10
Jul
2009
Puuc Hills – Uxmal & Kabah Prints
If you’re ever planning a trip into the Yucatan to see ruins, you should really try to get into the Puuc Hills. From Mérida, Uxmal and Kabah are an easy day trip, but there are more Puuc Hill ruins to see to the extent I wish I had more time when I visited to travel a bit further afield. None-the-less, the ruins I did see were excellent. The ruins in this area of the country have the distinction of having a style of Maya architecture named for them. They are also different from their low land counterparts in not being built over Cenotes (sink hole access points to the underground rivers of the Yucatan). Instead, the Maya built large cisterns in these cities to capture rain water for the dry months. If the theory that droughts were largely responsible for the end of the Maya way of life, these people were probably the first to suffer.
Uxmal, the first place I visited is still touristed but not nearly so heavily as Chichen Itza. People were living at Uxmal around 500 AD. It flourished for sometime as the main city in the region, but it’s star dropped after the fall of Chichen Itza. By the time the Spanish arrived, Uxmal was already largely abandoned.
Uxmal - The Nuns Quadrangle
This is part of a large complex of buildings adjacent to the main pyramid at Uxmal. The first Spaniards to study this location thought that it looked like a nuns convent, hence the name. It’s believed that these buildings may have been a school for princes. This was the last building of the quadrangle, note the masks on the corner, these are masks of Chac Mool, the rain god, and are on each corner of this building. Also note the elaborated decorations. This is typical of the Puuc style. The prominence of Chac Mool highlights the importance of rain to the people living here.
Palacio del Gobernador - Uxmal, Mexico
This is another of the buildings at Uxmal, said to be one of the best examples of the Puuc style. Built in the 9th an 10th centuries, it was probably an administration building for the region. As with other Maya buildings, it is aligned with the heavens, the main door lines up with the planet Venus.
Inheritance of the Maya
The site of Kabah is yet less touristed and there’s been far less reconstruction here. There was a city here as early as the 3rd century which reached it’s height around the 8th. By the 11th century, the site was abandoned. This palace appears to have had 30 or more rooms and is remarkably intact considering how long it’s been since it was inhabited.
Uxmal is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Kabah is not listed, but should be on the list of anyone who appreciates the ruins of our past cultures.
More photo prints from both sites are available at my Mexico Prints.
26
May
2007
Mérida – Last Day Wrap Up
Not a lot of interesting news today.
After last evening´s post, I found a bit nicer restaurant, more of a sports bar type place where they were watching “football” – soccer to the US. I´d done more of fast food type places, even though they were local and serving up local dishes. I had something chicken with all these different sauces. Some were okay. One was so hot that I think I used up half of my coke putting out the fire. They did warn me… obviously I still have to learn the hard way.
After that, aimless meandering and a little shopping. I´ve yet to discover when this place really does close up shop. Nearing midnight and you could still wander into tons of shops. I went back to the hostel and iced my knee while reading up on possible things I could do today before packing it in for the night and figuring I´d decide in the morning. I´d narrowed it down to some ruins about half an hour out by bus or Progreso, another beach town, closer and more crowded but not as nice as Celestun. Maybe 45 minutes away with frequent buses until quite late. Apparently it´s where most of Merida goes on weekends when they want to be at the beach.
Slept in the hammock for maybe two or three hours last night. Actual honest to god sleep. I was amazed, but these are definitely for people accustomed to sleeping pretty much in one position as far as I can tell. And I´m not a person who sleeps like that. So, I woke up a couple of hours into my sleep, not fully awake I don´t think, but aware, moved to the bed and promptly went back to sleep on my stomach. Hammocks… pheh….
And of course I´m in the hammock capitol of the world. I haven´t walked 10 feet without being offered, in this order of frequency, hammocks, panama hats, or cuban cigars. I have no desire for any of these items…. I did want a patch for my back pack for my Mexico trip. I sewed on my Scotland one just before coming here. Guess what I can´t find…. oh well… I may just order one online… not the same, but what are you gonna do?
Today, I slept moderately late, somewhere towards 8am when I got up. I looked at the options again while I ate breakfast and decided I was going to do pretty much nothing today. That´s not an easy nor realistic choice for me.
