Day 8: Tres Reyes to Coba

January 6, 2026

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We looked over our emails and bank account last night, and pulled out the email from Booking.com that said "Payment successful - we received your payment for Coba Ka'an Serenity". And the bank statement said that the amount had left our account. So we were feeling put out that we had had to pay twice. On the other hand, the property was sure that they had not received any money from Booking. Booking's email said "we" received your payment, but that of course didn't mean that Coba Ka'an received anything. Perhaps at Booking headquarters in Amsterdam, they are out toasting the new year, with our money, or is it Coba Ka'an's?

We brought our receipts over to Victor and Teresa, the owners. They were the only ones here, because as we now understand - they are closed and not accepting bookings, and only welcomed us in because we showed up on bikes - due to the Booking glitch. So again, from their point of view they will have to pay the cleaning staff for the room and otherwise have no revenue, and from our point of view we are asked to pay twice. It's a knotty situation to have to resolve at a serenity retreat!

Victor and Teresa ended by saying "it's only money", and they refunded our amount. In return I said I would get onto Booking and try to find out what they did with the original payment. If we can get them to refund it, we will in turn pass it on to Victor and Teresa. After this post gets written, there will be a phone call to Booking, in Montreal, or London, or Amsterdam, or Phillipines - who knows who or where these people really are. But we know the resolution will not be fast or satisfying - the people on the phone lines only have a limited number of scripts, and this does not sound like one of them!

The serenity at the Sanctuary was also a little ruffled by periodic loud bangs. Some of these were really loud - like the loudest sounds I can recall ever hearing. They made me think of what soldiers under artillery bombardment might hear, before getting PTSD. But you see, we are near the town of Tres Reyes - Three Kings - and this was Epiphany - the celebration of the arrival of the kings with the gifts. It's a big town festival, and as mentioned before, Mexicans equate fun and noise.

We pedaled off into the jungle surrounding Tres Reyes, and then onto the straight shot road toward Coba.

The road really was seriously a jungle excursion. In most places we could look left and right and appreciate that without at least a machete there would be no way to enter that realm. It made us wonder how the Maya did it, because if you can not enter the jungle you sure aren't building a city there. It turns out they used stone tools for smaller brush, and fire for larger trees. Wow, a $200 Chinese chainsaw from Amazon would sure have been handy!

Along the way we encountered signs explaining that we were in a protected jungle. They picture, for example, a margay wild cat, but sadly we rather doubt that many such things are still in there.

We did pass two small villages along the way, and one even had this small church:

The total trip was not long, but unfortunately Dodie has been suffering from saddle sore type chafing. It's really painful, ands she has been trying to use Vaseline with it. But it really needs time, free of pressure, to heal. Fortunately we are staying a couple of days in Coba, so perhaps it will have a chance.

We rolled into Coba, a place that is familiar from some past visits. We passed the grilled chicken lady. We know that the wood fire broiled chicken is good, but a little pricy. In fact we had a target restaurant in mind - one down by Lake Coba, near the ruins.

The restaurant is called el Cocodrilo - the crocodile - for good reason. We have seen crocodiles just across the street, opposite the lake. It's easy to see why no one swims in the lovely water.

Dodie at el Cocodrilo. We have actually seen crocs in that green just behind her.

The sign below shows the kind of yummy stuff you can get here.

Naturally I chose PocChuc, my all time favourite and a star feature of a previous Grampies blog.

Poc Chuc is chicken marinated in bitter orange. I really loves the sides too - refried beans, rice, salad, fried onions. The lime is so nice you can just eat it straight. Missing in this presentation are those pink pickled onions.

Dodie chose a similar chicken (only not marinated in bitter orange) and really nice cooked vegetables. We also went crazy and split a coke!

We were thinking about carrots today, looking at the rocky soil in the jungle. These are surely "imported" from Mexico. We did see one brave patch of corn as we entered Coba town.

Coba Lake, across from the restaurant, is a birding hotspot. And yes, we came up with some great species, almost from our lunch chairs.

We shifted to a hotel different from any we had tried before in Coba. Earlier we had been perfectly happy in the basement of the totally basic Lol-Ha. The Lol-Ha did have some upstairs rooms most commonly used for tourists, but we had been content in that basement. This time around we have moved closer to the lake, to a place with fancy carving and decor - the Nojoch Che. We are still in our comfort zone, though, because even here the water spritzes out crooked from the bathroom sink - drenching the electrical outlet, and the pool has turned green, because the "machine broke".

There is a huge jungle type tree growing in the middle of the hotel. Birds are screaming up in this tree. Merlin hears them as the Melodious Blackbird, Great-tailed Grackle, and Brown Jay.

Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 224 km (139 miles)

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