San Francisco de Campeche was worth staying for some extra days. Campeche is a World Heritage Site and is one of two remaining cities in the western hemisphere with fortified walls. It is small enough that you can walk anywhere, yet big enough to have all the conveniences. Situated right on the gulf of Mexico, it has an excellent Malecon with bikepath, a great place to meet people or watch the sun set into the ocean. I stayed at the Monkey Hostel located on the plaza. The staff was laid back and friendly and there were few guests, just a few Europeans to while away the evening hours with.
On my last night there they had a convention of the governors of Mexico on the zocalo. It felt like we were presiding over the affair from the balcony of the hostel. The police sealed off nine blocks to traffic and sealed off the zocalo to anyone who was not invited. The governors arrived one by one in white Chevy Suburbans. When they stepped out of the car they were surrounded by the press with lots of lights, microphones, and cameras. Eventually, they all assembled on the plaza at little tables and had dinner and watched some fine folk dancing. It was a regal affair. Later, I awoke to the sound of fireworks, too bad I missed the show, but cyclists have to get to bed early.
As I was preparing to leave the following morning, an old guy from Calgary who was staying at the hostel [never did get his name] started a conversation with me. He had rode his bicycle to Uruguay (from Calgary), it took him a year to get there and now he was riding buses home because he could “see the bottom of my wallet”. His was a low cost trip, no hotels, sleeping in fields each night, but he said he enjoyed that a lot better than riding the bus with the tourists. He looked over the instrumentation (cyclocomputer, GPS) on my bike and made the comment “I didn’t even have an odometer on my bike”. I showed him my cyclocomputer even told me my heartrate. He said “well I definitely would NOT want to know that” <g>. He offered me advice on the best route to take through Central America. He had basically took the flattest route. I am not sure which route I will take; it is not unusual for me to make up my mind at the last minute.
