We set off by 8 am to beat the heat of the day. Unfortunately, Nick and I were both a little worse for wear as we had stayed up the night before with our neighbour Johnny. He is from South Carolina and it was a fun night with lots of laughs. That’s the great thing about travel; you get to meet amazing people from all over.

The only road to Playa del Carmen is Hwy 307 which is double lane and offers a fairly wide shoulder. The ride was uneventful with a little roadwork in a few areas. Otherwise it’s just resort after resort on your left and jungle, Pemex stations, and advertisements on your right. We made it in about 2.5 hours and then had to navigate through Playa to find the ferry terminal to Cozumel.

We missed the ferry by 10 minutes so we went to find food as we were starving by then. Had a great breakfast for next to nothing in the park and then went back for the next ferry. The ferry was weird. It’s called Winjet and once your inside you can’t see out the window and the boats rocking all over the place. Our bikes were tied up outside at the front and I was convinced we were going to lose them. Thankfully, they were there when we docked.

I had booked a hotel and told Nick I knew where to go. Now, I have a terrible sense of direction and Nick knows this; and despite this he followed along to his (and my) peril. We ended up on the northern tip of the island where the road ends. No hotel. Hmm, I checked my map again and realized I went in the complete wrong direction. You can actually see the hotel from the ferry. Good grief. That was an extra 12 km ride during the hottest part of the day.

So Cozumel is VERY touristy. Not our cup of tea. We wandered around town and were hassled a lot. Taxi? Parking? Shopping? Pharmacy? Now, I can appreciate that tourism has been non existent for over a year and they are just trying to make a living but it was a bit much.

One thing though, everyone is wearing a mask and takes your temperature everywhere you go. They are on top of it. It’s pretty impressive. Another thing, it’s wheelchair accessible; they have signs and ramps everywhere and the sidewalks are sloping. I have never seen this in Mexico before. Nice to see.

We grabbed a light dinner and were back at the room and asleep by 9pm. Between getting some mileage on the bikes and the heat, we were done. Tomorrow we cycle the Island and get off the beaten track!