After breakfast, I decided to take in the only “attraction” in the historico centro that I´ve yet to do, the Merida city musuem… the history of merida from it´s time as T´ho (Mayan City) to the coming of the Spainards and today. Yep, I´ve pretty much summed up the museum. Granted, it´s free, but it lacked the one thing I´m accustomed to finding in all museums, even the ones here I´d been to so far… AC… bleh… glad it was like 9am… afternoon in that building would have been pure hell… 20 minutes of hell… but hell is hell… A few cool 3-D artistic renderings of the Maya city the Spainards razed to build modern Merida was about the only thing I really found interesting. Especially after having seen the ruins of Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and Kabah, and realizing what I saw there was here before it was wiped from the earth…. sad…
Afterward, back to the hostel again, had a taste for something sweet and remembered there was supposed to be a great cheesecake place relatively nearby. Looked it up in Lonely Planet. It said it had been at this particular corner for 20 years… well… either I can´t remember street #´s at all or it´s gone now…. I settled for a coke and some sort of gum drop like candy on my way back. Today ended up being shopping day. Odd little items for myself and family and friends. And I hate shopping in Mexico. I remember this too well from last time. I hate to haggle and you´re hard pressed to find anywhere that puts a price on anything. Add to that the 5 minutes of chit chat you invest in most any place you go into and shopping is just a grueling effort. “What´s your name? Where are you from? How long in Merida? How do you like Merida?” I know the script by heart now. Someone this afternoon at the next to last place thought I said Hungary and said very little to me until he caught on that he had misheard. If only I had figured this out days ago! Lie! Pick any place that´s not English. You´ll find plenty here who know English but hard pressed to find someone who knows anything other than Spanish or English! Drat! At the very last place, I managed to get down to half of what I was originally quoted. I wanted it for a gift, but the opening price totally turned me off and I was literally trying to leave and he kept coming down… Ahh… soon to be back in the land where you only haggle over cars…
No real plans remaining. I may take the camera up Paseo Montejo near sunset. It´s one thought I´ve had. As otherwise today has been foot loose and fancy free, everything but my wallet locked up in the hostel. And although I haven´t chilled, I´ve mostly walked and thought about a lot of things.
I´ve mentally summed up my thoughts on Merida. It´s a beautiful safe city, but god it´s blamed hot. And it´s supposed to be hotter still in the coming months. I can´t imagine it. You have to remember, AC is not common here. Its absence is the rule not the exception as those of us from the states are used to. And apparently, when it´s not hot, it´s wet. So there are your choices. And it´s not like most of the things you´re doing aren´t outside. I felt near collapse at Chichen Itza and I got there in the morning. I also realized later that I missed a section of the city, but given the whole 8 gallons of water and still feeling cross-eyed from the heat, probably not a bad thing. Aim for earlier in the dry season and good luck if you´re coming! The city is also a mish mash of new and old. Mostly old in the center city, but if you get out just a piece, you´ll see some modern buildings. The local government is even sponsoring a whole public display of modern art all along the Paseo Montejo. And there are some wonderfully preserved old buildings. And there are tons of equally decrepit old buildings everywhere you look. It´s just a mish-mash of everything. I may pass through again, but I doubt I´ll spend a week here again anytime soon. No ding on the city, just that I´ve done what I came for.
I also thought a lot about my still complete lack of Spanish language. I´ve gotten where I can hear numbers up to around 20 in spanish and not go ¨huh” and I can say it´s muy caliente or buenos dias and the like, but by and large, I still go into every settings and English just spills out. And I realized I´m incredibly lazy when it comes to language. And there´s so many in Merida who speak English when they realize it´s your native language, that they have fully enabled my laziness. But it´s beyond that, it goes back to french as well. When I was in high school, I could have at least carried on a casual conversation, nothing deep per se, but I could have gotten through a bit. I´ve run into two sets of French speaking people this week and even though I knew a word or two, I stuck to English. Today, a French speaking couple stopped me for directions… They were in a car and they were out of luck because I couldn´t have guided them to a water fountain back home let alone here. But I totally spoke to them in English and told them I was a tourist, too, and did not know. After I left, I put that sentence together in my head and I totally could have told them that in French, but there´s that laziness again. English got me by. I´ll only ever learn other languages if I´m forced to by circumstances, end of story.
