Zaci

Made it to Valladolid. Learned that touring three cenotes by bicycle tomorrow  will cost about 300 pesos with food. If he comes as my guide I should give him another 100. Chichen Itza will likely run me 250. So this leg of the trip is high rolling I guess.

I've decided to go with it though. Eat well, rest often, physio, heal, find wonder, taste awe, feel sexy, get brown, take my clothes off in the sun, get in the pool on the noon hour, get up early to catch the sights with the sunrise.

Had such a tough time awakening today. Was immediately nervous. Feeling the snapback of the intense relaxation provided by sedatives. Guy who took off in the night left his alarm beeping every ten minutes and I couldn't figure how to turn it off. Woke up sweaty after borrowing a blanket from one of a few beds that had folded wool blankets. They had been unoccupied then, but had someone sleeping in it now. Felt like a dummy, this was probably that guy's wooly blanket. Showered and dressed. It was only 6. Felt dumb waiting around for breakfast, and kind of roped into having a tour guide, so I ducked out to rent a bike and get my bus tickets so that I could leave here. Groggy.

Calle 41, colonial pretty.

Five days since I drank. I'm really wanting a bottle of wine. I'm feeling lonely tired feet bagged pained fat ugly old. I'm feeling wonder joy exhilaration empowered sexy. Sixes and sevens, with nothing up nor down here. Fried sticky poo face.Want to spend money on a shirt I might never wear. Want to have sex but nobody's near. Don't feel like eating so that's weird. Another friend is dead from drugs, so beautiful and young.

So meanwhile I'm living. I'm alive, and finding reasons to keep it up. This morning I was lonely, sad. I decided to circle back to the hostel and meet my guide, Hector, so I didn't have to be alone. I decided this as I was talking to a sunbathing iguana who lived in a hole near the top of the back wall of the convent. Talking to him. Yes.

So off I went down the road to awe. I greeted him in Mayan, and he corrected me with a great smile. He took me through the old neighborhood he grew up in. A place he says that has changed so much. Everyone has moved to Cancun to work. He did too, he said, bartending, snorkeling, and boat tours. But he missed the slower pace so he moved back. Sounds like we have much in common. Anyways, off we go and get the tickets... 




When I pay at the entry to the cenotes, it was 112 pesos. I decide to break a larger bill and gave 2 pesos to make it round. The seller counted carefully and took his time I thought. I asked him, "Oh no, have taken all your change?" But Hector says beside me quietly, "Oh it can be hard for them counting", and I remember that I've forgotten myself.

The entrances begin to look similar. Five wells now with stairs into darkness I have walked into. It is breathtaking. I cannot get used to the blue, the clear, the dome, the beautiful dome, with its ripples and curdles, its drips and folds, points and pokes [pokes pokes everything comes back to how much I want to get poked today... ugh, just to feel something...]. I'm losing the fear of the darkness since it's mostly so damn blue! I swim to the middle, just me, my whole place, and watch the swallows sing laps around the old root descending through the very apex of the ceiling next to the blinding light hole. Float on my back and imagine I am the sky I am the sky I am the sky and the dome flips and becomes a planet that my dark corners meet. And I lay beneath the hole where the sun blinds me and feel like the moon reflecting it back onto a mirror in the centre of the world. I remember my body as the fish are tickling me, gently licking and sucking... hahahaa enough. The hand sized dogfish here are getting a little too personal. Thanks for the drinks, boys.

The next hole is darker. So many bats cling to nothing on the even more decorated ceiling. Tiny soft bodies swaying nearer further nearer further nearer to one another with their tiny heartbeats. I lay on my back in the water and smile and feel warmed by their connection. I find I've drifted into a dark mass below the giant bulb of stalagmite here and spazz for shore. I swim to the hole of light in the centre. The light it feels more concentrated than the other one, the hole is smaller. This one has more people coming in and the large stalagmite makes me nervous.

