Izamal

On the 4th day of our Yucatan travels, we took the 2nd class bus to Izamal.  As with our trip to Celestun, we were able to see a bunch of small towns that we miss with the 1st class bus. 

Izamal’s claim to fame is its HUGE convent built in the 1500’s.  It is run by Franciscan monks who still wear the brown wool robes – yikes, that’s hot on 90 degree days!

The inside of the church is very plain except for the altar and a few stained glass windows.

The murals just inside an entrance we used looked really old – like from the 1500’s maybe?  So rather than hastening their demise with our flash, we used this photo from Google Images.

The courtyard in front of the church has 75 arches and encloses an area of over 24,000 square feet.  

Peggy doesn’t often feel vertically challenged but she did here!

The front of the convent is painted gold like most of the buildings in Izamal.  In the back the rock work is exposed.  Ed is thinking a few flying buttresses may be in his future in Cedaredge.

On friends’ recommendations, we stayed at Mecan Che, a jungle oasis in town.  They had large vegetable gardens, huge trees, beautiful flowers and a refreshing pool that looked like a cenote.

After having a beautiful breakfast (can’t believe we didn’t take a picture of our fruit plates that displayed one perfect slice each of pineapple, watermelon, mango, and papaya!), we walked to some pyramids that are right in the town of Izamal.  At the top, we could see mounds (pyramids?) in the distance.

After Peggy had a quick dip in the pool, we walked a few blocks to one of the 2nd class bus stations.  Below is a photo of the station – the man on the right was working on an ancient monochrome computer with a dot matrix printer.  The men’s bathroom apparently was the grass in a courtyard behind the building!

We took another nice bus making many stops to Valladolid where we got on a 1st class bus to Playa Del Carmen and then the ferry home.  Another mini European tour!  We loved it and look forward to the next one.  What will it be?  A convent tour, a ruins tour, a hacienda tour, a cenote tour, a caves tour?  So many choices.

 

Uxmal

On Day 3 of our trip we went on a tour of some ruins about an hour south of Merida.  Our guide drove us together with11 other  folks from Mexico, France and Canada.  He would was a great multi-tasker driving the van in traffic while talking in Spanish and then English! 

On our way south, we started to see some farms growing most noticeably agave.  Then something we haven’t seen here – hills!  Uxmal sits in a relatively dry hill area of the Yucatan.  There are no rivers, lakes or cenotes.

To provide water for its population of over 30,000 people, 100 cisterns were built to collect the rain water.  When these dried up in a drought, the population would move down the sacbe (road) to the next town in a series of 5 towns total.  Then they would repeat the process.  Each time they came back to Uxmal they would build their buildings higher so that they could be closer to the rain god, Chac.  Ed thought he was the Pope for a while but now he’s switched to Chac.

The huge structures here were built between about 500 and 1000 AD.  Reconstruction of the buildings started in the 1920’s.  Our tour guide’s grandfather was one of the first guides.   

All this is probably way too much info!  What’s important is that we loved our day walking through this site with its raised grassy platforms and looking at pyramids in the distance.  The evening light show was amazing – the buildings lit up both up close and on the surrounding hills together with the brilliant starry skies were magic!  We can definitely understand why it is a World Heritage Site.

Can you see how the people are revering their rain god, Ed?

For the light show, we sat on a raised platform in a quadrangle of buildings and looked out at other buildings lit in the distance.

Celestun

Our first trip was to Celestun,a small fishing town east of Merida.  We took a second class bus for the ride. Great ride, stopping at all the small towns along the way.  The bus station was an easy walk from our hotel. Ed used his Senior Card so his one way fare was 23 pesos. Peggy’s was not a cheap date at 49 pesos($4)!

Celestun known for its long and wide beach and millions of smaller shells. The water is shallow and extends out for well over a quarter mile with a depth of only about 2 feet. Fresh seafood is plentiful at the beach front restaurants. It’s also known for its flamingo estuary.

Here’s the beach. Amazing. Hardly any people.We enjoyed a good lunch with some Canadian folks we met while walking on the beach.

 

There are boats on the beach that fit 6 or 8 people that will take you to the flamingos. They go down for a few miles and then up the ria (which is not really a ria or river at all) into the estuary. After a few miles you begin to see long ribbons of orange/pink color. Then, the ribbons become flamingos. Tens of thousands of them. All feeding in the shallow murky water. Walking and squeezing the shrimp larvae out of the ooze. Amazing.

The next picture is just meant to give an idea of the area just this one section of the flamingos cover.  You can just see the hint of pink in front of the trees.

 

Then, we stopped at the mangroves. We cut through a section to see how the roots grow into the water. No crocodiles, but they’re there!

Finally we stopped at one source of the ria. It’s a fresh water spring that is bubbling up, forming a clear pool where you can swim. It then empties out into the large estuary.  We didn’t swim but lots of folks did.