As said, tonight, maybe some photos, definitely some dinner, and then packing. I´ve gotten a couple of heavier objects and my take on bag is already a monster, so I´m a little worried I may get dinged for luggage in excess weight. I have that fear frequently tho, and ironically only came close once and that was with a tripod in my bag. I wish I had paid attention when they weighed my bag before I left in Atlanta because it´s not going to be any lighter.
Last entry from Merida - take care all!
25
May
2007
Life is a Highway
After yesterday´s long dissertation, I meandered out to find sustenance… and it was Burger King. Sorry to one and all, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. You knew it, I knew it.
And after my quatro grande, I moved on to see the Trova concert in the park nearby… I´m beginning to comprehend Mexican time. I was an hour late…. it still hadn´t started… It cost me the premo seats that the tourists have because they don´t know the darn things start late, but I sat for half an hour of it with the locals. Part of it included the dancers from the other night. Same outfits and everything, just a different park. Imagine their cleaning bill for those white outfits ever few nights, if not more! After half an hour, I´d had plenty. The guy who introduced each song had five minute long bits of dialogue that of course meant absolutely nothing to yours truly, and even the locals I was sitting with had some painfully tired expressions waiting for the next musical number. Beautiful music, but with no comprehension of the lyrics, I can only sit there so long. This trend will continue… Thus ends yesterday.
So, surprise, this morning I rented a car and drove to Celestun. Yes, Mark, driving in another country. The world has stopped rotating, every one grab on to something now!
Background for those who don´t know, but I literally did not drive until I started college. I just didn´t have the interest and lived in a small burg. I drove my first time solo on my first day of college. And although I was a late bloomer, I´ll probably be one of those little old people MANY MANY MANY years from now who someone will have to pry the keys from my fingers. That independence is hard to give up. But whenever I´ve gone abroad, like magic, I´ve reverted to zero interest in driving. It helps that everywhere I´ve been to date has EXCELLENT public transportation so I could make my way around oblivious to the need to be in control. And honestly, if the USA was more like that, you´d probably see me shedding that control more often. Well, Mexico is harder to get around than the rest. I mean, sure, there are the buses, but when you have a fixed schedule, and little miscommunication could strand you heaven only knows where, well, it´s not so attractive. I wanted to go to Celestun today, and I wanted to go on my terms.
I actually knew I was doing this two days ago. I just failed to mention it for various reasons for fear of jinxing myself to giving my Mother a minor coronary. Hopefully she´s still sitting upright as she´s reading this. Surprise!
The experience was… mixed… Being alone, in the end, it cost me more. I could have booked a package tour for less than the $50 car rental and the $20 to re-fill the tank. Plus I paid for a boat trip that would have been included. I probably paid about $40 more than the package tour, and heaven knows the bus would have cost me less than $10. But, I got to call the shots. They included two missed turns and a lot of cursing as I attempted to correct them. Both times I knew immediately, but when you hit streets that aren´t on a grid and miss a turn, as any Atlanta driver knows, it´s a nightmare to fix. The main part of Merida is on a grid, but of course, my first missed term was past the grid… Second missed turn was in the town of Uman, which if there was any sense to its streets, it escaped me. But I ultimately arrived safely in my wee 90´s vintage nissan in the sleepy fishing village of Celestun.
It´s sleepy because it´s in the extreme edge of nowhere. If it were any more nowhere, it would be in the gulf of Mexico. There´s a station in Merida that plays “solo hits en inglese” – so they say. Some of the songs were never hits that I had heard, hit artists maybe but some of their worst stuff, and I could never figure out what “solo” means?? Hit singles I assume, but again, top 1000? I digress, it was still wonderful to hear music I understood, so I stayed on that station all the way to Uman where it began to break up. I pushed it as far as I could until I had to find the single spanish station I could pick up… and then it ran out… and there was much silence… deafening silence… silence that forced me to sing aloud the only songs I know by heart… Christmas carols… you should all be thankful to have missed that… It was a good 40 minutes to Celestun with no music… If being disconnected bothers you, stay far away. If it´s your dream, I have found your destination.
