The entire dive was the same as the first five minutes. It was something I’d always wanted to try, but now that I’ve tried it I will never need to try it again. There was barely any aquatic life to see, apart from the odd tiny silver fish. Just stalagmites and stalactites, and if you’ve been in a limestone cave before you will know what the inside of a cave looks like, just fill it with water and there you have it; cenote diving. The coolest thing for me, was the way the exhaled air from our regulators rose and formed pools of quicksilver on the ceiling of the cave. They appeared as perfect mirrors until you touched their surfaces, breaking the illusion, and they would then appear like windows with a view of the roof behind them. There were also several parts of the dive where daylight broke through the cenote ceiling and created a fuzzy rainbow in the water. After the dives it was great not to need to rinse salt off everything.

I headed back to Playa and then caught a bus towards Coba. I had planned to camp somewhere but by the time I got to the small town it was dark; the hotel across the road from the bus stop was more appealing.

The weather was so bad last night that the roof of the hotel was ripped off in the wind and the rain came pouring in. When I awoke to a chorus of roosters, the roof was still there and I was dry as a bone.

The ruinas were spread out over almost two miles but nothing seemed particularly outstanding from the other ruins I’ve seen. It did have the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan area and thankfully it wasn’t out of bounds. The view from the top was impressive but it is just a sea of thick jungle scrub as far as the eye can see.

How early explorers persisted in getting through this country I will never know, but obviously the promise of Mayan riches was enough to keep them going. Once I got back to Playa, I grabbed lunch and headed to the Tulum ruinas situated with a view of the lovely turquoise waters between the mainland and Cozumel. The place was crowded with tourists from Cancun and it was amazing the number of Latinos that would totally disregard the “No climbing” barriers just for a photo opportunity.

I got back to Cozumel in the afternoon, glad to be back.

He’d also stopped one time to check whether I was ok. I get passed by a convey of one or two dozen jeeps for those cruise ship tourists who like to get a whirlwind tour of the island. I go past the sign advertising Bob Marley’s second home always thinking that next time I’ll get a photo of it. Next time. I pass the surfers on the East coast and stop and watch a while. I pass the wooden beach shack decorated with a charcoal drawing of a voluptuous naked lady. I stop in at the bar at Punta Morena beach for a quick drink and amuse myself watching the pet anteater. Each time, I consider buying the “Punta Morena – Surf Naked – Put a little colour in your cheeks” t-shirt but never do. Next time.

I finally hit the road heading back into town and see how long I can keep up with the mopeds that struggle whenever they have a passenger.

Went and saw the movie “Constantine” again as I was in dire need of some popular entertainment. In other news, there was another earthquake today off the coast of Indonesia, but luckily no tsunami followed. And Lisa Marie Presley told Oprah that she thinks Michael Jackson may have used her. Paul Hester, the Crowded House drummer, hung himself in a park not far from his home two days ago.

“Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence.”

– A Passage to India, E.M. Forster

I was the dive master for the two of them, and Mike, a bloke from British Columbia, apparently from a small town that I’d ridden through. He was shocked when I told him what time of year I’d been there. We dived on Paradise Reef again which was lovely as usual. Then we headed to the North end of San Francisco reef where we made a drift dive onto a gentle sloping wall. Drift dives are my favourite dives, it’s like flying, effortless flying. We only had to kick when we stopped to say hello to a large turtle heading in the opposite direction. I spotted a large lobster and we saw plenty of large angelfish nibbling on the coral. When we got low on air we all linked arms together for the ascent and safety stop. The dive left me with a grin on my face for the rest of the day. Especially after getting a goodbye kiss on the cheek from Yolanda.

I’d tried to get to Cuba, ah…

So, why reach ten thousand miles? If I feel like I have somehow failed to reach a milestone on this trip maybe it will encourage me even more so to attempt something bigger and better next time. I like that idea.

I picked up Stef, all wrapped in cardboard, half an hour later.

Carolina knocks on my door at six and the three of us head to the restaurant in Alberto’s clapped-out Chevy. Alberto hands me a nice bottle of wine as a gift, and I immediately feel a little ashamed at the cheap bottle of my “León de Tarapaca” vino tinto that I’d bought along myself. So into the fancy open-air restaurant I walk sheepishly, hacienda creeper framing the clear night sky, with a bottle of wine in each hand. Alberto introduces me to his friends Colin, a pilot from Texas, and his wife. We talk lots about paragliding, fishing and diving and the negative effect that Steve Irwin has had on the American people’s perceptions of Australians. It was a brilliant meal, the raw fish I’d bravely tried was really good. Colin pays for the entire meal, and I, quite tipsy, try to slip him some money discreetly for my share, but he refuses. “Come on…, I’m a stranger” I insist, but they laugh.