Hitchhiking Mexico

crazy is as crazy does

I never imagined in a thousand years that I’d find myself hitchhiking in Mexico, but I did – five separate times on my recent trip through the Yucatan.  

poses that don't help you when hitchhiking in Mexico

The more I travel the less I seem to plan. Hitchhiking is risky and I’m not suggesting for everyone to do it, but for me, there were three opportunities to catch a ride when a random stranger offered and on two more occasions when I needed a ride, and I decided to flip the thumb on the side of a deserted road. 

Adventure, experience, and knowledge are the very reasons I travel abroad.  Living the day-to-day routine of my life in South Florida is wonderful, but rarely do I experience things outside my hands.  Most of our learned knowledge today comes from books, classrooms, television, Internet, and as a result, we talk and give advice like experts.  When we actually gather our information and advice from actual living life, we do so by seeing or avoiding the same folks we always have.  Most of us deal with the same neighbors, coworkers, ethnicities, languages, and cultures of people that we are ever so familiar with.  

her stories - a grandmother in Yucatan

Very little is truly learned of foreign cultures until one travels outside their cultural box.  And even then, when one travels, you are dealing with foreign people in a transaction of goods or services by people you have attracted with the dollars in your hands and “tourist” stamped on your forehead.  It’s the name of the tourism business.  That’s why package tours are generally so lame for backpackers.  It lacks authenticity.  The people dress up and play a role for you to “experience” everything cliché about their culture.  Everything is safe in a very controlled environment this way.  

the stories- a blind boy in Valladolid

 Of course I’m wise enough to know that the kind of travel I engage in, will probably eventually get me into a situation I might not be able to get out of unscathed.  In fact, it’s already happened but I’m willing to engage in that kind of risk, because the payout is better than the Disney experiences we are sold throughout our lives.  I’ve embraced my mortality and I know I have lived and experienced a great deal in this lifetime.  More than most on this planet can even hope for.  I am forever grateful for these experiences and opportunities I’ve been afforded, even the painful ones.

Of course, I still have a lot left on my bucket list, and the biggest and most rewarding ones do not involve traveling, but for now, I just have to roll with the punches, go with the flow, and make the most of what I have control of or not in control of. 

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams”, someone once said.  While backpacking, I decide to live and trust the moment and not to regret my choices.  Leave part of the experience to random chance.  Why not put to the test, and challenge Mr. Donald Trump’s proclamation that the majority of Mexicans are criminals, drug dealers, murderers, and rapists than to hitchhike through the Yucatan for part of my trip?

Donald Trump only seems to get his information from the Mexican Tabloids

Merida Cuidad

On the plane from Miami to Mexico, I struck up a conversation with a woman on her way to Merida to visit her friend.  By the end of our conversation, I was in the back of a pickup getting dropped off at my hostel.  That was my first experience getting into a car with a stranger in Mexico.  Arriving into the city of Merida in the back of a pickup makes for great travel blogging.  Merida is the kind of city that gets overshadowed by its more popular neighbor Cancun, which is a good thing, because most of the tourists will continue to stay in the big hotels and resorts there and leave Merida to the backpackers. 

Merida's main square at night - it's a family affair

To be honest, it wasn’t until after I decided to go to Yucatan that I learned about the city of Merida, despite being both more populous than Cancun and the capital of the Yucatan state.  Merida’s people are majority Mayan; with the town center very much Spanish colonial.  Spending a couple days checking out the architecture, plazas, markets, and food stalls is well worth it.  Merida is not a sleepy town, as the squares are filled with families enjoying the cooler evening temperatures and nighttime street entertainment.  I enjoyed tasting the local Mayan specialty of Poc Chuc at a street stall (marinated pork broiled in lemon juice) and sipping my Mezcal at a lively local bar.  

street stalls offer the best food for any foodie - it's the food of the people

Celestun and Pink Flamingos

I decided to join another solo traveler who was finishing up five months backpacking Mexico to the town of Celestun on the northwest coast of the Yucatan.  If I wasn’t already familiar with mangroves, pelicans, reptiles, and the humidity that attracts them then I’d might have been super impressed, but South Florida has similarities.  However, what did draw my camera out was the colony of wild flamingos.  That in its self made the two-hour bus ride and another two hour boat ride for a grand total of $20 USD worth it.  On the boat, the other solo traveler and I met a French couple that offered us a ride back to Merida with them.  Once we returned, I jumped on the local bus for a two-hour bus ride to my next stop of Chichen Itza.

