Salto de Agua

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Some days are just random. This was one of them.

We had veered off our Komoot route and not had any WiFi too amend it while at the migrant centre so we didn't have a line to follow and were relying on doing all the navigation ourselves.

We were on a good tarmac road which was very quiet apart from the occasional motorbike or farmers using multiple horses to drag bulls out of field and into trucks. (The bulls were being pulled by rings in their noses and were resisting the pulling power of two horses - it looked very painful)

Neither of us saw any roads turning off at any point but somehow, over the course of the day we managed to miss two left turns meaning we went more or less due south rather than due east for the majority of the day. The road we were on was clearly the best road in the area but it does not appear to show up on Google maps or Komoot. For a large part of the day we managed to convince ourselves we were actually heading east. It was only when we got to a junction at the end where we could cross reference the town name with the map that we worked out where we were.

Anyway, we were very happy with the riding as it was lovely terrain. Rolling hills, low cloud, lush vegetation, smooth tarmac and barely any traffic.

There were a few shonky bridges in places. This one has a clear steam below so we popped down for a quick dip. The cooling effect lasted until we had walked back up to where we had left the bike. It was a hot and humid day.

One section of the road had a constant stream of these trucks ferrying earth about. We suspect that it is for the construction of Tren Maya. They must be the biggest trucks that can get over the small bridges. We also saw these piles of sleepers imitating a stepped pyramid at the migrant centre.

It also turned out that the weld we had got on the crank in Villahermosa wasn't even functional (neither function nor form). Grrr.

We asked around and were told the nearest aluminium welder was in Salto de Agua. This was going to have to be our destination due to the need to get some welding done and because our detour meant Palenque was out of reach.

The only problem was the 450m climb in 30° heat and 80% humidity. I don't think I've ever sweated so much in my life. 

It didn't last for ever and the sweat was nice and cooling on the descent.

We got to the welders at 16.00 to find that he had left for the weekend. His neighbour called him up and, after he had eaten his dinner, he came back to work for 1.5 hours to help us out. Alberto was great. He ground the old weld off and did a really good join of the two bits before grinding it down to a smooth finish. He was incredibly patient. 

Fingers crossed it holds out.

By this stage it was after 18.00 and getting late. We were hot, sticky, dirty and hungry. We opted for a hotel rather than the campsite out of town at the waterfalls. We were glad to shower, use the air con and get food from the restaurant across the road. It had been quite an unexpected day but fun nevertheless

Google photos https://photos.app.goo.gl/p8J9ERd7iN2bGiZy9

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