Because the place itself, tho sleepy, is gorgeous. Lovely white sand beach, gulf waters almost but not quite as pretty as the panhandle of Florida (nothing compares). Nothing over two stories tall on the beach, and nothing but trees beyond as far as the eye can see (it´s actually part of a wild life reserve). I snapped photos on that beach for at least an hour. I watched the few lazy beach bums set up their towels and a few people wade in. I mean, we´re talking maybe a few dozen people and most of those were probably from the tour buses I parked beside. And tho the sound of the ocean speaks to me deeply, I hit the point I always do… no desire to lay on the beach and not really prepared to swim… what do I do now?!
Enter the bus tour… Now, I had been told and had read you should go there with a group so that you can get enough people to make the tour reasonably priced. You see, if there´s 8 people, it´s around $15 a person (maybe a little more if you are lucky enough to find a boat “captain” who speaks english). I didn´t even hope to be so lucky. But what I had hoped would happen worked out. They needed an 8th person to fill out a boat and approached me! So, no work on my part, just jump on the boat with 7 other people. Two were couples traveling together, not sure of much about them, they spoke spanish and stuck together, so relatively speaking locals, I think. The next three were a Swiss couple and their daughter. The daughter spoke spanish. The father spoke some english, so I got any information about what I was seeing third hand. The parents have been here 5 weeks, the daughter 6 mos… Wow, these European people get some real vacations… geez…
The boat was typically Mexican. I have some photos of ones like it. The boat is an old fiberglass boat worn a little tent canopy deal going (usually advertising some beer) and 4 benches, each with, I kid you not, mismatching plastic resin chairs with the legs sawed off and the remainder lashed by whatever means necessary to the bench. The gas tank was a large plastic jug of which I had the pleasure to sit near. When the captain, if the owner of such a vehicle can be called such, had a big plastic bag attached to the hose that ran from the tank to the motor (the only really capable looking part of the boat), and he would squeeze that bag to start the gas flowing. I might add that he would periodically bail out water. I could never see the source of it, but when he drove, he went like a bat out of hell, so we were constantly hit with water, so that may be it.
In the course of over 3 hours, we saw Flamingos (Celestun´s claim to fame is that the Flamingos stay there, hence the nature reserve, this time of year) and a pile of other birds. We also saw a petrified forest and a mangrove swamp. Some of the group went swimming there, but the Swiss family and I abstained. The water was clear and beautiful blue but heaven only knows what all was living in amongst those roots, we saw tons of tropical fish and little crabs and even a nest in the trees with an eagle.
After all that were heading back. The captain gave us the option of taking the boat back to the beach where we came from, or we could get off and walk back from this bridge he stopped at for a few minutes. As I said, this was communicated to me third hand. I ended up going with the Swiss family and walking back, but if I had understood that the walk back was in fact the same road I drove in on, I would have stayed in the boat! Not much to see that way.
After about the promised seven minutes stroll, we got back to the main square. I said adios to the Swiss family and went back for a couple of photos and a souvenir from the lone little artisan tent on the beach before going back to the car to figure out what was on next.
I had high hopes of also taking a drive through what Lonely Planet calls the Ruined Hacienda Route, which is full of these old decaying Hacienda´s from when sisal was king in the Yucatan. Said to be very picturesque. It was, however, after 4pm. I could return the car to the garage anytime tonight and go by the office in the morning to square everything up, however, sun sets about 7:30 and I had zero interest in being out in the wilds of Mexico after dark as confusing as the roads are and as many of those blamed speed bumps as they put up willy nilly throughout the countryside. See Mom, I have some common sense after all.
I got back here about 5pm. I took advantage of having the car long enough to meander through one of the main cemetario since I wanted some photos of those grave/shrine things they have going here. I really must read up more on this at some point as they literally are little shrines. Some are small, some are big enough for a few people to go inside. I thought they were mausoleums from the road, but it looked like most were shrines built atop graves. I´ll share the snapshots at some point for those who care to see. I didn´t take a lot as I wasn´t sure what the reaction would be to a gringo wandering through the cemetery taking pictures.
So, that´s pretty much today. I dropped the car off well before closing and am square there. Whew! The car rental place was recommended, but it still had me a trifle worried no matter how nice they seemed at the outset. Heavens, this morning, he showed me every nut and bolt on the car… you have thought he was giving his only daughter away or something. It´s a car! I´m used to America where they tell you where in the parking lot to find it and never bother to show you anything. I mean, literally, “This is the key, it opens the doors, the gas tank, and you crank the car with it.”