finally - pink flamingos

Chichen Itza

It’s one of the biggest draws in the Yucatan because it was voted as one of the new Seven Wonder’s of the World. Built around 600 AD, this religious pyramid structure is impressive on so many levels.  I decided to camp in the area for three nights in order to properly chillax.  I didn’t want to do anything but eat beans and sardines, read my self-improvement book of the month, and be at Chichen Itza on the day of the spring equinox, which for the ancient Mayans was has HUGE deal.  In fact, the shadow cast by the pyramid steps on the days of the equinoxes results in a serpent like shadow slithering down the pyramid.  This was gonna be epic, so I made plans to camp about thirty minutes away for Chichen Itza in order to avoid the crowds arriving from Cancun.

the Mayan pueblo of Yotzonot

I woke up at the crack of dawn to catch the bus from the pueblo of Yotzonot where I was camping so I could arrive at Chichen Itza by 8am.  It was 6am and I was unsure what time the earliest bus was arriving, but being the only person at the stop didn't make me feel confident it was coming anytime soon.  As carloads of Mexicans rubbernecked me when they passed by, it dawned on me, if anyone was gonna rob me, they weren’t gonna wait for me to stick out my thumb out.  I was alone at a bus stop on a rural road in Mexico with nobody within an earshot of me screaming.  I decided in that moment, just like that, to play Russian roulette and put my thumb out.  As soon as my thumb went up, a white pickup with a gordito man stopped.  Without much of a reaction, he sleepily looked at me with the universal look of “donde?" And I replied in English, "Chichen Itza".  His head nodded with a faint, “Si” and I jumped in.  The silence was soon broken as he turned up the Mariachi music blaring through the speakers as we road off into the sunrise like dos amigos.  We were beautiful.  Once we arrived to Chichen Itza, I concluded our short relationship with the remainder of the Spanish I knew, thanking him with a deep and personal, “Mucho Gracias” and we parted ways.  

Japanese peace sign or Mayan deuces

Thinking I arrived before the crowds was a mistake.  Those sneaky Mexicans, who were rubbernecking me while I stood alone at the bus stop, thinking to myself they must be going to work, were actually enjoying their Samana Santa holiday and also going to Chichen Itza for the spring equinox.  I stood defeated at the back of a line that snaked around the premises like the shadow serpent I had come to see.  Once inside, I immediately understood why some of my friends said to there are better Mayan ruins to visit than the Seventh Wonder - Chichen Itza.  But hey, how can you go to New York City and not go to Times Square.  How can you visit Paris and not see the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids when in Egypt.  I spent the day, paying my tribute to the wonders of the ancient Mayans, marveling how it might have been, had I arrived a thousand years before.  Unfortunately, the Mayan rain god, Chaac decided to punish us with rain clouds and thunder.  The tens of thousands of worshipers and visitors who came did not get to see the serpent that they hoped for.  Lesson #1 in life… things do not always go as planned.  

overcast on the spring equinox

 

the only moment the sun came out

Hitchhiking with the Guy who likes Boom Boom

I left Chichen Itza not as disappointed as one might think.  As I walked to the town, I felt so fortunate to even be alive and free.  I made it to the bus station and jumped on the “last” bus to the pueblo I was camping near.  It was only thirty minutes away, so when the bus entered the highway that said Merida, I knew I was on the wrong bus.  Merida was more than two hours away.  This was the express bus there and I was suppose to be on the local bus.  It was the menacing Mexican Mayan god Chaac effen with me.  I hastily approached the driver and asked him to stop the bus, in which he did.  I stepped off and there I was on the side of a lonely highway with the sun setting.  Without even thinking so much I put my thumb up for the first car going the other way and boom, the raggedy Toyota sedan pulled over.  I couldn’t see who the driver was because of the tinted windows, but as I approached the passenger side, I could see I would make passenger number five.  Four Mexican men with no expression were staring back at me.  I had little choice at this point.  It was obvious what I needed and it wasn’t water….

