After I check out on Sunday am from the Conference, my room mate and I took a taxi who we hired for the whole day, to visit the ruins of Chichen Itza. It was hot, hot, hot, and a 2.5 hr. drive from the resort. Luis was cool, a 24 year old whose english was not great but who was looking for a way to make more money, so was spending his whole Sunday for 100 bucks to be our driver and hammock carrier, and general cool guy. He played great reggaeton in the cab, but after the 8th time of the same 6 songs on the playlist, it got a little old. Oh well.
Chichen was amazing. It reminded me of Mel Gibson's movie Apocolypto. The pyramid was stunning and at spring equinox, this place is a mass of people. I imagined the decapitated heads of the slaves rolling down the stairs after being sacrificed at the alter on the top. It looked just like the movie set. These ruins are larger than all the others, with the playing field way bigger than what was normal at the time. Instead of paying for what was initially a 60 us dollar private tour in spanish only, it turned into 40, but that was still too much. The last thing I needed in this heat was to be translating a Mayan civilization lesson into english for my non spanish speaking traveling companion. I had a great idea to go in and latch onto a group who already had a leader/tour guide. Surely the guy use a few extra bucks on the side. Luis set to work, and found us one; $20 bucks, a deal. The tour guide had horrible english, and I wish I had gone on the spanish one. Oh well.
I'll have to read a book now, because I only learned enough to peak my interest but not answer any pressing questions. What I did get out of it, was that the Mayans were an amazing civilization. Check out this link for some cool info: http://www.world-mysteries.com/chichen_index.htm. People here still speak the language. It sounds difficult, like every native language I've heard. Lots of soft s sounds. I have heard people exclaim in wonder "wow, it sounds nothing like spanish." I laugh. Of course not. Does Huron sound anything like French? Do people forget that all indigenous people were conquered and many slaughtered by the dominating European country of the time. The Mayan culture in the Yucatan is proud and the old ways/spirituality are ever present, despite all the cathedrals. Many vendors lined the walkways and women selling their own embroidered huipils, and shirts and hammocks. One woman with a table full of beautiful embroidered cloth products and her young daughter at her side, had a compelling energy. I felt the connection, I really wanted to buy something from her, but I have NO ROOM in my already too heavy pack. But we got to chatting and I don't know, I just started translating to Norm my tour companion about how the hammocks were made, etc, and my soft-sell wiley self convinced him he should buy two hammocks, a long one and a chair one for his deck. Done deal. The woman looked at me with those eyes all women project and understand: thank you girlfriend.
So after Chichen, Luis took us to Pisté, a tiny pueblo on the route where we had pollo pibil, a sort of hand shredded chicken with a tomatoey hue. This was a very small place, run by an older lady and her even older mother. When I went to the bano, she handed me a few napkins. That's normal. There was a washing stand out front with soap and a tap. I've never been sick eating at places like this. So far. It was very very hot outside and we were in the shade on the sidewalk at a little plastic table, with traffic going by the main road. While eating I picked Luis's brain all about the Yucatan food and took notes. Three chicken plates, three beers at least and 2 cokes, cost us a total of $20.
We continued on, stopping at a very amazing Cenote whose name i think is: Cenote Zaci, near Valladolid. It was also like something out of a movie. We entered this place and to the left over a garden wall, could see the deep blue pool, way way down, like 100 yards. Vegetation, birds, big long roots hanging down and flowers all over. . . it was stunning. We had to go inside what was like a cave and go down a bunch of stairs to get to the bottom, where the ceynote was surrounded by stone walls and just open at the top. Birds were hanging from the rock ceiling as well as a few stalactites. I think it's all limestone, but I can't be sure. Moss covered all kinds of things, and mustached, eyeless black fish caled "lub" swam in the water, which was so clear you could see everything, but so deep you couldn't see the bottom at 80 metres. There were stone stairs inside the cave-like surroundings one could climb up to and jump from into the surprisingly refreshing clear water. Of course, I jumped . . . several times. It was so far down that I had time to actually think while I was falling. That's a first. I tried to convince Luis to come in, and that underwear would be fine, but no, he stayed and guarded our bags and probably had a good time watching all the cute girls in swimsuits. It was, unfortunately, full of people. But still wonderful. In the photos, the huge trees with fiery red/orange flowers are called Flamboyan - flaming. They stick out like jewels from the other trees. There are also big trees I have seen with long yellow chain like pendant blossoms. And things smell very nice when the flowers catch on a breeze. I saw a cool hanging birds nest, like a long mesh shopping bag, bulbous at the bottom, with a beautiful orange bird feeding its young.
The different secondary road back to Cancun was long and hard, every 150 meters or less there are speed bumps called topes. Not fun when you have to pee. I didn't want to spend another 20 bucks and more on the toll roads, but now I think it would have been worth it. It was most certainly the scenic route, although I only got to see some really cool villages from the road and don't have any idea what they really look like. Mostly very very poor looking places, and garbage all over the sides of the road. Often when we slowed down at the speed bumps, a pile of little kids would run up to the taxi and swarm the car, proffering ziplock bags of grapes, mango or tamales.
I got dropped off at my hotel Las Margaritas, and started my 4 day stay in Cancun to see if I will like the city.
No comments:
Post a Comment