IZAMAL AND KIMBILÁ PASSING HOCTÚN AND CITILCUM BY BUS AND BIKE

On a cool gray January morning that Jane and I had anxiously been awaiting, we leisurely biked to the city center and boarded the nine AM Oriente bus to Kimbilá.
(Check out our web-site for bus terminal information and details about the “Noreste” and the other buses of Yucatan.)
Kimbilá has the distinction of being the manufacturing center of Yucatan for fancy embroidered ladies blouses and dresses.
Izamal is known for its gigantic Mayan pyramids and classic colonial Spanish structures.
The return bus ride is best for its scenic towns but the countryside in this part of Yucatan is nondescript at best with low thorny scrub over a flat unremarkable plain.
The following story is told with captioned photos;
Jane is biking the quiet Mérida side streets to the city center in January 2009.
Out of the tourist loop in silent Kimbilá I manage to get my head into the church photo.
Fresh cut meat sold in the city center of Kimbilá directly in front of the church.
Street dogs, “callejeros” are busy sniffing and frolicking around the street meat-market.
Parking and traffic are not problems in Kimbilá where the scarcity of motor vehicles and absence of stop lights create a welcome relief from Mérida’s pushy-shovey horn-honking madness.
Ten AM finds us having our morning iced coffee and fresh locally made hot tortillas on the main street of Kimbilá where it is so quiet we become anxious in anticipation of some unforeseen event that is surely not going to happen here anytime soon!
The trip proves to be well worth the effort for we have found a priceless commodity…quiet.
Across the street is the unassuming Taller de Bordado, a retail store and sewing factory and this is why all the bicycles are parked here. Inside are countless sewing machines busily humming along turning out fancy embroidered clothing mostly for exportation.
Inside of the sewing factory this is one of the many rooms filled with workers who all came to work on their bicycles.
Jane shops at one of the many Kimbilá stores featuring the locally made handy-work of the talented sewing artisans. These clever people produce unique adorning patterns that reflect the embroidered work of the ancient Maya.
We were impressed by the quality of workmanship and the excellent materials used.
Taxi service in Kimbilá goes at a sensible rate and the kids are delivered home from school for lunch by this smiling lady operator.
The town of Citilcúm on our way to Izamal is little more than a wide place in the road, but it is home to some people. Check out this main zocolo park directly across the street from the church that is skinny pickings for this horse sniffing out a meager meal of dry parched nearly invisible grass.
This is becoming a rare sight in Yucatan these days. Henequen cut and neatly stacked atop this antique truck rolls through town to be processed into sisal rope fiber. The process is so labour intensive that even Mexico is losing out to the cheaper producers in Brazil.
Citilcúm still keeps this industry alive and thriving. Throughout Yucatan even these small towns manage to keep their churches functional, though numerous evangelizers are encroaching.
Our first rest stop in Izamal is at this little park dedicated to the caste war that raged across Yucatan for nearly sixty years, ending about the time the revolutionary war began in 1910. (Peaceful places have no history.)
These cement “love seats” designed for face-to-face intimacy have been standard city park fixtures for many years in Yucatan.

Behind me and our little folding bicycles you will see the color that makes Izamal distinctive. For whatever reason I am not sure but throughout town you will only find this yellowish color paint on the city’s buildings. It is very nice and very distinctive.
Izamal is a major photo-op stop and tourist destination in Yucatan and I will not attempt to do justice to the many impressive Mayan pyramids or spectacular colonial structures in this story but refer you to the book Maya Missions by Richard and Rosalind Perry. I also encourage you to search the web where abundant information is available. Above is a statue of the notorious Bishop Diego de Landa who had a hand in the development of the Izamal monastery in the 1500’s and is noted for torture and the burning of Mayan books.
A pawn shop in downtown Izamal is not a positive sign of good times in Mexico.
The colossal amount of stone harvested from the ancient Mayan temples that stood here to build this city is simply mind boggling considering that several enormous pyramids still remain standing to this day. We recommend Izamal as a must-see place. Bring your camera, read-up ahead of time and by all means take a guided carriage ride.
On the streets of Izamal and near the municipal market venders turn local fruit to money.
A couple of blocks east of the main square Jane and I found this lovely little cocina economica that produced a hardy local dish known as “potaje” which is a stew heavily laden with vegetables, pork, lentils and spiced just right. The option of adding lethally hot habanero sauce is at your own risk. We make tacos with the fresh tortillas that are included with the meal. The portion is very sustaining and is the required quantity for active bicyclers.
This a Mérida street in January in our neighborhood on the way home from the Centro bus terminal in the city center. Jane is wearing one of the Kimbilá embroidered blouses.

