Day 9: Tulum to Coba

December 21, 2023

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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?

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)

This photo is the right way around - that is how she was looking at us.

We were thinking Banana Quit, but it's a Great Kiskadee

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.

Do these guys have their seatbelts fastened?

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.

Another shot of a Tropical Kingbird. They, and Tropical Mockingbirds, are everywhere.

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.

A honey shop for our beekeeping friend Erika.

Other times when we have passed this town, we snap a photo of this hotel, thinking we might work in a stay here somehow.

We like the flowered scene above its restaurant

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.

The Jaguar warning sign is probably fantasy. Also, look at the guys clearing roadside brush with just machetes.

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.

Here is a flowering shrub we have not seen before.

It's a Ringworm Bush, also called Christmas Candle

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.

Here we are at our hotel in Coba. It is right by the lake.

Right near the hotel, as usual, was some of the best bird spotting:

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.

We are used to looking up on the wires for birds, but here we found epiphytes.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

This (fuzzy) shot of the Jacana still shows the oversized feet.

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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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4 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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4 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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4 months ago