Hector asks someone to take our picture. I realize how much I miss the feeling of a body next to mine when he puts his arm around me- by standing one step above me, he puts it over my shoulder. How long has it been?
We sit and I ask about the history of this place. He says this one, Dzitznup, is new, and that they are popping up all over the place. A pig fell in the little hole up there [That's what the name means, little pig.] when they were chasing it, to eat it. So close, so close! Then it was gone and they could only hear it squealing and splashing. He says they are often discovered like this. Then they search the jungle in a widening circle for the entryway. There is always an entryway, with an ancient stone stairway that has been covered over by jungle, or fallen away in disrepair.
Because the Mayans knew them all? I ask.
...Of course they did. There were more Mayans living here then, than people now. Hundreds of millions, he says, and they knew their lands. He goes on to tell me of the caste wars, and how both cathedrals were built with stones taken from the temples.
Stolen stones from the temples?
Yes. Demolished and rebuilt as churches.
I tell him what little I've learned of the codices, the enormous Mayan libraries, and how they were destroyed by the conquering invaders. He smiles and nods and says he is happy to meet someone who has taken time to learn something about this place. 

Today's paths

I ride home smiling. I'm so desperate I can't help but imagine he's hitting on me just a little. He tells me his wife is good and never gets jealous, and that we should go back to the hostel for a swim, and he'll give me a massage. Ohhhkay I'm not imagining it and gratefully decline. He shows me the pool and hammock place that I hadn't found yet. I got nervous about two minutes after sitting down and start to explain my plans for the rest of the day. He tells me he must go to work at a bar tonight and is leaving to get ready, and gave me a hug and kiss on the cheek. I thank him for the morning and offer him a gratuity which he crazily declined.

I rest for awhile, then ride the old streets. I want to see the other stolen stone cathedral, the big square, the markets, the street carts, the people, everything! Oh yeah and get food to eat to calm this delirium and return this rusty red bike for today.

The streets are noise & chaos. Really old heap of a converted Chevy truck > railed cargo carrier is broken down in the middle of this street that is too narrow for passing. I am careful to not hurry anywhere in this mess of bodies and traffic and carts and livestock, but I squeeze past and then the whole road is mine all mine as I wind n weave my clackety bike across the cobblybricks!

I loop around the great square, in front of the stolen stone cathedral. I catch two things from the sign: it faces north instead of east which is somehow unusual, and, it was entirely destroyed and rebuilt in 16something-17something. Another loop around the slow moving park. People sitting, watching, selling wares. I remember thinking I've been out too long with no sunscreen then dismissing that thought, in love with the heat and sweat. Get going towards the big supermarket. As I'm shopping, people are staring while I'm getting bread in the approved fashion of putting the rolls you've chosen onto the tin platter and delivering them to the bakery staff to bag and tag. A little boy with a balloon on a stick pokes me in the butt intentionally with it as his mother walks him past me. Ahoy, young future butt enthusiast! What the fuck is going on? He and his mother stand in the aisle and stare at me like they're scared. There is no way I said that out loud- or at least for sure not in Spanish, I'm thinking, as I move carefully away.
Since the bakery ladies are not coming to help me, I put the bread in my own bag and as I do, a young guy comes and tells me my tattoo is very nice, very good. My shoulders are covered by this shawl, so he must mean the Rompecorazones butt one, on the back of my thigh. I am wearing my boom boom shorts, of course. He's cute. He loves it, he says, and asks me where I am from. I thank him, tell him, and go about my collecting buns, and shopping for creamy mayo dressing. Hehehe.

Sandwich cake. I know right? Why don't we have this here?

He pops up again in the beans aisle, smiling away, as I'm considering beans on toast. Then, in the soup aisle he asks if he can take my picture. I say okay. I'm bewildered, and next we're cheek to cheek. Click. He gives me a hug, a kiss on the cheek, and he's gone again. Until I see him in the liquor aisle, telling me how beautiful I am. Can't take anymore, and bolt to leave. 
It dawns on me, on my ride down this incredibly narrow and busy street- and, yes, I'm deep in thought while watching what is coming from behind me-
THIS is how tall girls live!

Everyone stares, smiles, says hello. Women scowl, grab their husbands arm, but they all stand aside to allow you to gloriously float by; buoyed by the admiration of the many and the feeling that you cannot really fuck it up.
You can flirt. You can ask for favours. When you look at them, they swoon. It's like you let THEM feel special for being looked at by you. What a rush. What a feeling. A powerful, foreign feeling.

For the rest of the day, I note how much taller I am than the majority of the population. At barely 5'6". First time ever. 

Coba & the Ha-Ha-Ha's.