TABASCO, THE CACAO ROUTE REVISITED, VILLAHERMOSA, CANDUACÁN AND COMALCALCO BY BIKE AND BUS

December, 2008

Our nine hour snooze aboard the “UNO” state-of-the-art sleeper-bus that sizzled non-stop through the night took Jane and I along with our folding bikes from a quiet moonlight Sunday evening in Mérida to the hustle and bustle of a Villahermosa on Monday morning.
The “UNO” bus is ADO’s luxury step above first class featuring huge fully reclining cushy seats, his and hers toilet facilities, always open wet-bar with unlimited hot and cold drinks and a “care-package” containing, ear plugs, ear phones, eye covers, blanket, pillows and even mint candies.

Jane and I are no strangers to Villahermosa, a unique tropical city bounded by the Grijalva, Mezcalapa and Carrizal rivers plus numerous lagoons.
Over the years we have enjoyed the one-of-a-kind city-center jungle park-museum La Venta with its wild monkeys and hoards of colorful parrots that features the mysterious mega-ton carved stone Olmec heads thousands of years old.
The world class riverfront Carlos Pellicer Cámara anthropology museum (Museo Regional de Antropología Carlos Pellicer Cámara) that links the Olmec and Chantal Mayan cultures which formed the cradle of American civilization is easily worth the trip to Villahermosa by it self.
The other attraction unique to this capital city is its enormous municipal market where Tabasco’s extensive variety of deep tropical bounty is sold fresh daily. Cacao, coconut, cinnamon, vanilla, corn, and many strange species of bananas are but a few of the items they sell and are also prepared along with tantalizing seafood delights done in their traditional Tabasqueño cuisine commingling ancient Indian and Spanish customary culinary cookery.
The following story is told with captioned photos:
Upon our arrival in Villahermosa across from the ADO bus terminal several open-air breakfast places compete and the service may vary from one to the other. If you can hold out for the big municipal market your meal will be much better and immensely cheaper.
Our old stand-by Hotel Bilboa, a block from the big market with roll in bicycle parking ultimately got our business and we next took to the busy streets headed for the marketplace on foot. Curious diversions abound.
Going hungry here is not possible if you have a few pesos and are willing to partake of the street food like this coconut vender has to offer.
Where is the beef? Behind Jane is bullfight poster announcing an upcoming slaughter of six bulls and in the shop hangs the fresh unrefrigerated slabs of flesh and sausage, so you don’t have to wait. I have always maintained if you have been in Mexico so long that the beef starts to taste good, you have been in Mexico too long.
Tabasco is chocolate country and has been for several thousand years dating back to the first cultivation by the Olmec Indians and here are the cacao beans in bulk and sold by the kilo. The bag in the middle is called lavabo and the others are fermented, two different processes.
Pozol: Made fresh and a local favorite is this drink concocted of ground corn meal and whole sun-dried and roasted cacao.. It is all natural and when you smack your lips after the drink the cacao butter leaves a lovely lubricating sensation.
The market diversity is utterly amazing and you can’t see it all in just one day.
Fish; fresh, smoked or fried are available by the kilo.
This is not a penitentiary guard tower; however it sure does resemble one. Villahermosa has several of these observation towers around town, including one in the La Venta Park and this one towers over the bank of the Grijalva River which has flooded its banks the last two years in a row. Two years ago the big rivers flowing into Tabasco from Guatemala managed to submerge 80% of the state.
This is one of the numerous city parks that always manage to have venders hawking something to drink or eat and occasionally some trinket you might impulsively buy.
Breakfast? Six eggs and a stack of tortillas will definitely carry you until noon.
Mexico is definitely about food and we just had to try these Yucatecan salbutes that lost a lot by virtue of geographical relocation. They were good but a far cry from the real thing. The cream covered brown things were fried sweet ripe cooking bananas (plátano relleno). This is one delicious thing that Tabasco excels at and shouldn’t be missed.

I must comment about bicycling around Villahermosa; the drivers were wonderful, patient and courteous and we didn’t notice any of the standard neurotic pushy-shovey horn-honking run-you-off-the-road beaverboard we see back in Yucatan. The street conditions however could be life threatening with man-hole covers inset three or more inches, deep slotted holes that could tear a wheel off a bike and diagonal metal storm grates that could dislocate everything associated with your bicycle including you.
After we had thoroughly enjoyed our lovely return visit to Villahermosa Jane and I boarded a colectivo taxi for a small out-of-the-way town that looked in a tourist brochure like the type of place we must visit.

