Our Minnesota winter was an easy one, especially since Lisa and I spent the coldest January weeks in St. Martin (in the French West Indies) as we have for the last three years. When we returned home from that island paradise, the weather cleared up and the temperature rose and we had hardly any snow. Even so, we missed the beach and almost immediately booked a week in the self-described “small fishing village” of Puerto Morelos, Mexico, in the state of Quintana Roo, on the Yucatan peninsula. I put that phrase in quotation marks because it is more than a small fishing village now, though that is an appealing image. PM is halfway between Cancun and Playa del Carmen and has become both a popular tourist destination and a place for expats from the US and Canada. It is definitely a more peaceful place than the two glitzy spots to the north and south.

We couldn’t get to Mexico until the last week of April, and intended to celebrate Lisa’s birthday there. We booked an apartment on the ocean and looked forward to long walks every day on the beach, something we always do when in St. Martin, which is about 1,500 miles straight east of the Yucatan Peninsula. As it turned out, it was impossible to walk on the beach directly from our apartment, as the big dock that makes Puerto Morelos a port was between us and the main beaches of the town. We did not rent a car on this trip, but we did rent two bikes, which we used every day to ride into town and then do our beach walk.

So these bikes were nothing like our own – they were kind of typical beach cruisers, but with gears. Sadly, only one of the gears worked on each bike and on our first trip, we quickly realized that neither one had working brakes, either. On the second morning of our stay, Lisa’s bike had developed a flat. Our landlord agreed to have the bikes worked on and within a day, we had new tires on both and working brakes. From then on, we rode into town first thing in the morning and then walked a few miles on the beach and then rode home after stopping at the grocery store for fresh croissants.

We couldn’t help but compare this Mexican town to Orient Bay in French St. Martin. They are both delightful, but in their own ways. Mexico is more humble, less wealthy, less like modern Europe. The people are friendly and the food is amazing. But Mexico isn’t France. We had a nice apartment, where something seemed to malfunction every day, and the mangrove swamp was really nearby and the roads were potholed and messy.

But the people were nice and greeted us as we rode our bikes down to the village square each day, especially after we figured out that we were riding the wrong way down a one way street (a woman muttered “gringos” as we rode by her that first day – we did not make that mistake again.) Our daily habit became a slow waking, coffee, a few minutes on our balcony overlooking the sea, then the ride down to the beach, our walk, and a ride back home for more coffee and a croissant, then packing up books and water for an afternoon at one of the “beach clubs” where we’d rent chairs and read, swim and drink Pacificos all afternoon. Overhead, dozens of frigate birds (officially “The Magnificent Frigate Bird”) drifted in the wind with their notable “W” silhouette. We also saw them drying their wings while perched on docks (unlike most seabirds, frigate bird feathers are not waterproof.)

That’s about it, and it doesn’t make a particularly interesting post, except for one story we can tell you. We have a coaster on a bulletin board in our kitchen that reads “Bad Choices Make Great Stories” which isn’t exactly our motto, but which might apply to some of our adventures, including this one.

Lisa is a good traveler and generally does a lot of research before we go on a trip, identifying the highlights of the places we are going to. She had identified a list of things to do, restaurants, bookstores and beaches she wanted to see – that is, to bike to, since we did not have a car. On that list was to go swimming in a cenote. A cenote (say-no-tay) is an opening in the rock surface of the ground which is full of freshwater from underground springs. Some are in caves and others are just open pools in the jungle. They are beautiful and good places to swim. There are quite a few of these in the vicinity of Puerto Morelos, especially along the “Ruta De Los Cenotes” – a highway that heads west away from the ocean just south of PM. She had the impression that it would not be a difficult bike trip from our apartment, and that we’d take our swimsuits and bike to one or more cenote for a swim on her birthday. I agreed, though was a bit less certain about the easiness of this particular adventure, especially given the bikes we had.