For some reason I was expecting them to let me sit “bitch”.  But to my surprise the guy with the jerry curl scooted over to the middle and welcomed me with the kind of “talk” you might associate with an flamboyantly gay man.  I was overcome with glee.  He asked where I was going, and I said to the pueblo of Yotzonot.  I asked him where he was going, and he responded with simulated electronic sounds of “boom boom” and an invitation to join.  I reluctantly declined.  Once we arrived to Yotzonot, I made a long goodbye short, but the lesson from this was seared into my travel memory as a win for Mexico.

These were the four Mexican guys that picked me up when they were children...the guy with the jerry curl is the boy with no pants. 

Hitchhiking to a Mexican Prison

My evenings camping were quiet.  Refried bean, canned sardines, corn tortillas, and more of the self-improvement book were perfect with nature's sounds that ssurrounded me.  The next morning, the question was not whether or not I was going to hitchhike or not, but what to eat for breakfast.  I stopped at the food stall that sets up on the road near the campgrounds and grabbed what I thought was a form of taco because I know my tacos from years of Taco Bell when I was a teenager.  “Yo quiro dos tacos” to the woman preparing the “tacos” resulted in a confused look.  I knew my Spanish for, “I want two tacos” was impeccable, so I didn’t understand her confusion.  Then a man behind me said in English, “They are called salbutes”.  After the man received his salbutes, he asked me where I was headed and then offered me a ride with him and his brother.

Salbutes

 We headed out, having your typical small talk.  They said they had to make a stop to visit a “family” friend.  These brothers were Mestizo, so when we arrived to a Mayan’s home, I wondered what their relationship was about.  I asked how their families knew each other and they said the dad use to do work for their family.  The family was quite all right with having a hitchhiking gringo in their home.   

When you think about that for a second, it’s quite strange to let a random stranger you just picked up off the road into your family's friend's home.  And they were giving me food and drink like I was a part of their family.  The hospitality is so foreign compared to the way I grew up.  But this is more the norm from my travels abroad than the exception.  Really, from Berlin to Mexico, the graciousness and trust complete strangers have given me is incredibly humbling.

hitchhiking resulted in this family photo

I thought it was strange to see a hammock stretched out in the middle of their family room.  But then again, I read hammocks in this region of Mexico is as common as between two palm trees on any Caribbean island.  The brothers could tell I was in love with the hammock, and asked if I wanted to buy one.  I was like, “sure”, if I could find a quality one at a good price.  We leave, and within twenty minutes we are at a prison talking to the warden who sells hammocks that the prisoners make.  I left there with the most beautiful double-wide hammock that any prisoner could make.

buying hammocks at a Mexican prison

They dropped me off not too longer at the colonial town of Valladolid.  I spent the day there walking the old town, roaming the markets, catching part of the Catholic Church service on Palm Sunday, and finally a cenote before catching a bus for the beach bum paradise of Tulum.

A cenote is a natural pit, or sinkhole, resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath.

Easter Sunday in Valladolid

A Beach Bum in Tulum

By the time I got to Tulum, I was half way done with my ten-day holiday in Mexico.  The last five days, I would be a beach bum on holiday.  Spent my days lazily lounging around the beautiful beaches of Tulum.  The beautiful stretch of beaches are about twenty-minute by bike to the town of Tulum.  The zoning laws on the beach prevent developers from building any large hotels.  Matter fact, any business need to supply their own power because it’s a protected natural reserve because of the Mayan ruins nearby.  You can actually pitch tents right their on the beach.  It’s known to draw the hippie bohemians, especially during full moons. 

Mayan ruins in Tulum

working and chillin in paradise

A Lake Bum in Bacalar

With three days left, I learned about another “special” and remote place south near the Belize border called Bacalar.  Three hours by bus, and you are at the area the Mayans noted, “Where the sky is born”.  And for good reason, Lake Bacalar is the second largest lake in Mexico, and its waters are as turquoise as the Caribbean Sea.  The lakes bottom has the finest white said with hardly any plant life because of the sulfur emitted from the cenotes that dot the area.  It’s an incredible remote place by Cancun standards. The solitude is a perfect place to eat your refried beans, fresh fish, corn tortillas, read a self-improvement book, and take in a sunrise on a hammock. 

view from my bungalow on Lake Bacalar

Sunrise on the Bacalar

My last day, I took the six hour bus ride north to Cancun for my flight to Miami.