Anyway, that experience done, I went shoe hunting one last time. My sandals are totally past it and it´s so blasted hot it´s all I want to wear. The beach trip was the end of them. I found this shoe shop on the corner. Again, I discover the Mexicans have yet to discover the joys of a good sports sandal… straps on toes, arch, and around the back… I mean, they have nice leather ones exactly like that but absolutely nothing completely casual… So, I managed to find what they called sandals but just amount to fairly nice flip flops that will do. And they fit… wow… And I know this will make one person in particular out there laugh, biggest ones they had…. $8…
Tomorrow is up in the air. I´ve been to a few tour companies, and they all started listing off Chichen Itza (been there), Uxmal (ditto), and Celestun (would you like some sand?). I finally found one that has a Hacienda tour, but of a working Hacienda that´s kind of like a living history exhibit. uhmm…. not so sure… On the good side, they also include a stop at one of the cenotes… hrm… Can´t decide but they are open until 11pm so I have a little time to think on it.
The hours of places here is just…. bonkers… I think the heat and all has just totally changed people´s time clocks here. If I eat dinner at 6pm, I am inevitably one of a few people there. In the early afternoon, half of the town shuts down. I mean, literally, I had to wait to check in with the car rental place because they close from like 1pm to 6pm but then stay open late. Most everything is like this, close a few hours then open late. So, at least it gives me time…
Tomorrow is the last full day here. Sunday will be migrating to the airport and the flight back to the US. I´ll miss being out here, seeing new things, but I´ll also be kind of glad to move on from Merida. A beautiful place no doubt, but if I had longer in Mexico, there´s no doubt I´d have shoved on to a different spot even if I had to come back to fly out. That´s how a lot of the people on the hostel circuit are doing it, of course, stopping over here on way elsewhere for a few days.
Okay, time to run!
24
May
2007
23
May
2007
Should Have Taken That Left At Albuquerque
Ahh, the beach is just beautiful. The sand is so… uhm… Sandy… and the ocean is… so… uhm… calm… yeh, must be right?
It´s funny, if I was a halfway decent writer, most of my posts could have been from my living room. Just a string of words on a screen, nothing more, nothing less. But hopefully it´s infused with a little zest from being out here and enjoying not knowing what´s next exactly. I´ll catch up with where I really am a bit later.
After yesterday´s post, I didn´t do Chili´s. I hear a roar of approval from the crowd. I meandered down to a place called El Trapiche that was recommended in Lonely Planet. Now, it´s not as if I had Yucatan food. In fact, the appetizer was chips and a variety of salsas. So, I guess my appetizer was native. Some of those sauces were blazing hot and I went through my first bottle of coca rapido! My meal was.. pizza… yes… and of the various types, I chose American pizza… and… it was YUMMY but so not American. The cheese was… not sure… as I said good… but not American. And it was covered in what I think was ham, where I would expect peperoni. But it was dang filling and that was what I was looking for after traipsing all over Chichen Itza for nearly 4 hours. I was too hot to even consider lunch. So, I needed that big meal.
Afterward, back to the hostel and sat out on the patio. There was a guy playing his guitar and singing. I think it was the promised ¨trova¨ – not sure, but it was nice. The audience was English (me) and French (everrrybody else) speaking so I´m not sure any of us got much out of it but it was nice to listen to while reading.
From there to bed. Watched a quick cartoon on my media player while icing my knee and went to bed. So far, so good with the knee by the way. I think my feet are distracting me from any pain.
Woke up plenty early enough this morning to trudge over to the bus station for a run to Celestsun. Showered, had breakfast and went to put on my shoes… oy… yeh… my feet were barking. I wanted to wear my sandals and they were pressing on all sorts of sensitive spots. I started really examining them and the inner soles are worn through in places I hadn´t really noticed. And this seems to be a theme with my Mexico trips as I left a pair here last time when I was in Peurto Penasco. There was no way I was wearing the boots to the beach and the sandals are nigh dead. So, I decided my body is telling me two things, no major walking today (irony coming) and I need some new sandals. I figure Wal-mart is not far away, I can get some sandals and on the way back it will be time for the Anthropological museum to open, which is along the way. The beach can be another day.
