ODO: 318,076
Our first stop today was an AutoZone…again. This time we were looking for an ignition switch, maybe that’s the source of our gremlin. We headed into Campeche, an historical town known for its fortified wall, which we somehow managed to completely miss. AutoZone didn’t have what we needed so instead sent us over to Pepe’s. Pepe called everyone in town until he found our part, and had it delivered to his shop in about an hour. We were very grateful. After a late breakfast we headed into the jungle to explore Xtampak. These ruins were hidden in the jungle down a long dirt road full of, you guessed it, pot holes! We arrived at 3:45pm just as the rain started to pour from the sky. This was the day we discovered how much nicer it is to hike through the jungle when it’s raining! The rain cuts the heat and more importantly the bugs. We had until 5pm to be back in the parking lot, and didn’t know how far we had to hike before we got to the ruins. We put on our big sun hats, which work great in the rain too, and got to hustling. This set of ruins falls somewhere in the middle of our awesome scale; 10/10 for location and ambiance (the wild jungle crowding in around the edges was cool), 6/10 for carvings and overall condition of the ruins.
Another day, another Mayan ruins site. Today was Codz Poop. We found no poop. This place got a 6/10 for ambiance (very well manicured lawns breaks the magic), but a solid 12/10 for carvings. This place was covered in carvings. These were the most ornate ruins we had been to so far, and our minds were blown. The detail, even after so long was really beautiful, and it still makes no sense that they let us get close enough to touch everything! We got to this one in the morning, so the only thing that rushed us out was the sun. We had a preplanned hotel night in front of us as a test to see how it worked receiving packages in Mexico. All we’ve heard is it’s impossible to get mail reliably, and even harder to get a package. Not to mention there are lots of things you cant pack a years supply of, and other things you can’t buy in person easily here, so this was a fun and wildly successful test for us. Shade and solid ground are a hard combination to find, so we took advantage of the underground parking at the hotel to swap out the ignition switch and get our laundry together. Once we got our laundry dropped off it was time for our favorite in town activity: walking food tour! We only managed two stops before the heat got to us and we headed back for a relax.
We eased into our day with the yummy hotel breakfast buffet. Because we are leaving town, its a chores day: pick up laundry, get groceries and make a quick stop into Home Depot. Heading north out of town back towards the Gulf of Mexico again we saw flamingos again! This was one of our trickiest nights finding a decent camp spot, it was slim pickin’s and most of what we had picked didn’t exist anymore. We finally found a pretty buggy spot a short walk from the water. The scary thing about nestling into a grove of palm trees is that around here most of them are coconut palms. We put in a lot of effort to not park any part of the truck in the path of potentially falling coconuts. Did you know falling coconuts kill more people a year than sharks? Yea. We don’t want to be part of that statistic.
In the jungle, we spend our days drowning in bug spray, always in search of water to swim in. As we continue our Yucatan tour, our electrical gremlin pops up again. Oh well, now we have a spare ignition switch. Back in the US of A we found out that our house had sprung a leak. Trying to coordinate emergency plumbing repair via text message with varying levels of cell service is fairly stressful. In fun news, we visited out first cenote, Hool Kosom. Cenote’s are big fresh water sinkholes you can swim in to beat the heat. They are incredible. You are essentially swimming in a cave with a skylight in it. And they are full of life; birds, plants, bats, fish the size of your hand. The water is cold and deep blue, and very refreshing. We ended our day in a hotel parking lot, which was pretty great. It was level, we were under a tree for shade, and they had a pool we could use! We decided this would be a good spot to relax for a couple of days, and maybe wait for rainy weather for our visit to Chichen Itza.
We had a casual day. Berne spent the morning chasing our gremlin, grinding all the power and ground connections under the hood. We spent a lot of time in and out of the pool since it was over 90F. KoKo enjoyed following the iridescent green beetles, and moths the size of her hand. We found a couple of 4 inch long millipedes in the bottom of the pool. Mid day our daily monsoon rolled in, complete with thunder and lightning. There was a lightning strike across the street from us and it was the loudest thing either of us had ever heard. Berne actually saw it strike and was a little shaken by how close it was.
Berne woke up really sick the next morning. We weren’t sure if it was because of all the sun, dehydration, or some bug bite amplified by his allergy to them. Because of the heat, and distance to a bathroom we decided that before Berne got any worse we should move him into a hotel with air conditioning. KoKo got everything packed up and we were off. Why didn’t we just stay in the hotel we had been camping in the parking lot of? Well…the rooms didn’t seem especially comfortable, and their A/C didn’t seem like it was up to the task. We found a place in town for Berne to sleep through the next couple of days. KoKo never got sick, so we are still unsure about what actually took him down.