Puerto Morelos has two parts: the beach village, where we were staying, which is connected to the Colonia part of town, about 5 kilometers to the west, across a causeway through the mangrove swamp. The Colonia is less popular with tourists, but is interesting in its own right, with lots of small food vendors on every street. We needed to ride our bikes across the causeway (on sidewalks) and under the main highway that connects Cancun and Playa, through the old town, and then out to the cenotes. The nearest one, Cenote Sol y Luna, looked to be about a 7 mile ride. Lisa’s impression of the Ruta De Los Cenotes based on her research was that it was “bike friendly.” 7 miles doesn’t sound impressive, though on the bikes we were riding, it wasn’t going to be a fast ride, we knew that.

We packed up our swim suits and a few other necessities, and took off. The ride into the old part of town went pretty well, including getting under the freeway, the busiest intersection by far. We’d google mapped the route for bikes, and it took us out of town to the west on a different road than the Ruta De Los Cenotes, which might have been a clue for a wise biker. After getting turned around in town a couple times, we located the road out to the west. It started out as a paved road, but quickly and dramatically deteriorated into a potholed, rocky and barely passable trail. As we rode farther out of town and away from people, we became more and more deeply immersed in the jungle with no sign of civilization, other than vague roads/driveways disappearing into the woods on either side. I wondered what we’d do if our bikes broke down or developed flats – which was highly likely, as a matter of fact. I pondered drug cartels, meth and fentanyl labs at the ends of the roads on either side, guarded by vicious dogs. (I had no evidence that this was the case, but my imagination was working overtime.) At one point, Lisa said that a black SUV was following us slowly, but it left us.

Our very bad road eventually turned and joined the Ruta De Los Cenotes, the supposedly bike friendly road. It turned out to be bike UNfriendly. There were no shoulders – our right elbows were brushing the jungle. And there was a fair amount of traffic, cars and trucks driving pretty fast. We found a safe place to pull off and have a little meeting. At this point, I was not that interested in a cenote experience, but rather was pondering how we were going to get home without getting hit by a truck.

We consulted Google maps on our phones (thank goodness we had a signal) and learned that there was a cenote nine minutes west on the main road. After considering just heading home (but not on the terrifying road we’d just ridden – rather, the busy Ruta De Los Cenotes), we decided that we should just bite the bullet (we didn’t come this far to only come this far) and head to the cenote called Cenote Sol y Luna and at least enjoy ourselves there for a bit. We rode by a new train station for the Mayan Railroad, the Tren Maya, which will connect Cancun and points south. For that short bit, there was actually a bike lane, but it lasted only a kilometer.

We made it to the cenote, checked in and had a good time for an hour or so, swimming and ziplining – ok that was just Dan, the most viejo of the zipliners that day. In fact, I stood in line behind a muy valiente five year old girl and chatted with Francisco, the attendant.

Finally, we decided to head home and packed up and took off to the east down the Ruta De Los Cenotes and back to the ocean. I actually thought about whether it would be better for Lisa (who was wearing white) to ride in back, as she was more visible, or me in back, so I’d get hit by the truck first and instead of her. I said to her at one point “we are not talking about this (and whether it was a good idea) until we are safely back in our apartment.” It was a hair-raising ride but we made it into town, across the freeway, onto the sidewalk through the mangrove swamp and back to our place. Then, we talked about it.

It had been risky, dangerous, perhaps foolish, and an adventure. Lisa’s assessment: “this was the best day of our vacation!”

I understood her. What happened (and didn’t happen) that day was typical of almost all of our biking adventures. During the hours we were engaged in riding, getting lost, trying to avoid being hit by trucks and watching the jungle for monkeys and alligators, we were NOT thinking about politics, work, kids, parents or the many other things we generally worry about. We were deeply connected to the world we were in, and solving the fundamental problems that were popping up moment to moment – directions, road surfaces and obstructions, speed – aware of everything that was going on around us. We were completely focused on the adventure we were engaged in – and our ultimate goal of staying alive. That is a true escape. It, of course, works only if it ends well! Which it pretty much always has for us.

We had a beer, sat on our rooftop deck for a while, and then cleaned up and headed back into town on our trusty (and rusty) bikes for an evening meal at Tanino’s where a lovely duo was performing really great music.

It was a crazy and interesting and lovely week and we’d do it again, most definitely.