Often men, instead of giving a Hoya would give a whistle and a wave. Often I would have to look for the source of the whistle, often a man grinning and waving madly from a field or house some distance away.

Another passage from Che’s adventures which I can relate to:

“Our pace was incredibly athletic while within sight of the town’s inhabitants, but later the vast solitude of the bare Andes, the sun that fell harshly across our necks and the badly distributed weight of our backpacks brought us back to reality. Until what point our actions were ‘heroic,’ as one policeman put it, we’re not sure, but we began to suspect, I think with good reason, that the definitive adjective was approximating something more like ‘stupid.’”

– Motorcycle Diaries, Ernesto Che Guevara

I only had one Snickers today, at lunchtime, and every mouthful of it was savoured. After I got to Palenque and had found a hotel I headed out on the streets of the town to find more Snickers. I found a large gas station just before town and bought all six of the Snickers bars that they had on display.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. After waking up I went back to the gas station to find more Snickers, but it looks like I had taken the last ones they had. They did have the crunchy type Snickers bars though, so I bought all four that they had in the refrigerated display. I looked in a few other places in town but it seems they only had large displays of biscuits on their shelves. Probably in a hot town like this, chocolate isn’t so popular. I got on the bike and headed a mile out of town to another gas station I’d seen yesterday. They had six of the original Snickers bars on display so I bought them. When I was buying some snacks later in the afternoon, I spotted another three in the store’s refrigerated display. So I bought them. If only they had the “grande” sized bars like they do in the States, I’d be laughing.

I headed to the Palenque ruinas in a collectivo early in the day, already the humidity was incredible. It was an amazing site and I wandered from palace to temple to building for several hours. It’s mind blowing to see a map of the area; the number of excavated buildings is miniscule compared to the total number of buildings on the site. Beyond the ruinas the regular hooting of howler monkeys could be heard and near a dry creek bed I watched some small birds, but apart from that there were no other signs of wildlife.

By eleven in the morning the crowds had arrived and everywhere was bustling with tourists, some of them being shown around by local guides. I overheard one conversation between an older American woman and her Mexican guide. She was asking about square holes, about a metre squared each, cut out regularly along a temple’s inside wall, each giving a pleasant view out into the courtyard:
“Are these windows?”

“No, these are cut-outs”
“Are they to let the air in?”
“No, they’re there to make it lighter.”

Am considering whether I can pack all my necessities (isn’t everything I have necessary?) into my tiny day pack and travel around Cuba sans Stef. A fellow cyclist I met in California earlier in the trip mentioned that I could leave my bike at his girlfriend’s house in Cancun.

Booked a trip out of town to see more ruinas tomorrow.