The Yucatan Peninsula is topographically pretty bland, which is a polite way of saying flat (and, to some, verging on dull), but what it loses in terms of terrain, it more than makes up for it in terms of biodiversity. The coastal regions are made up of extensive wetlands which are home to an incredible [...]
Also tagged wild places, wildlifeCancun is never going to be my favourite place in Mexico. It’s a souless car orientated town that revolves around mega-supermarkets, shopping malls and mass market tourism but somehow when I get back to Mexico from Cuba another week slips away there.
However, almost any place can be redeemed by people and my stay in Cancun [...]
Living on the water is endlessly beautiful.
Also tagged a place to stay, waterThe rainy season has left me wondering a little about what to do with myself. It’s not that I mind getting wet – because I don’t – but the kinds of roads I like riding on are pretty much impassable when things are sodden because dirt plus water equals mud and mud and bicycles are [...]
Also tagged rainPoet. Dreamer. Visionary. Prophet. Lunatic. Fool. Perhaps these are all words for the same thing.
I am sitting on a floating island made of garbage – plastic bottles, mesh bags, wood pallets, plywood, fabric, mirrors, shells – all tacked and glued together with a greater regard for the aesthetic effect than practicality – and [...]
Once I hit the highway in Belize it is not long before I find myself cycling past a sudden rash of casinos and tax free shopping zones and then crossing yet another border back into Mexico. There have been quite a few border crossing in the last two weeks but this is not a particularly [...]
Also tagged beach, hospitality, return, tourismSince the extreme temperatures in the middle of the day make an early start imperative, I decide to try to get my papers sorted when I return from Yaxchamil so that I can get on my bike and leave first thing in the morning. I locate the immigration office opposite the museum and approach the [...]
Also tagged border crossings, guatemala, leavingDespite the doubts raised by my visit to Bonampak, the following day at the river frontier between Mexico and Guatemala while I am trying to negotiate a boat to Bethel on the Guatemalan side of the river the following day I find myself attached to a group of twenty or so young Mexican university students [...]
Also tagged ruinsI am trying to reach the border between Mexico and Guatemala but, on the spur of the moment, I pedal on straight past the turnoff to Frontera Echeverria on the Usumacinta River to make a quick visit to Bonampak, a Mayan archeological site in the middle of the jungle. It occurs to me that perhaps [...]
Also tagged jungle, magic, ruins, wildlifeDusk. A grey sky over cleared burning fields. Howler monkeys hoot and growl from nearby stands of trees. A man walks along a foot path from the fields towards the road.
I pass a rough building constructed of wide weathered grey wooden boards. The shack is set in a muddy yard in which chickens, turkeys, and [...]