A Broad Abroad

i could not be more thrilled that i picked this place to spend the final week of my adventure.  it´s a stunning, quiet and charming island on the northern tip of the yucatan peninsula.  i just popped into the internet cafe to send a quick email.  i am staying away until i get home and plan to make my final round of updates then.  well, i may have to pop back in here to check the primary results.  go barack!!  i have heaps more pics to upload as well but that can wait – so check back!!

can´t believe it´s my last week!!  just a prelude THANKS to those who shared my adventure here.  this is a great place to reflect on my travels so i´ll do a little writing while i´m here but not any posts.  hasta luego!

I forgot to mention my trip to the ruins of Uxmal.  I did this easily from Merida, catching the 8am bus from the 2nd class bus terminal directly to the ruins.  I considered taking what’s called the “Ruta Puuc” bus, which is a good deal.  For around $13 it makes a circuit to the ruins of Uxmal, Kabah, Payil, and Xlapak, spending 1.5 hours at Uxmal and ½ hr at the others.  It leaves at 8am (also from the 2nd class terminal, on ATS) and takes 7-8 hours.  As I think I mentioned before, I take my sweet time when I visit ruins so because of this and the fact that I’ve seen quite a lot of ruins in the last few months, I opted to just go for uxmal-only.  The bus to Uxmal takes about 1.5 hrs.

Uxmal’s style is completely different than anything I’d seen before. this is the Puuc style, as referenced in “Ruta Puuc”.  The carvings are very animated and stylized and stones are laid in intricate designs along the tops of all the temples.  This, combined with the fact that there are tons of mot-mots (birds) and heaps of iguanas, makes it a really cool place to visit.  I made it back to merida in the afternoon just in time to duck into the hostel and enjoy a nice thunderstorm.  Except for the brief rain and hail storm in san cristobal, I haven’t had any good storms since leaving panama!!  I miss the rain but the bay area’s season will be over by the time I get back.

I found a nice part of valladolid I’d missed before:  barrio del convento sisal.  Today, while sitting in iglesia san Bernardino admiring the altar I was offered a $1 tour.  After seeing the catacombs (Franciscan bones and all), cenote and cloisters I found myself standing atop the dome of the of a church built near 1600, marveling at its strength and endurance and looking across the flat plain if the yucatan.

These colonial churches are thick, strong and marvelously cool (in temperature). I tell ya, when I’m in a hot colonial town the best place to sit and pass an hour is in the catholic church.  I’m not talking a/c, I’m talking thick stone, atop the best rises with an orientation that maximizes a breeze.  Nice.

This evening I strolled out to the square. The weather in the last few days has become fresh.  Such a relief. It’s a Tuesday and pretty quiet but tonight there was a stage set up in the square to celebrate a community service organization.  I’m not sure how the participants were selected, but I’d call it a step above karaoke.  Depending on where you are, maybe a step below.  But old and young had come out and each participant had their crew so it was fun to watch.  There weren’t any tourists or touts and all in all it was a pleasant evening and I look forward to chilling one more day here before I head out.

Palenque, Chiapas, originally uploaded by peggydaly.

slow evening in a hot room series…

The whole Yucatan was boiling so I grabbed a fairly inexpensive room ($24) with a/c at Santa Lucia Hostal.  There is only one or two private rooms and the rest are dorms.  Young Rafael runs the place almost completely solo and is very helpful.  When I got there the private room was being “cleaned” so I stowed my bags in a locker and walked down calle 60.  Full of panuchos and wine and 2 hammocks richer, I returned to hostal.  yeah, I thought in turkey I learned not to shop after wine but I guess that lesson needs to be fresh.  The very aggressive cleaning of my room was complete and I was ready for a siesta.

The next day I took a tour to celestun, directly west of merida on the gulf coast.   There are 4 places on the gulf coast of the Yucatan between which flocks of flamingos migrate.  Near celestun, and in other spots along the coast, the network of aquifers releases fresh water into the gulf.  there is no surface water like rivers or lakes in the Yucatan peninsula – only a vast system of aquifers that occasionally collapse and create cenotes, crystal clear pools and caves of water.  Really beautiful.

So lots of people traipse out to the mangrove groves near celestun to gaze at the flamingos.  It reminded me a bit of the African safari I took.  When there was something good to see, inevitably several land cruisers would get wind and you’d sit in the vehicle gazing at a lion along with 4 other vehicles filled with safarians.  Kinda like a reverse zoo with humans in land-cruiser-cages and lions running free.  Anyhoo – we floated with several other boats at the edge of the flocks of flamingos and took pics ☺.  I missed the flock-of-thousands by a week or so but there were several hundred at least.  Enough to get some nice pics.  The typical celestun tour includes a few other stops nearby.  The beach in celestun is pretty.

One of the more interesting things about this tour is that I was on it with a family of Mennonites on holiday from Chihuahua.  The men spoke Spanish but the women spoke only an archaic form of german, which must mean they are cloistered on their farm.  Merida, it turns out, is a popular spot for vacationing Mennonites who live in MX.  They do it frugally, fully covered and without much obvious mirth.

The weekends in merida are festive – with live music and dance performances in several parks.  streets close down and booths go up and cafes downtown set up tables in the streets.  It’s worth a visit.   But by Sunday I’d tired of the aggressive touts and of being hit-on by what seemed like every man in town.  It was really strange, but the strangeness wore off and in the end it was only annoying.  Not to mention…….