And off I go, delightfully unburdened. I have had to stow my bag at enough museums, so I locked up the camera and went with just me and my wallet. Got to Wal-mart and discovered two things. First was a woeful low assortment of sandals. The second was… yeh, there´s a drawback to towering over better than half the populace and that´s when you try to buy clothes. I found plenty of sandals that were too small and ONE solitary pair that was too big. And I repeated this experiment at two more stores before I gave up. I bought some soft adhesive things you are supposed to wrap your foot in and used them to line the bottom of my sandals. And yeh, I think I just gave entirely too much information, but you can guess what I´m doing when I get back to Atlanta.
Before the sandal alteration, I did stop by the Anthropology Museum. It´s a pretty nice place. Nothing earth shattering, but for the equivalent of $3.70 what are you expecting? It was two floors of exhibits of the Maya from pre-history to today. The today part would be a video on body alteration practices we´d all be familiar with in the states (piercings and tatoos) as a contrast to the practices of the ancient Maya (forehead flattening, tatooing, and scarification). It was in Spanish, so I could only look at the pictures. However, a great deal of the museum is translated. The English is not perfect, but really their primary audience is not gringos, so it´s appropriate. Nothing as funny as yesterday´s signs on the bus, “Thank you for travel us¨and “Do not forget your own.”
I digress, the museum had a delightful amount of English and a staff that was willing to help, some spoke English. Incredible carvings and findings from Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and much of the Yucatan Maya are there. If you speak Spanish, there was much more to read, albeit there was enough in English for a two hour visit.
Back to the hostel for the famous sandal operation and then back to the streets with a bottle of water and plans to go see the zoo mentioned in Lonely Planet. Lonely planet informs that the zoo is free and 12 blocks west from the grand plaza. The book states you may take a bus. It should be changed to, “Dear god, if it´s summer and you are not an olympic athelete, for the love of pete, please find a bus.”
Can you guess I walked? This was the irony I promised a few paragraphs ago. See, I deliver on my promises! I walked, because 12 blocks seemed like nothing. Well, I don´t know what 12 blocks they were counting, but it clearly was not Merida´s blocks. I figured this out after leaving Calle 62 and arriving at Calle 80-something. Clearly, this is not 12 blocks as the Meridans measure them. But now, it was a challenge. I would find the zoo. I kept going. I had long since become the lone gringo. I was never concerned. The Meridans have been unfailing in their hospitality. I´ve finally isolated that there are ones that take advantage of that kind nature to try to foist trinkets on you, but the kindness seems genuine. I had a long conversation with an old gent in the square today that never entered the world of commerce. And when I finally got to Parque Centarrio, home of the world famous Merida zoo, well, it was a free zoo, that should give you some idea, right? It reminded me much of my one and only visit to the Atlanta zoo in the 1970´s. Caged animals behind fences with very little room. The monkeys have about the same amount of room as the tigers as some sort of large rodent looking creature I couldn´t identify. Clearly, the animals aren´t kept in any sort of enclosures that fit their nature. The cats I was quite attuned to how restless they were. The lion let out a might roar while I was there when a lioness stepped on him. I saw some cool creatures. the turtles were fabulous, and I saw a croc close enough I could have reached to him and lost a finger (I´m not kidding, this was totally the honor system, you value your digits, you keep them to yourself). So, that´s what you have if you ever have an interest to visit the Merida zoo.
Having walked there, I decided to complete my own personal trail of tears and walked back. By the time I saw buses with “centro” on them I was a couple of blocks from the main square anyway. And that more or less ends today. I may or may not walk to the city museum. I may or may not take a city tour. I may or may not go back to the hostel and curl up into a ball and apologize to my feet for my indiscretions.
But tomorrow morning at 9am, an aire accondicionado bus is coming to pick me up at the front of the hostel and drag my tired butt to the ruins of Uxmal and Kabah (yeh, I realized later that I said I was going to Kabul when I wrote yesterday´s post – not quite!). If you didn´t notice, you´re obviously just skimming. If you noticed and just assumed it was spelled the same, no, I´m brain dead.
Later gators!