D.19.13 
22kms
My next day got hijacked by musty clothes at the laundry. I was pissed. I wanted to get moving, but I was forced to take most of my day to relax. The all-inclusive resort had taken a toll on my system. Slept, ate, walked, rode around Tulum in the rain. Expensive tacos and shops turned me off. The highway stop feeling of town and the palpable pace of change in the area were not inviting so I rested in the hostel, and mapped my new tangent. The rainclouds cleared out by 4, so I hurried to the bike shop and made a deal with the man there to return the bike from Coba. Normally, he would hold onto a persons passport as a  promise to return deposit on the rusty red beach bike. He decided to trust me and told me who and where to take it to before getting on my bus to Valladolid, where other rusty red bikes were waiting for me. I busted out of town, down a different wild highway's shoulder like a maniac accidentally freed. I don't know how many mindless hours of pedaling got me to Macario Gomez where I crashed for the night.

 

D.20.13
28kilometros.
A few more more hours slow riding to Coba that began on the dark highway at 5am. Checked my bag in at one of the hostels along the road in, ate some more substantial food than the nuts and bread I'd brought with me, got water, and pushed these wobbly legs onwards.

Some kind of map nonsense.

Sitting on top of the great mound at Coba. Handstands against the altar on top to move the blood in my legs otherways. First one up here this morning.

 
































 
Feeling my adventure in my heart... beginning.

 


































 

If I remember right, this round cornered one was a women's temple, or moon temple. More ghosts.

I liked the roundy one a lot.

 

































What a day. 
Earlybirding the ruins to be the only one pushing my bike around the loop. Wandering alone around the crazy leftovers. I got no real feeling of depth, spiritual presence, or awe, but that's probably a residual deadening of my senses from the Ativan I'd taken the day before.The buildings were solid, beautiful in an eaten-by-the-jungle kind of way, and I got a charge from just that stoke to be leaving just as the tour buses rolled in, unloading their hordes of slow moving burnt skinned tourists. Passed out of the complex of paths and ancient stones as they filed in. Pushed alongside the Coba lakeshore and into the puebla. 
I heard there were cenotes a short ride away. Bumpy streets through Mayan villages, then over a hill, and back into the jungle, whee! The road had potholes- deep, mean, and many. But I got my groove and swerve back on and the smell- that tangy, dank, wet smell- began to emerge as I took deep breaths and pushed onwards. Citrus bright, and dark water sitting. Lizards jumped aside, and butterflies ganged up to show me the way. The road turned one long straight corridor into a step. It started to feel too far, but then I saw the cenote sign. Stretching my legs, I paid him for all three. He said I should start with the furthest, and pointed me on down the road some more.

 Two kms down the worst driveway ever, with the previous days of riding sitting on my buttbones so it was a little hectic and I'm thinking it had better not be a letdown. A shower is mandatory, then you enter a stone well. A wooden spiral staircase just going straight down, through this six or seven foot perfect circle hole in the ground. At three spins down, I couldn't see the natural light anymore from above. By six spins, I was wondering if my legs would carry me back out again. A few more spins and it emptied me into a corridor. A short, stoney corridor with a few steps before the cavern opens up above like a bumpy cupola inside the vaulted cathedral above, with crystal blue water below. And black frilly catfish the size of my hands hangin out all around the steps of stone and 'crete.
Swim in a little circle but I'm scared. It's deep and dark and the lighting isn't all there but it's so quiet, so deadeningly quiet, and peaceful and all mine and I float on my back for a sacred moment. Enjoying this peace before pedal. 
Climb back out, pedal the drive with salt-licking butterflies for an entourage. Back to the road, back to the other side, down a less long- but long, and less bumpy- but bumpy driveway to the next one. I shower, do the routine, and climb back down into the earth. This opening is bigger than the first. No one is inside this cavern that is bigger and has even darker corners. There are two giant pillars of stalagmite/tite that help hold up the ceiling and make me feel secure, but the water is cloudy for some reason and I'm put off by that and spooked by the quiet and emptiness and size and just don't want to swim in this one. So I marvel at the ceilings and the shapes, then bust over to the next and its the well-sized opening again. 

