Yucatan Bicycle Tour

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Yucatan Bicycle Tour

Introduction

Serpent head and prymid at Chichen Itza
Pyramid of Kukulchan and a serpent head
(viewed from the ball court at the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza).

In the November 2002, I toured Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula with my friend, Paul Shanahan. I wanted to immerse myself in a different culture and language. I had been researching various destinations in Latin America. I chose the Yucatan peninsula for it's good roads, a well-developed tourist infrastructure and a rich history complete with ancient cities to explore.

Paul and Tom

Paul Shanahan has extensive touring experience including trips to New Zealand. Paul and I have done several weekend tours in New England.

I always wanted to learn Spanish. I didn't want to be the typical "Ugly American" who goes to a foreign country expecting everyone else to speak English. I spent several months before the trip learning Spanish. I took an adult education course. But, what really helped me was Pimsleur Audio CD's. The CD's really helped me with my pronunciation. And, more importantly I learned how to put the words together in coherent sentences. This is not to say that I became fully fluent in time for the trip. However, I had the basic skills to get the necessities of life and establish basic communication with the people that we met on the trip.

The Yucatan Peninsula has few places to camp. We could have wild-camped. But, finding water on the peninsula would have been a problem. Since inexpensive food and lodging is readily available, we toured credit card style, staying in hotels during the entire trip.

Arriving in Cancun, I found the climate, hot and the beer cheap. I had reserved a hotel room in downtown, as it was much cheaper than staying in the Hotel Zone. I assembled my bike and wandered around the city. Paul arrived later that night.

I created this tour report from the web based emails I sent to my family and notes compoesed on a Sharp TM-20 PocketMail device. I opted not to transmit email on the Sharp device due to expense of making international phone calls.

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Yucatan Bike Tour Contents