Cunduacán; with a nice intriguing sounding name like Cunduacán, the place just had to be worthy of our holiday stopover.
This was unquestionably a back road out of the tourist loop kind of spot that we often times find charming and very fascinating. After all, we were the only tourists in town and the competition for services was nearly non-existent.
Without dragging this story on too long I will tell you the only accommodation in town was more than just sleazy…it was deplorable.
The market at my initial glance appeared clean, spacious and neat. I went in and at my first turn into the main market area discovered that it was a children’s gaming parlor like a mini Las Vegas with a noise level that was designed to blast out ear-drums. Before noon we made our escape and boarded a bus to Comalcalco, a few minutes away.
In the pleasant and clean food court at Comalcalco’s main market our favorite is still Doña Alma’s cocina económica with its super attention to customer satisfaction and elegant culinary presentation. As we entered the food court the friendly and attentive waitress parked our bicycles and smiling took our order. (Note our bikes nearby.)
This is a good reason just to come to Comalcalco and Doña Alma’s liter sized pozol heavily frothing over with cacao cream is the best we have sampled in Mexico.
This is the lovely lady that makes the best food in town with a lovely little tote-bag presented to us as a reminder of her cocina económica that makes the claim; “we are not the only ones but just the best!!!” As far as we can tell Doña Alma is correct.
Honey and jalea real, or royal jelly an expensive delicacy extracted from bee hives all come from this enthusiastic mans own garden…from the private producer directly to you in the market. The Comalcalco market still sells products predating the Spanish invasion.
From the numerous waterways of Tabasco live crabs are bundled and oysters shelled and bagged. This is as fresh as it gets without any refrigeration.
Speaking of fresh, white corn on the cob and live turkeys and chickens await customers.
The corn, maiz and turkeys,( guajolote or pavo, are indigenous to America but the Spanish brought chickens, pollo to the New World.
Neatly presented in corn husk wrappers is a local product called; panela, brown sugar, which here in Tabasco is nearly unrefined and made into cakes like disks. These disks are packed four to a wrapper. The flavor is mild but has sweetness similar to caked maple syrup. The market holds many mysterious products sold in intriguing ways and used here differently than other places in Mexico. Your adventure will be on-going.
Authentic pre-conquest food is here. These fresh milled corn bread cakes were literally steaming hot when I arrived. The dark ones contain beans, and one is what a field worker would normally take as a days ration. I absolutely love these energy packed cakes that you can sink your teeth into and don’t require any topping. They do however go quite well with the fresh fried fish sold at the adjacent stall.

This is cacao fruit, this is not just any cacao, but the original strain developed by the ancient Olmec Indians thousands of years ago called, almendra blanca and kept in limited production at a small hacienda named La Joya. Jane and I were first made aware of unique this place by our bicycle tour friends Basil and Alix, www.bikemexico.com
There are no road signs and we had to find this obscure out-of-the-way place using latitude and longitude coordinates and a print off from Google-earth. These people do not have to advertise their product because they have probably the most exclusive chocolate product in the world and it commands the very highest price everywhere it is sold.
This is where it grows and these cacao trees are overshadowed by a huge canopy jungle.
This is how it grows, directly attached to the main trunk.
This is Doña Clara Maria Echeverria, the proud owner and operator of the La Joya cacao hacienda that has been in her family and producing almendra blanca cacao for nearly three centuries. Heaped to overflowing the wagon load of recently picked cacao will next be opened and the precious seeds extracted, fermented and sun-dried before being processed.
Working in conjunction with the areas best processor and marketer, CACEP cacao http://www.cacep.com/ , (which we write extensively about in our TABASCO; THE CHOCOLATE ROUTE BY BIKE AND BUS) a one kilo bar is now being produced.
This is as good as it ever gets!
Our time in Comalcalco was again not enough but we had an enjoyable stay at the bicycle-friendly Pat-Mal Hotel, visited the CACEP cacao reserve and ate as much of the lovely local foods as we could possibly hold.
Because we were so close to the end of the year holiday season we had a hard time getting seats on the bus back to Mérida and had to lay over an extra night and then shuttle back to Villahermosa to catch a direct bus home.
We returned heavy laden with cacao in various forms, beans, bars, cakes, powder and sticks. What a lovely addictive substance cacao is!

Recommended hotel in Comalcalco:
Hotel Pat-Mal
Morelos No. 606
Centro C>P. 86300
Comalcalco, Tab.
Tel. 933-334-0982 and 933-334-1792

For bus information:
www.ado.com.mx

Tour Cacep, http://www.cacep.com

Comalcalco Bus Ride

A short video from a bus ride we took from Tulipan, Tabasco to Comalcalco, Tabasco. The ride took about an hour but seemed like hours. Play and see why!

HAMMOCKS OF YUCATAN: MÉRIDA, THE LAND OF TAKE IT EASY.

HAMMOCKS OF YUCATAN; MÉRIDA, THE LAND OF TAKE IT EASY.
REST, RELAXATION AND COMFORT IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT!

The Yucatecan hammock is the most versatile, most easily stowed and comfortably sensible furniture item that is
perfectly suited to tropical living and you can easily take them anywhere.
Yucatecan hammocks lend themselves well to an easy going laidback atmosphere that goes hand in glove with the
natural ambiance of ecologically friendly tall shade trees or cool high ceiling open-air tropical dwellings. For all the information about hammocks that we think you need to know, check out our website: www.bicycleyucatan.com