Bike Tour

Once of the people we met on our tour with Alvin was Eric Ramirez, an English-speaking freelance tour guide who gives tours and in particular drives for a tour group that specializes in bike tours, so we decided to sign up for one to see the rest of the sights we couldn't see on the first day with Alvin.

Mixed reviews here. Mostly good: we went to Tula, home of the world's largest tree. From there we biked to a carpet maker about 20 kilometers away, mostly dirt road and a great way to see the country. Linda fell getting out of the van, a loose seat belt from the front seat that dangled down and caught her foot, resulting in a nasty fall that hurt her wrist and elbow, but she's tough, and we continued with the ride.

From there we went to a family-owned rug shop, and got the tour of how the wool is cleaned and dyed. After a few more miles of riding, we re-boarded the van and headed to the stone waterfalls, which were great, very dramatic.

Earlier, we had specifically asked about Mixla, the ancient Mayan ruins, which were advertised as part of the tour. And we asked again, to confirm our interest in going. Eric confirmed that we'd be able to see Mixla, but when we left Aguas Hierbas, we were told that the ruins were closed but we could see them from the outside, from the surrounding town. This was pretty disappointing, since we easily could have seen the ruins had we just reversed the last two items. So my advice to myself and to any readers -- even if you think it's spelled out, re-confirm everything. We were the only ones on the tour, so seeing the Women's Rug Co-operative and Mixla would have been easy to do, and should have happened.