The 2nd cenote entrance

cloudy water

 




















Sit for a minute and have a smoke with the security guard, trying to practice my, "Hello, my name is, what is your name?", in Mayan. Great big smiles and lots of help. He teaches me butterflies. In Spanish it's pupillo, in Mayan, it is queechay.
Then descend. This narrow spiral staircase descends through the ceiling like a pillar, through the air. There is no stone wall surrounding this one. It's wild. First thing I see as I come below the earth is a jumping off board, from the top of the stairs. Ooohwee, this one's for me! Then another as the stairs wind tightly down down down. So much blue and more dogfish. And cool, fresh water. I swim. I float. I make the big, and bigger leap, and shout and hear my echo come back twice before I hit the water. Then I happily pedal the whole way back to town and eat more overpriced food. This coast is wildly expensive. After lunch I find the guy at the taxi stand who will return the bike and tip him. Then go wait for the next bus to come, watching lizards eat ants that are eating garbage. The lizards run away on their back legs waving their arms out like their yelling "aaahh!!" when I spook them and that entertains me for a whole hour, laughing out loud to myself every time. 

Start to stress about the time. I wait for two and a half hours and all I can think is how I want smokes and wine right now to celebrate this day. The taxi guys are trying to tell me there isn't a bus coming, they want my fare. Start to panic, what if there really isn't another bus? The guy at the food stop gave me the information for the Playa Del Carmen bus south, not north! Maybe I should have ridden onward, but my legs... my legs my legs. Maybe I should hoof it to the highway and hitchhike? Ugh, my legs are exploded. My whole patient, standing in the sunset, "I don't mind waiting, I'm hip about time", feeling is blown. Just when I start to really lose my cool, a bus rolls up that says Valladolid and I'm on my way.

From the ceiling- is stalagtites.

From below, stalagmites.

It is yelling at me, "I dare you, Emma!"

 

This pic isn't mine! I didn't get one of the crazy stairs.

Dos Ojos

D.18.13
35 kilometros
Back to the hostel for breakfast at eight. Feeling hostile to the people I'm surrounded by. Couples. Boys who only speak to skinny girls. Decide to get out and get pedaling, even after staring at the maps which are inconclusive about where the cenotes Dos Ojos are, but all promise it is no mas que 14 kilometros. Get set and hit the road- or the twisty sidewalk path- at a breakneck, excited pace. The fun sidewalk ends after the entrance to the ruins and then all there is to ride on is a wild and hectic highway's shoulder. I stop for a moment and reconsider this crazy plan. Only 12 kilometres to go, I say to myself, I can do this. Praying for no flat tires, I get there two hours later. Beach cruisers with kickback brakes are not made to cover distance! It was not as flat as a chalkboard! And did I really NOT think to bring water? I would get better at this as I went, surely. 
I rest in the parking lot, then pay what I feel is a lot at 150pesos, and ride the last two and a half kms down Lovely Road. I get into the water with my snorkel, all salty and greasy- sorry delicate environment. Little black fish are following me around and licking me and I'm calm, floating, and relaxed- but keep getting tickled by these one inch three inch SIX INCH little fuckers. I have a sad moment that I dicked my little new fancycam on the booze cruise days ago as the sunlight beams into the water, straight through the clear blue to the bottom- and something dings me in the head! What was that!? I jump and spin and panic a little, but then remember. Oh yea, bats live in the ceiling, I really did just get shit on by a bat. Some people are laughing who saw it happen from across the cave. Shitsplash. I see the crap in the water next to me and have to laugh. No more feeling sorry. Lucky me.
The cenotes are incredible. The darkness of the caves below are frighteningly black but I tough it out, spacing and counting out my deep soothing breaths. Refreshed and cooled, I rest, then pedal on out. I decided to try the dusty orange roads that ran alongside the highway, through the villages on my way back to town. Best idea ever. Greeted by smiling faces, and children playing. Chased for one terrifying minute by a pack of black Xolotl, pointy faced dogs nipping at my ankles, then surrounded further on by butterflies, blue winged and yellow they land on my head for a salt lick and I'm feeling special.

Lovely Road

Beautifulll East Eye

This map ONLY makes sense in hindsight. It's the one they gave me at the gate, on the back of my ticket. This one is three times the size of that one and full colour.

Post-swim selfee while the sun was shining in!

Out again down shade spackled roads.

