I have been doing more updating on the Motodawgs Facebook page lately because, for some reason, I have been unable to upload picture to the blog site. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to fix it but I do have a email out to our technical support person in Puyallup and hoping he can help me. We spent three days in the northwest area of the Yucatan relaxing at the beautiful Flamingos Inn Bed and Breakfast where I got to enjoy a beautiful ocean view from our balcony. Early mornings consisted of yoga and meditation on the balcony, watching dolphins play, mid-morning swims, walks along the beach, then sun bathing and lounging by the pool in the afternoon. Rough life, but it sure felt good after spending some long hot, hot days on the bike.
As the weather has gotten warmer we’ve tried to start our traveling days earlier and end them sooner to beat the heat but we are finding that with Jackie Dawg, we sometime have difficulty finding hotels that will take her. We had a easier time up north and along the west coast of Mexico. We have debated on sending her back up to Washington as we do worry about her and the heat. Fortunately, we have wonderful home and family for her to go spend some time with while we continue with our journey if that is what we decide to do. We definitely are both having mixed feeling about keeping her here with us but having her here is a comfort to both of us so we are as yet undecided but try to stop sooner and for a little longer now to give her time to rest.
After spending three days on the beach in Chuburna, which is about 30 minutes northwest of Merida, we are now in Akumal, Mexico which is about 30 minutes south of Playa del Carmen. We have a simple two bedroom apartment/cabin at a place called Camp Akumal which we will call home until Saturday.
Yesterday’s drive getting here was about the more boring drive we’ve had so far. We decided to take the toll road so we didn’t even get to go through any beautiful small pueblos like we normally do. Along the ride my speedometer/odometer cable vibrated loose and the inner wire fell out (same thing happened to Milton a while back, so we had been using mine to know when to fuel up) so now we have to go by either looking in the tank or just fill up every 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
There are not many fuel stops on the toll road and we ended up missing one and I was not paying attention to the miles on my tank (speedometer/odometer cable still attached at this time) and next thing I knew, Milton was on reserve. We always carry two MSR small bottles of fuel with us so we continued on but then we came to a sign that said the next services were about 150 km away we flipped around and headed back 44 km to get fuel, (my cable came off somewhere along the return). Milton did end up running out and we had to pull over to put fuel in his bike but I never even had to switch to reserve,, guess I get better milage than him. After refueling and eating a horrible lunch at the little restaurant, we continued on. The butterflies were thick but besides looking at the butterflies coming towards us as we rode, the trees and bushes along the side of the road prevented us from seeing much of anything else We were able to see the dark clouds overhead that were accumulating though. My one sight that I did see that broke up the monotony of the road was a herd of cows lumbering single file along the overpass.
Eventually we headed slightly southwest toward Playa del Carmen after deciding to skip Cancun entirely, and noticed that across the highway were strung rope ladders with the rope ends running out into the trees. Took us a few minutes but we finally figured out they had to be crossings for monkeys. We did get to see one large monkey sleeping in a tree but didn’t see a single monkey using the rope ladder to cross the road.
We made a quick stop in Playa del Carmen for some groceries and as we were pulling out the rain drops started but only briefly but as we rode further they clouds opened up again and we were riding in a tropical downpour. Luckily it was warm but it was hard to see, the roads got slippery, the thunder loud, but the lightening was beautiful. Had to do a U-turn a few times in the highway before we finally figured out where we needed to go. Milton ended up going down due to the slick pavement but was unhurt and after that I rode even slower. Eventually we found our way safely to Camp Akumal and now we are all tucked in, bikes parked in front of the cabin, with Jackie Dawg sleeping comfortable on the couch.