A Million Minutes in Africa

Here’s the pyramid known as El Castillo at Chichen Itza.

We brought a laptop with us to manage the huge volume of photos we anticipated. After only a short time on the road it has bitten the dust. We were in Tulum, which is along the Caribbean cost, when we bit the bullet and paid someone who actually knew something about computers. Eric is an expat Canadian originally from Ontario. He has a dive shop in Xcalak (be careful when you try to say that) which he is selling because now that he has kids he needs a place with a little more infrastructure, thus the metropolitan Tulum area is his territory. Anyway, after standing around the computer for a couple of hours with several ups (yeah, it works!) and more downs (if I ever see that Bill Gates guy on the street by himself) I came to the conclusion that painting in watercolors would be a better way to capture the visuals of our trip. Unfortunately, I am not much of an artist, so we will have to figure something else out.

Even with the blue screen of death lurking on our laptop, Mexico is a fabulous place. We just spent a few days at the beach and relaxing in basically a very nice shack with hot running water and mosquito netting. That is Tulum when you add in a clear blue-green ocean and beautiful sunrises. Also, for some reason, they have terrific pizza there too. Lots of Italians. Go figure.

Today we drove from Tulum back to our favorite jungle hangout, Panchan sur Palenque. The drive was exciting as driving down here can be, but fairly uneventful. The only real excitement was at the military checkpoint where they brought out a drug-sniffing dog to give our vehicle the once over. Maybe I was too emphatic when the guy asked me if we had any drugs. He let El Rover run all around inside our truck and he kept trying to convince the dog there were drugs in there. Dude, the dog said there was nothing there! The military guys have without exception been professional and reasonably friendly. I even made a deal with one of them that if we passed through Mexico I would sell him the truck. I am not sure what kind of price he expects.

Not one of them said, “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.” So much for old stereotypes.

The Explorer is holding its own. Thank goodness Bill Gates doesn’t make cars. It seems that Ford is a good choice so far. In Mexico they are quite popular. Also, we have seen a smattering of vehicles with U.S. plates.

Tomorrow we continue south to some more ruins at Bonampak and then to the border with Guatemala. We’ll see how that goes.