This was the view from our “terrace room”. It was pretty sweet. In the hotel materials, they warned us to be prepared for the “sounds of the city” which apparently bother people. One benefit of normally living in the flight path of SJC, right next to the freeway, with a train station on the corner, is that “sounds of the city” do not disturb us.
In front of a fountain near a street market:
Typical street:
The first of many Catholic churches that I visited/ogled now that it feels like family.
Selling peppers.
This might be a good time to let you know that I spent nearly the entirety of the vacation in gastrointestinal distress. My delicate system simply could not handle any food that was not prepackaged. Of course, this did nothing to discourage me from eating many delicious dishes, but I always did it with an awareness of the trouble to come. It was bittersweet.
On my birthday (33!), we went to Monte Alban, a Zapotec ruin just outside of Oaxaca. Though the Zapotec were different than the Mayans, they share a lot of cultural similarities (human sacrifice, ball courts, lovers of astronomy).
Ball court. The ball game was important for decided the outcome of conflicts and often the winners (losers?) got to be sacrificed.
Delicious Chile Relleno. We found a restaurant that we really liked and couldn’t resist visiting every day for at least one meal.
Another church, this one was the main Oaxacan cultural museum.
On our last day, we went on an amazing tour and saw a demonstration of rug making:
We also visited Mitla.
And then got a tour of a Mezcal factory, which supplied us with unlimited free samples! I learned that the only difference between Mezcal and Tequila is in the heating of the agave from which they are made.
That night, we saw an amazing collection of native dances, including one that involved extremely large headdresses. It was super fancy and held in an old nunnery turned $300/night hotel.
The next morning we flew to Merida, where many drug cartel thwarting efforts are focused. It was extremely hot, and we slowed down considerably. We literally couldn’t be outside for more than 15 minutes without becoming drenched in sweat. Our hotel was nice though. I took daily dips in the pool, alone, where I could pretend that I was rich and carefree.
Merida is an old colonial city, except with many of the grand colonial houses abandoned and boarded up. It feels like a post-apocalyptic dream. The decaying houses sell for really cheap. We went to one that was a restaurant, though it had been bought and rehabbed in the 1950’s. The guy that owns it collects junk (or antiques depending on your perspective, which were everywhere) and gave me a flower.
Another Catholic Church!
The main government building was incredibly beautiful and fiercely air-conditioned.
City streets
We came to the Yucatan very excited to see Mayan ruins. We went to Uxmal first and it was amazing. No one was there and it was majestic and vast. It was also hot enough to give my beloved a near heat stroke. We could barely move, and at the end we had to each consume an entire liter of water, along with .5 liters of Gatorade. Later, I read that drinking so much water quickly is dangerous. Woops!
He really wanted to be eaten by chaac (rain god).
Merida had a beautiful archaeology museum with ancient knitting stuff.
When we left Merida for Tulum, we stopped by Chichen Itza, now one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the least impressive (to us) site we visited. It was super crowded with people selling trinkets right in front of the pyramids throughout the entire site. It felt really bad on many levels (guilt, disgust, shame, annoyance), though it does have the largest ball court yet found and a cool observatory.
Ball court.
Snake eating the pyramid!
Observatory.
After the Chichen Itza experience, we needed to cleanse our palates with some good ‘ole jungle ruins with minimal human impact (relative to other cleared sites. There are tons of sites and buildings within many sites that have yet to be excavated at all). We read about Ek Balam and how it was one of the most important sites because they just (in the past 10-15 years) found some amazing friezes that are really well preserved. Onward!
This felt more exciting. We were the only people there, besides some locals taking a break from working. It also had the tallest pyramid that we visited. (all the pyramids were really steep, with 60 degree steps).
We finally arrived in Tulum just in time for tropical storm Alex, which lasted nearly the entire time we were there. We did manage to get into the ocean everyday and eat lots of expensive and fancy dinners. The water really is turquoise and amazing.
We also had one of our top 5 nature experiences—snorkeling in a cenote! I have no pictures from the experience because we were submerged in a cave, but I will try to paint a word picture for you!
We went into a cave filled with cool water, and there were many small fish. There were stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. As we moved away from the entrance into the cave, we needed to use our waterproof flashlights to see into the water. It felt scary, like some sort of weird fish or monster was waiting to attack us from below. It was almost easier to move without sight, rather than using the flashlight. Our guide wanted to show us the “bat cave”, which required snorkeling through a very small opening with stalactites almost touching our submerged heads. There was no room for panic, as bringing our heads out of the water was not an option. Life partner started to hyperventilate, which required the soothing voice of our guide. After a minute of close quarters, the ceiling opened up into a dark cathedral of stalactites, with a small hole opening up to the sky. There were many small bats at the top of the cathedral, spreading their wings, moving and pooping. I was afraid to get water in my mouth for fear of acquiring rabies. We circled around the bat cave and went through another passageway that lead us back to the main entrance. At one point, there was a glowing blue light, which we were told was a passageway to yet another cenote. It was very quiet and eerie.
We flew out of the Cancun airport, which was quite possibly the most depressing way to leave an awesome Mexican vacation. All of the bad parts of Americanism were on display, amplifying the differences between the culture we’d visited and the one we were returning to. And further amplifying how different we are as individuals from our culture as a whole (which is depressing and lonely, actually. Would anyone like to come over for some rousing board game action and homemade tortilla chips? NWB can tell you all about his favorite book, Moby Dick, and I can talk to you about any number of television shows or whatever my latest obsession happens to be (felting ornaments)).
Anyhoo, on our way to the airport, we were laughing at all of the absurdly named resorts that usually contained at least one of the following words: dreams, secret, princess. It seemed so unreal and unappealing. We thought there was no way they could afford to stay open. Then we got to the airport and met all of their patrons. Cancun is sort of like the place people go to when they want to say they’ve been out of the country on a vacation, but they don’t really want to leave the country. I mean, you literally don’t have to change your currency or leave a secluded beach if you don’t want to. Also, the lock down of Fort Lauderdale and a drinking age of 18 have made it something of a go-to spot for misguided kids. The airport was filled with people who were sunburned or extremely tan and sporting a variety of lower tiered state-school t-shirts. There were many obnoxious vacation purchases like shirts that said, “Harley Davidson Cancun” and bags with really tacky prints (the words Cancun, and a picture of a drunken frog). I went to fetch us airport food, and had to witness a bratty teenager gruffly demand extra ketchup on top of the 15-20 packets she already had (maybe she needed her daily intake of vegetables?). People were bustling around, making sure to pick up some airport souvenirs and clutching their coach purses. It felt unreal, yet somehow comforting. Such is my tormented relationship with the mother country! On the plane ride back, an extremely drunk girl loudly talked about her semi-boyfriend (who was just a few rows back) and her dad, who paid for everything so she would never have to work. When we got off the plane, the boyfriend was giving her the cold shoulder, while she insecurely asked, “are you embarrassed by me?” His answer was, “a little”. It was excruciating to watch.
On a positive note, vacation numero dos had no downer moments (well, unless you consider The Merchant of Venice to be a downer play, with the giving up of one’s soul and the belittlement of “the jew”). More epic blog posts to come!
