El Rey de Beisbol

after settling into my hostel today i took off to see what was listed in the guidebook as one of the top 40 sites in mexico, the cenotes. the book gave two options for transport, collectivo or bike. i thought to myself, well, i could use a bit of exercise to burn off my campo panza plus it´ll give me a better chance to see the countryside, plus i´m cheap. so, bike it was. the guide also tells you to get your bikes from a shop entitled Rey de Beisbol run by the rey (king) de beisbol himself, who claimes to have been a professional player. so i find my way there and walk in to find a very large shirtless and hawaiin shorts clad old man sitting in a dark shop filled with sports equipment as well as trophies for sale (i can only assume he creates his own rey status with these trophies)
i go to pick out my bike, making pleasant conversation with the rey. i should have had the first hint that he was a miser when he wrote down the time i was starting on my journey as 155 when it was really 145, but alas, he told me i was a beautiful guerra and sent me on my way, reminding me not to lose the key to the lock.

as i make my merry way down the bike path (which incidentely was filled with wholes and ruts and suprisingly high dropoffs onto the highway) i hear a clink. shoot, i think, a coin has fallen out of my pocket. i make mental note of the blue building a bit ahead so that i can look for the coin on my way back. i continue on my way thinking about the lack of cactus in the yucatan and the proliferation of iguanas. apparently cacti and iguanas do not go to gether. when all of a sudden my bike goes nuts. i try to stop but no brakes. What? no brakes? well, the entire brake apparatus had fallen off a few feet back, piece by piece. i drop the bike and go try to find the pieces (but still missing that crucial piece wqhich i now discover must have been the ´coin´a ways back)
as i´m looking i see a man coming down the road. he stops, smelling heavily of the beer that i had watched him drink when i passed him before. he´s also got a few more beers and a bottle of cheap tequia in a plastic bag.
he wants to help, great! i think, just don´t kill me. while he takes a look at my bike he offers me a beer for the heat. no thanks i say. he starts pulling bike parts out o fhis pocket, telling me that this sort of thing happens to his bike often. unfortunatly theres no fix and after 10 awkward minutes of being invited to a fiesta and having to decline because i´m not going o a rancho party solo, i´m on my way, brakeless to the cenotes.
i feel bad for the kid who wants to watch my bike so i let him watch it for a few pesos even though its a piece of junk with no brakes anyway, it is my ride home.
the cenotes were gorgeous... totally beautiful. google search cenotes valladolid if you want to see. it´s like a lagoon in a cave with an air shaft letting in light.
i grumblingly hop back on my bike afterwards and hed bck to the town. as i arrive i check my watch. 350, great, under 2 hours. (or if you go by his timing 2 hours and 5 minutes which he surely cant charge me for)
çwell, i was wrong. he wants to charge me for 3 hours! i talk him down to 2.5... that miser with a bike whose brakes fall off! teaches you to deal with professional baseball players!