that we shared the area with mostly men, who we assume have been parked here by their wives, who could be shopping.

Here again is our typical road. The town of Mama, by the way, means No, no in Mayan.

Entering Mama there was what could be the ruins of a church.

We finally found Santa Claus - at Mama town hall!

Mani's welcome said it's time to eat, but strangely, as in all the squares today, there were no food vendors.

We are starting to run into orchards, oranges in this case. Soon I would be able to sample lime, and pomelo, making the mistake of being too close to the path!

Here is the convent of San Miguel Arcangel, built 1549. It was part of the 1567 (1562?) inquisition in which the bishop Diego de Landa grabbed and burned a large number (27?) of Mayan holy books, as well as torturing Mayan people. I had earlier thought Landa succeeded in wiping out almost all Mayan history, but there may still be the " Books of Chilam Balam which were handwritten, chiefly 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies, named after the small Yucatec towns where they were originally kept, and preserving important traditional knowledge in which indigenous Maya and early Spanish traditions have coalesced. They compile knowledge on history, prophecy, religion, ritual, literature, the calendar, astronomy, and medicine. Written in the Yucatec Maya language and using the Latin alphabet, the manuscripts are attributed to a legendary author called Chilam Balam, a chilam being a priest who gives prophecies and balam a common surname meaning ʼjaguarʼ. Some of the texts actually contain prophecies about the coming of the Spaniards to Yucatán while mentioning a chilam Balam as their first author." Our being in these towns of Mani, and especially nearby Chumayel is loosely equivalent to being in Bethlehem or Mecca, in the Christian or Muslim traditions.

In Mani, scene of many Spanish atrocities, there exists the cult of the green (or purple) cross. These are displayed as symbols of ungoing Mayan resistance.

Here is a look at the framing underlying the thatched rood houses here.

We finally made it to Oxkutzcab, heading in on the very long main street, which was nicely decorated with pennants.

We arrived at the market, near the main square and the church. This market has an outside sales area with wholesale quantities of fruits. We saw a really large pile of pineapples, and one of durian, plus large quantities of oranges and limes. Tomorrow we'll return for a really close look.

There is a large mural above the outside sales area, depicting local farm and market life.

The market also has brightly coloured non food stuff.

Out hotel, the Puuk, looks in this section just like a motel.

Outside the hotel, a corn goddess exiting a cob of corn.

We walked back from the hotel to the market and got a table at a nearby restaurant. These were Dodie's chicken natchos:

Mass producing sandwiches, with avocado and tomato!

Back through the square, we still have very cheery lighting to look at. We are looking forward to returning here and to the market, before cycling off somewhere. We have booked an extra night here.

Today's ride: 73 km (45 miles)
Total: 654 km (406 miles)

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Laurie MarczakJoni says “insufficient fruit content!” Hopefully tomorrow will produce better results ;)
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4 months ago

Laurie MarczakTo Laurie MarczakIn fact! Here in chilly Victoria Joni is currently noshing on raspberries I brought her AND a strawberry banana smoothie. She says “top that!”
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4 months ago