In hindsight, I wish I'd paid the extra $25 to dive the cave system. I had no idea what it would be like and this first taste of cool fresh mystery caverns hooked me in. I decided to make visiting the cenotes the priority of this part of my trip. I made a plan to cycle up the middle of the Yucatan, and swim in as many as I could.

Tulum

D.18.13
Awake in the night listening to lectures, forgetting to adjust the time on my clock two hours ahead. After two hours laying there the truth clicks and I realize I could catch the sunrise. 

I'm wide awake.

Headlamp on, blanket round my shoulders, it's cold and dark and quiet and the dogs are ruling the streets out there. Get on the mainway and get pedaling. I'm seeing shadow people just standing by, in the darkness next to my paved riding path. I am calm and unafraid and I greet them all. Their energy is felt, and I acknowledge them warmly, but it's still creepy when they appear there. So many ghosts. The beach is dark, the moon behind me is full. I stand at the water's edge and do hatha yoga, waiting for the sun. Headlights shine behind me and I bolt for the trees, always ready for trouble from humans. I sit in the brush for awhile, then walk, absorbing the sunrise completely alone. Quiet. Just don't want to be disturbed these days.

Solo Sunrise!

Captivated by sand bubbles. I'm easy to please.

Blue! Blue! Blue!

That was the first entry. The day before this dawn I'd ridden to the Tulum ruins. It rained every day of the four I spent in Tulum. The rain was warm, not a big deal, but it made my clothes stink since they wouldn't dry out, and exploring was kind of annoying since everything was muddy and puddles were deeeeep. I hadn't slowed down to the local pace and wasn't yet used to being alone either. I remember still feeling... short of breath and in a hurry.

Streets were like this alot, no sign of potholes...ouch.

Looooong twisty bike path fun!

SOaaked at the ruins, took cover and caught a free tour!

Everyone takes a picture of this. I'm still feeling like mine is more awesome.

At this point, on day two, I've pedaled about 15km.

I love my life.

I have been a full time student since Autumn 2010. I discovered my true nerdness at 33 years old when I entered college, sat up front raising my hand eagerly to join the conversation, and furiously reading articles to support my weird arguments. I remembered that I enjoyed learning up until I was about eight years old, when my life got complicated. With this memory in mind, I have been enjoying the luxury of student life all over again.

Because of my student status, I was able to spend my winter break exploring the state of Yucatan in Mexico. I got to visit with one of my four loving foster families with whom I credit a great deal of my sanity and resilience to nowadays. I also crossed the country, and stayed on for most of my winter semester, completing my classes in hammocks and tranquility. My hitherto in-semester stress-compromised health issues did not even hint at existence for the first time since school began. I was calm, breathing deeply, focused for the most part, glowing, vital, and kept all the skin that belongs on my fingers. I was happy.

I got home and shared some stories I'd written with friends. They asked for more. I could hand over my journal, but they have convinced me this is better. I'm not sure...but.
When I was a teenage hobo, I used to write out all my stories in these spiral bound Hilroy, 80 page books. I would glue in pictures and collages, then pass them around to my friends whenever I returned home so I could share my adventures with them. Until this trip to Mexico, I hadn't written anything for myself in so long. My writers block is why I went to school. I didn't know how else I was going to start writing again, except by force and threat of failure. The stories begin stiltingly and read funny to me at first, so I might edit and embellish. But I've decided on the advice of some dear, and wonderfully supportive friends, to write it all out. All 51 pages that I wrote on my short break between December 18th and January 3rd. I'm going to include the pictures I took, and a few of the pages I made notes on, since this sanitized image doesn't feel as authentic to me as holding a spiral bound with its frayed edges and road dirt. This computer screen lacks the personality of those paper pages. But I'll try to paint a picture for you, my friends, about my bicycle-riding self-recovery mission this past winter.

My first few days I spent at a fancy dancey resort with the fam. These are from the first half of the sailing, drinking, and snorkeling day we decided to go on. Kelly, big-sis Tara n I.

 I wrote nothing during this part of the trip, and lost my new camera in the ocean about ten minutes before these two following pics were taken. Go figure.

 After four days of nonstop eating, drinking, sleeping and sunning, I left the resort with my backpack, traveling on my own and hanging out with myself over the next three months for the first time since teenagedom.