Day 9: Tulum to Coba - Grampies Yucatan De Nuevo, Winter 2023 - CycleBlaze

December 21, 2023

Day 9: Tulum to Coba

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The fixed breakfast today was same as yesterday, but with some subtle changes: Pineapple (pina) was added to the fruit bowl, and the juice of the day was mango. The idea of eating mainly fresh tropical fruits is something I think about when considering what would be a really healthful way to live. In the fantasy, the fruits would be followed by jumping into the sea, or maybe a cold lake or cenote. In reality, though, eggs and probably bacon, and real bread like baguette or brotchen or bagel is needed for happiness, and no doubt for cycling long distances.  Here in the short run, though, inflated prices are keeping us from adding eggs to the mix, and good bread anyway does not exist in this country.  So does that mean that I am not happy? Not quite. But watch out if a diet of mainly fruit persists for too long!

Ok great, now where are the eggs and bagels?
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Curiously, although we may be out trying to spot birds during the day, the trees right outside our rooms have been great places to see new birds. Today (while eating all that fruit) we spotted a dramatic Plain Chacalaca. It's a large bird, called chicken-like  (galliformes) in our guide book. Apparently they can destroy your garden, and a passing local looked up where we were looking, and named it easily. Maybe he had seen them in his garden!

31 Plain Chacalaca (note, we have started to give "new" birds a number, showing where it stands in the list of our discoveries. i.e. this is new bird for us on this trip, #31)
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Suzanne GibsonYou have become quite the birders, and it seems to me in a very short time! I'm impressed.
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10 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesWe always liked to spot birds, but it was embarrassing not to know or remember what they were. Now we have some guide books to help. Scott, and Bill Shaneyfelt have been really encouraging as well, plus the camera you and Scott recommended. With the camera though, I do have lots of out of focus shots, though I think the AF is set ok, at Spot. I also don't understand that Post Focus thing - do you? Finally, the optical viewfinder is not helpful - poor quality small image - yet it's hard to find a distant bird in the initially very zoomed out view. Do you have any tips on any of this?
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10 months ago
Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesJust to butt in here (I assume this was meant for Suzanne, though it wasn’t posted as a response). I can’t speak to the optical viewfinder, because I never use it. I just use the window. Likewise the post focus function - I’ve never used it, and just do my best to make sure it’s suitably focused when I take the shot rather than try to improve it later.

I do think there’s some learning about how to get a well-focused shot with this camera though. It might be easier using the window, but what I do is center it on my subject and then give the camera time to resolve to it - it can take a second sometimes, but you can see the image clarify while you wait. It’s one of the reasons that taking shots while you’re moving generally doesn’t work well with this camera - in my observation at least it needs some time to figure it out. Also, sometimes I’ll need to zoom in or out to find the resolution it can focus successfully on, especially if there are other competing candidate focal objects like shrubs and branches to confuse it.

As far as locating the damn bird though, particularly if it’s far off I normally need to find it first and then zoom in.
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10 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Suzanne GibsonSorry, Suzanne, the reply to your comment got posted as a new comment instead of a reply. There IS a reply posted for you if you feel like looking at it.
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10 months ago
Suzanne GibsonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI'm glad Scott butted in because I'm probably the world's worst bird photographer. I know it takes a lot of practice while keeping everything Scott pointed out in mind. I've tried now and again but had a hard time finding the damm bird whether zoomed in or out.
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10 months ago
This photo is the right way around - that is how she was looking at us.
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We were thinking Banana Quit, but it's a Great Kiskadee
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We took to the road to Coba, and were amazed again by all the heavy, fume belching, heavy trucks, coating us with dust. It had me thinking again,  firstly about how far the economy here is from any image of quiet, zero emission electric vehicles gliding along on their efficient missions.  But also I think about how heaven and hell coexist here, so close by each other. It's like the income disparity that also exists in many countries - with super rich and super poor people quite near each other. As  foreign tourists, we would have a tendency to be occupying the heavenly spaces, with local affluent people and other tourists.  But as cycle tourists, we also delve into the other worlds, of garbage and poverty, and belching trucks covering us with dust. It's kind of a knife edge, and we can flop back and forth a lot within a single day.

Cycle tourists out here are not in the paradise bits of this place.
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Do these guys have their seatbelts fastened?
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As we cycled along, Dodie in particular was always scanning the jungle on the sides. And sort of like a pointer dog, she would suddenly stop and indicate a bird in the distance. That way we got some good shots, and a lot of the birds were new to this blog. We are finding this bird spotting a lot of fun, and it certainly adds interest to what could possibly be boring kilometers.

32 Groove Billed Ani
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Scott AndersonBeautiful. I’ve never seen one in the wild.
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10 months ago
A Tropical Kingbird
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Another shot of a Tropical Kingbird. They, and Tropical Mockingbirds, are everywhere.
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Scott AndersonEh? Are you sure it’s not another tropical kingbird?
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10 months ago
Bill ShaneyfeltGoogling images of the swallow, none had the yellow... Scott might be right.

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=592991994&rlz=1CAVARX_enUS1023&q=Ridgway%27s+Rough-Winged+Swallow&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixtIG8jaKDAxVMrYkEHfneClYQ0pQJegQIDhAB&biw=1366&bih=599&dpr=1
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10 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonYou are right, of course.
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10 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Bill ShaneyfeltYou, and Scott, are quite right. Thanks for the correction.
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33 Altamira Oriole
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About 20 km out of Tulum we came to the little town of Macario Gomez. This is a unique place, where very many shops offer macrame, wicker work, furniture, and that ultra colourful Mexican pottery. We would love to take a lot of it home, especially the pottery. Many years ago we did actually manage to bring back a sink, but foolishly eventually sold the house where we installed it.

