I'm now in the Yucatan, in the Mexican state of "Yucatan", and in it's biggest city, Merida. From Chiapas to here, my health has been rough and it's not improving. At least not right away. The weather adds compounding interest to the misery. With the exception of 1 day, it has been over 100 degrees F every day. Every day? You might say- that sounds like an exaggeration. Not even a little bit. It easily hits 103 in direct sunlight around 1-3pm daily. It's over 90 by 10:00AM.
The heat causes new problems. It's almost impossible to think at all, actually. When it's this hot in the hottest part of the country, at the hottest time of year, it's not easy to do really anything.
CHIAPAS STRIKES BACK
I woke up the morning I was leaving Chiapas at about 4am. It was Montezuma's Revenge. I went to the bathroom about 6 times in 4 hours completely vacating my body of all water. I tried to keep up, I barely had the strength to go 1 block away and get electrolytes. When you're by yourself like this so far from home, illness hits twice as hard. You have to change your reservations yourself (or extend them). You have to get your own medicine. You have to get all of your own water and somehow get food. No one is cooking for you, no one is bringing you anything. It's all on you.
I'm due in Palenque that evening. After a rough morning I still decide I'm going to ride. It's the road that had been known to have bandits. The hostel workers assure me these stories are surviving from decades ago and I should be fine. I am warned, however, it's an isolated road through some of the poorest parts of our hemisphere. There are thousands of speed bumps and even some aggressive drive-by sales tactics the locals will put you through.
As I came around a corner, 2 children ran a rope across the road at a speed bump. The rope was about 3 feet off of the ground. Luckily it was at a speed bump so I could see it coming at a good speed. If I ran into the rope on a motorcycle it could damage my motorcycle or even pull me down as I drag the child alongside me. The kid had a shitgrin on his face as his sister or cousin walked up to my motorcycle with a bag of dried plantains. I politely declined, telling her I had no room. The boy reluctantly dropped the rope and I was able to continue.
In some parts of the United States, they add curves to highways to keep people awake or alert. If you have straight highways with no features, people's minds can get bored. Luckily, this highway was NOT boring. There was curve after jungle stretch after curve, monkeys on the road, old women wielding machetes walking on the shoulder, and thousands of speed bumps. I was able to pay attention quite well and it really got my mind off of the heat and the pain growing in my gut.
Then I got off the bike. I saw a restaurant that was selling "caldo de pollo" which is chicken broth. I thought it'd be perfect, I hadn't had the stomach to eat anything the entire day. They said they didn't have any but offered quesadillas instead. I couldn't even eat half of it. I ate and chewed with my head down trying to push through. I was really physically uncomfortable.
Palenque
I get to Palenque, the first major Maya City of this trip. I've officially entered the Maya world. I checked into a hostel, which was a big CASTLE, by the way, and I said I'd be there for 2 nights. 2 nights easily turned into 3, because my stomach virus came back much, much worse. I went through loads of toilet paper. I was dehydrated. I could barely sleep. SOMEHOW I had some strokes of luck: no one shared my 5-bed dorm room for the first 2 nights.
When you're sick by yourself this far from home, your world is very small. You know nothing other than the distance between your bed and bathroom. I had no drive to look at the rest of the castle nor leave the building to search for electrolytes. Finally I got some pills and it stopped the pain and bathroom trips. On day 3 I went to Palenque and enjoyed myself as much as I could.
I pulled over at the entrance where I'd thought I'd be paying to enter the park, but it turned out to be a place where a ton of tour guides would flank the vehicle and clamor for payment for a tour. I ended up negotiating one of them from 1,200 pesos to 500 and we entered the park together. I was sweating profusely. My body's fluids were all out of wack since the illness was trying to focus my fluid to my colon, but the pills were blocking them. The heat was forcing it out my skin as sweat. I was dizzy and slow. My brain could barely process the Spanish. In fact, the tour guide I had wasn't even that good. I could tell from listening to other guides that they knew a lot more about the ruins than my guy did. That made me feel a little cheated, but maybe I was getting the 500-peso treatment.
No, seriously, this guy had no idea what he was talking about sometimes. He talked about how there were theories that the pyramids were made by aliens. That some of the inscriptions and hieroglyphics look like spaceships. I scoffed immediately. I was actually offended. How did I pay for someone to shill that bullshit at me? The guide was indigenous. How could he deny his own ancestors' works by crediting extraterrestrials? I immediately began to distrust everything he told me.
He then talked about how a few tourists had died trying to take pictures near the edge of the top of one of the temples and fell. I joked and said they were more recent offerings to the Maya gods and we both laughed.
When he left me, I made my way to the museum. In the museum they had a re-constructed jade mask that had been excavated from the tomb of a massive temple on Palenque's grounds. She was known as the 'red queen' and this mask was under glass, reconstructed, and in an AIR CONDITIONED ROOM.
It's the first time I'd felt air conditioning in I'm not sure how long. I actually took my time and read everything I could about this Jade mask, took pictures, and then the power went off for the whole building. The heat had gotten to the power grid. Did I mention the heat?