Santa lucia hostel, despite the valiant efforts of Rafael, has a wicked bedbug problem.  Then I knew what that “extra-special” cleaning was for ☺.  This goes on my list of “lessons learned”.  So I decided on Monday to head to vallodolid, a town I’d visited during a previous Christmas vacation with amy, bri, and mary.  We all liked it a lot.  It’s still charming and laid back.  There are a few things to do in town but mostly I’m just enjoying a more laid back place while I make sure I didn’t bring any stow-away bedbugs with me.  Everything is being dissembled and double checked.

I also need to plan my trip to isla holbox, which will happen Thursday.  The FINAL week of my vacation will then commence.  Can you believe it?  I don’t think there are good internet facilities on holbox so I likely won’t blog.  I can catch up when I’m home and give some closing thoughts ☺.  My goal the final week is to totally check-out and prepare myself for re-immersion.

Despite some mixed feelings about that re-immersion I am very much looking forward to seeing my family and friends and hanging out in the apartment I love, with it’s view of lake merritt.  I look forward to cooking (!) and walking to stores in grand lake.  I need to cut back on my salbute consumption here and save room for that burger.   Then I’ll also find a place in Oakland with cochinita salbutes so I can have either (but sparingly).

En Tenejapa op.JPG, originally uploaded by Enrique Escalona.

A picture taken by Enrique Escalona. Follow the pic’s link to his other great photos of MX. It was too tricky for me to get a pic of the majordomos (religious, ceremonial leaders) but Enrique took this wonderful pic and i’ve asked him if i could share it. Gracias y salut!

Not sure I’ll make it thru a second day here.  Very pretty colonial town but rather boring – so anticipation for the nightlife doesn’t really get one thru the miserable, oppressively hot afternoons.  I got in around 2:30 yesterday and had to hide in my cavernous colonial room at El Parroquia until the sun went down.  I looked for a breezy, shady spot to no avail.

After the sun set I walked around a lot – down to the malecon to see the gulf and people-watch.  But the breeze bring wafts of poo.  The water must be terribly polluted.  I looked beautiful south of here. Almost carib-like.  So I cut back into town to look for a place to have a drink and a snack.  I must have wandered every block within a 5 block radius of the zocolo but unless I wanted cheap clothes, shoes or a cell phone I was out of luck.  Then I hear music coming out of a small bar.  It sounds like maybe bad karaoke, which can be amusing.  I didn’t have much time to assess the place before I sat down and ordered a drink, but had I, I would have skeedattled.   The karaoke was just a drunk couple accompanying the juke-box.  The woman REALLY wanted to talk to me but Spanish is hard enough and her slurred version was impossible for me.  I chugged my drink, paid and left just in time since several hombres were just getting up the guts to come console me for being alone.  My friendly adioses were returned.

So I was relegated to the gazebo in the zocolo with all the other white people, mostly germans it seems.  Here one can get an overpriced cocktail and watch absolutely nothing go on.  Soooooo I chucked my second night here and headed up to merida, a good spot for several day-trips I’d like to do, like uxmal and celestun.  Hopefully I have better luck here!!

El Señor had some of the best menu translations I’ve seen, obviously run thru a program that wasn’t familiar with latin American Spanish.  My favorite was “Papas a la francesa” translated to “Popes to the French” (papas are potatoes in latin America).  But had they used the more common name for French fries “papas fritas” you could have ordered “Popes fried”.  I also thought “Tacos Dorado de Pollo”, which ended up “Tacos gilded of chicken” was good.  Tacos dorado (golden, less literally) are fried tacos.

Palenque, Chiapas, originally uploaded by peggydaly.

one of the unique structures in palenque

The decent from san cristobal to the palenque area is beautiful. Chiapas continued to enchant me. One can see a change of style in the woman’s dress – still square necked tops and belted skirts, but the skirts are of a lighter-weight fabric and decorated with ribbons. Patterns on the woven belts specify a region but I see no remnants of regional/mayan attire in the men. Deforestation is obvious but farming is clearly subsistence.

The mayan ruins of palenque lie in the “foothills” of the mountains. Palenque town is about 7km from the ruins and is not known for its charm. I arrived on Sunday, a day when the local bachelors get their drink on. Despite the “health fair” the Adventists were having in the square, the focus of many locals was clearly on less-healthy pursuits. My natural condition is to smile at passer-bys but some places require me to suppress this reaction. At least to men. But I found a clean room with sparkling baño privado at Posada Nacha’ n Ka’an for under $20. Even with the fan it’s pretty hot at night but I wasn’t willing to pop for the extra $20 per night a/c seemed to cost other places.

After cruising the town I found El Senor Molino restaurant (over super sanchez supermercado) with a view of the sunset past la cañada (the ravine) a leafy part of town where TONS of birds also end the day. The next 2 days I returned and remembered to bring my binoculars. Orioles made the trees look like orange trees! They dripped from the branches. The thatched-roof restaurant focuses on the tables overlooking the street – far less appealing than those at the back with a sunset view. But no worries – despite good food and reasonable prices I was always the only customer so you’re not likely to have to fight for a table no matter where you want to sit. They rarely let my beer empty so heartily recommend the place. They just haven’t realized what a gem-of-a-spot they have.

No need to go on about the ruins. You can see my pics (once I can get any uploaded) and there is plenty of info out there. But I do think if you are anywhere in the area it is worth a visit. I unexpectedly couldn’t get a seat on the bus to campeche and stayed an extra day. I did the $10 collectivo-tour to misol-ha, agua clara and agua azul: 2 waterfalls and a turquiose river. Again, my pics will have some words but I recommend it. I now say goodbye to Chiapas!