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A honey shop for our beekeeping friend Erika.
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Tropical hardwood raw materials
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Interesting colour and texture.
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Other times when we have passed this town, we snap a photo of this hotel, thinking we might work in a stay here somehow.
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We like the flowered scene above its restaurant
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Does this count as a bird shot?
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Scott AndersonSure, as the one below counts as a people shot.
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10 months ago
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The pattern inside a sink
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Suzanne GibsonA floral shot
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10 months ago
We love these.
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The real "Senor Frog"!
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Dodie liked these blankets and dresses.
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Don't mess with this Kapok tree. But they have the silky pods called Pochote in Mayan and used for clothing. I seem to recall as a child that life vests were filled with Kapok.
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The Jaguar warning sign is probably fantasy. Also, look at the guys clearing roadside brush with just machetes.
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As we approached the second of the two little towns on our route, Manuel Antonio Ay, Dodie was saying we should stop and maybe just eat a little of the fruit we had along and some cookies. I balked at this, so we started to look for a restaurant, or maybe just a taco stand. We found one and I went in to check out the menu. They had Poc Chuc, since we were now a lot closer to Yucatan state, but the price was 290 pesos. I told the restaurant man that he was way out of line, and flounced out. So it was fruit and cookies on a bench! I was beginning to think that it was now I that was out of line, and that it could be fruit and cookies to the end. But this soon turned around, as we will see at the bottom of this page.

34. Ridway's Rough Winged Swallow.
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Another Rough Winged swallow.
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Scott AndersonNow that looks right.
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10 months ago

Here is a flowering shrub we have not seen before.

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It's a Ringworm Bush, also called Christmas Candle
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Just a Tropical Kingbird?
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Watching the dump trucks charging ahead of us on the highway, I was wondering where they were all going, in such a rush.  I thought maybe we will catch up with where they stop, and see. This below is the only one we found. It was dumping obvious demolition rubble on some farm land out near Coba.  Back home, a situation like this with contaminated soil from town being dumped near our place in the country caused a storm of protest that had local reps dumped from office.

One other explanation of all the truck traffic is the ongoing construction of the "Tren Maya"  "The Tren Maya is a 1,554-kilometre intercity railway in Mexico that traverses the Yucatán Peninsula. Construction began in June 2020 and the Campeche-Cancún section began operation on December 15, 2023, with the rest of the line to open later." It is very contoversial , with concern about the effect on the cenotes. It is currently being operated by the military.

Ah, so that's where you were going!
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35 Grey-Breasted Martin (Swallow)
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Here we are at our hotel in Coba. It is right by the lake.
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Right near the hotel, as usual, was some of the best bird spotting:

36 Ruddy Ground Dove (male and female)
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37 Northern Jacana
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Scott AndersonGreat that you could get so close. This is another one that almost never makes it north of the border, but I was lucky to see one here in TUCSON. He hung around in the same spot for several weeks. If you see another, look at their amazing feet.
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10 months ago
38 Anhinga
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39 Orchard Oriole
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40 Great Blue Heron
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We cycled around the lake, to the extent that there was roadway. We ended at what turned out to be a luxury boutique hotel (Coqui Coqui COBA Residence & Spa) where the apparently  famous company that runs it also manufactures perfumes and chocolate. 

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Snowy (Lesser) Egret
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We are used to looking up on the wires for birds, but here we found epiphytes.

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Here is the Lol-Ha, our customary hotel, and the good grocery that is beside it. For some reason Booking was not showing availability at Lol-Ha, so we ended by the lake.

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BBQing chicken is a common activity by the roadside, and it seems very yummy.  This whole chicken would cost 240 pesos, which with no side dishes seemed like a lot to us, plus it's a messy choice.

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Scott AndersonYou’re not numbering this one?
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10 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesNot on the grill (or on the plate).
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10 months ago

We headed back around the lake and toward the Coba ruins site, looking for a good restaurant. On the way, of course, we did see some nice birds.

Hooded Oriole
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41 Pied-Billed Grebe
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The Anhinga, has no hook to its beak.
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At the restaurant the "Cocodrilo", which incidentally has a marsh across the street where in a past year we actually did see a cocodrilo, we at last found a menu with the dishes we expect, and at the prices we remember. Poc Chuc - 135 pesos - Correct!  Plus it was terrific, perfect, the tacos too. We are so happy.  (Almuerzo is a word we just learned the other day - it means lunch).

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Sue PriceWe loved that restaurant! I believe we bought a table cloth there 😊
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10 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesWe were really glad to see the good old prices, and good quality too!
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10 months ago
Right on, perfect!
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Good tacos.
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Here are our bikes at the restaurant. It's a great half outdoors eating arrangement. The marsh with the cocodrilos is at the right, off camera.
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The Grackles came in to roost on the reeds. They may feel safe here from predators that don't want to get their feet wet.
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This (fuzzy) shot of the Jacana still shows the oversized feet.
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Scott AndersonOh, you did get a look!
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10 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonIt was quite a time later than the first one, which we did not recognize until we looked it up, but the feet are a giveaway.
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10 months ago
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Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 325 km (202 miles)

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Bill ShaneyfeltBird list... I once tried to keep a life list, but after Ornithology and Herpetology and Entomology and... I kinda gave up keeping a list. More power to you if you can!
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10 months ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Bill ShaneyfeltWe will at least try to keep this up for the remainder of this trip.
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10 months ago
Bill ShaneyfeltTo Steve Miller/GrampiesSounds fun! It would be neat to do each trip, and then you could go back and see any differences. That's how some scientific discoveries have been made.
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10 months ago