THE HEAT
It was time for me to leave Palenque and head North again. I haven't really headed that direction since I was in Canada, really. When I got to Merida it was the hottest time of day, easily over 100F. Again. I waited until after my Bunk-A-Biker was back from work before meeting him, and even got some license plates along the way.
Once we'd met, he set me up with a bedroom with a fire-engine bed for children in it. It was separated from the rest of the house up on the roof. There was a hammock set up, but I said I'd rather put down my air mattress and sleep on that. I actually slept quite well, I hadn't slept in a tent since I was in Aguascalientes about 2.5 months ago. It's the one place I can sleep in and feel at home, somewhat. There's a bathroom right next door that I can use and guess what? The pills wore off. I had to hit the bathroom again.
It's been almost 5 days of having this horrible illness. I start to get angry. The heat is coming up on the new day again. It will easily be well over 100F again by 11:30AM. I have no clean clothes. I need to do laundry. Maybe cut my hair. I have CHORES. The room I sleep in will be over 100 degrees by mid-day. I have to find a place to escape.
My brain is frying in my skull. You forget things. You can't focus. Your temper is short. Sweat pools everywhere and won't dry off because of the tropical humidity. Where there is no sweat, your body is caked in salts. My wireless charger mounted on my handlebars could no longer charge my phone because it was too hot. My phone itself had to be powered down because it was too hot, so I lost my navigation. One warning sign is that the Google Maps app changes to night mode to keep from frying the screen when it gets too hot.
Later, I'm going to have to see if there was any permanent damage done to the phone, as the battery may not be able to hold a charge as easy because it was baking in the sun. Ear plugs become soggy, my water pack gets hot so you're drinking tasteless hot soup water, and my soap and deodorant start to melt like ice cream.
At noon there's no shade, but it's not the hottest time of day. Between 2 and 3 you need to hide but good luck, the earth it self is also radiating heat with the sun. Death Valley in October was nothing compared to this. Losing fluids to this heat wave is much worse when you're dealing with a stomach virus, because your body is struggling whether to force water out your skin or your colon.
I'm even losing creativity writing like this in the heat. I don't feel like being creative. I feel like documenting and bitching so that I can edit this later in a better environment.
THINGS IMPROVE
It went on for so long and the pills were only acting as temporary fixes. I needed a cure. I decided I would go to a pharmacy which had a minute clinic. I waited in their waiting area while I saw people in the parking lot gawking at Lechuza. I shouldn't have given it such a good wash, I think.
A doctor set me up with pro-biotics and a few other pills that set me straight after 3 days. The cost? 55 pesos. About $3 USD to visit a doctor. The pulls he said I should take? They were about $15 altogether.
During and after those 3 days, I went around to as many sites as I could. Cenotes, Maya ruins, the beach on the gulf of Mexico, all sorts of places.
I started to get accustomed to the heat. I would plan certain things around certain times of day knowing it would be too hot to function. I would wear clothes and sunscreen that would suit the weather better. The heat would still absolutely destroy my energy, though. I'd get to bed by 8-9PM and be up by 5AM to get ahead of the sun.
I hung out with my bunk-a-biker's family. His sister would ride on the back of my motorcycle and show me around town. We went out to eat at places and she showed me a cool ocean boardwalk.
I ate dinner with them, had drinks, did both those with their neighbors across the street. It was quite nice. I was a guest of another Mexican family, with them showing me their way of life as if it were any other day. They'd beat the heat by setting up a pool or play around with the hose on the roof. They'd also go to another family member's house, the BaB's father, and use his pool and have a grill out.
Events like this were every other day and happened often. It was nice to be among such great people. They made me feel welcome and introduced me to everyone. If I told a funny joke to one of them, they would repeat my joke to the rest of the group and credit me with it. I found that to be a particularly inclusive practice that many of them all did.
For example, I was asked if I got Netflix on the screen on my motorcycle and I sighed and said "no, only HBO." He laughed and had to tell everyone about the joke I just made. They'd also tell my story about where I was from and going to everyone we'd meet. They wanted to include me. It was so incredibly nice on top of all of their hospitality.
I NEED TO MOSEY
So the reason I spent to much time in Merida was because of a part I'd ordered. The part is my blinker which had broken off when I fell in San Cristobal in front of my hostel.
I paid an extra $85 to have it shipped in 3-5 business days internationally.
After 3 days, they said they couldn't process it and cancelled the order- it needed to be through paypal.
I paid through paypal and waited until day 5.
I called in, disgruntled, and asked for a refund because I'd paid extra for a part that's not arriving on time.
They told me they COULD NOT REFUND IT BECAUSE IT WAS PAID THROUGH PAYPAL.
Then, after waiting until 7 business days, it was going to be delayed from Friday to the following Monday. It was then I decided to pull the plug, call in and cancel, and I'll have to order it down the road.
They were able to refund me THEN, however. Which I think is absolute bullshit,
I'm getting down to the wire now, there's not a lot of time left on my visa and I need to head south to the border.
If I don't cross in time, the Mexican government will hold onto several hundred dollars of mine that they've had since I've imported the vehicle into the country back in November.
We'll see when I get there.
-JT
4/29/2023