Then, back to the road leading into town.  We just flagged down the bus for the 2 1/2 hour ride back to Merida.   As it happened to us after dinner at Chaya Maya, the bus encountered the Carnaval parade route and had to take a very similar route down, over, and then back up to the station. Amazingly, we remembered many of the same narrow streets and vehicles parked along the streets causing bottlenecks. Only this time, this huge bus had to navigate rather than just walking around. Traffic jams and other buses playing “chicken” resulted. Several times the corners we so tight that the us had to stop, back up, and then turn again. The squeezes between vehicles (parked or passing) were sometimes so tight, we held our breath! No scrapes. No bruises. No one injured or killed. We clapped for the driver as we finally entered the station!

Merida

We stayed at the Dolores Alba hotel. This is the same hotel we stayed in last year when Bob and Lynn went with us. It’s located about 4 or 5 blocks from the zocolo (main square). It originally was a Spanish Colonial mansion that has been converted to a hotel with rooms added on in the “new” section. It’s clean and reasonably price.  Lots of different languages being spoken in the courtyard where we had breakfast, wrote in our diary and accessed the internet.  The hotel is a real surprise because the surrounding area is definitely not the best part of town.   The walk to the square is past the local city bus stop with a constant stream of  loud, noisy, smelly and aggressive buses.

It was absolute heaven to cool off in this wonderful pool.

Breakfast time in the courtyard.

Lots of places to sit and rock for awhile.

Of course, we went shopping in Merida. First to our shirt and hammock guy, Estaquio. Ed bought a panama shirt and a matrimonial hammock made of sisal. Like last year, Peggy tried on lots of tops but never found one that she liked.

We went to the Central Market, a short walk from the hotel. The market again amazed us with hundreds of stalls selling everything from clothes, to jewelry, to fruits, vegetable and meats, to watch repair  to pots and pans, to tools, and on and on! About anything and everything you can imagine. The locally grown fruits and vegetables were both gorgeous and delicious. We bought a few presents for grandkids. Nothing for kids! Peggy bought some tops and a panama hat to shade her from the sun, as it was hot, hot!

We took the photos below from Google Images.  We were way too busy gawking to take many photos.

Really, there is everything at this never ending market.  Really!

One of hundreds of vendors selling flowers.

Peggy was mesmorized by these bugs that had jewelry on their backs.  No pins needed to wear a broach.

We ate two dinners at La Chaya Maya restaurant. We were told of it by friends who went to Merida a week before us. Great food served with corn tortillas made by Mayan women sitting in the restaurant.  The first night we ate there, we didn’t realize it was on the other side of the Carnaval parade route from our hotel. After dinner, we couldn’t walk directly back to the hotel as the police wouldn’t let us cross the route. The entire parade route we were told was 3 miles long.  So we had to walk many blocks south to the end of the route, then over, and finally back up to the hotel. Took us probably 1 1/2 hours! Worked off our dinner and were hungry by the time we got back! Not really. But, we were thirsty and consumed a beer or two!

Yucatan Travels

We  just returned from a short 5 day trip to the Yucatan. As usual it was an adventure  and we took many, many photos. Way too many stories and photos to include in one post.

As we did last year, we took the ferry to Playa del Carman and then an ADO first class bus (no stops with a bathroom and movies on board) to Merida. We used Merida as our base and took day trips to Celestun and Uxmal. We spent our last night at Izamal.

We left Cozumel to try and avoid the constant boom-boom-boom and sirens of non-stop Carnaval parade music. It didn’t dawn on us that Merida, a city of over a million people, would have a much larger Carnaval!  Thankfully, our hotel, being some blocks away from the parade route, was much quieter than our house in Cozumel. So, in that regard, we were successful!

OK. On with the show!

Our Mexican Family

It has been a real treat for us to feel that we’ve become a part of Edwin’s family. You might remember that Edwin was Rita’s divemaster for several years.   His daughter, Abril, was born within a month of  our granddaughter, Ellie.  We have been so honored to be invited to Abril’s christening and to each of her birthday parties.  When Edwin, his wife Marianna and Abril come visiting, Abril knows just where our toys are.  Even more telling is that she knows that Ed is someone she can tease.  In the end though, she is right there giving Ed a kiss on the cheek before they leave. 

Within the last year, our “family” circle has grown to include Edwin’s parents, Ramon and Aida.  We now get a call when Ramon has caught fish that day or if there is a special family meal. Edwin’s mom and sister, Lilliana,  have given us impromptu lessons on making their extra special tortillas.  Aida especially is very exacting – no possibility of a deficient tortilla passing her inspection!   The other day we enjoy baby goat brought by Marianna’s mom from Monterray – delicious!  Our meals together are always a kick – full of laughter, making fun of ourselves and conversation.  Each time we leave, Aida says “Hasta manana” (until tomorrow) and she means it!

Here are some pics of Abril’s party. 

Abril has her back turned to us – just can’t take photos fast enough with this action.  She is dressed as Rapunzel while jumping on a trampoline.

Every party has to have a pinata.

A pulley system is a permanent fixture at this building dedicated for parties.

The scramble is on for candy!

Rapunzel and her cake!

New Special District in Cozumel

Anybody who has seen Ed’s rock work in Cedaredge knows that he is not afraid of large projects.  The allure of the hammock here has not diminished this drive. Recently Ed unofficially (as in the city has no clue) joined the Public Works department in Cozumel.  His mission?  To fill in a large pothole that becomes a lake when it rains.  Upon reports of several streets being paved for a second time in just a few years while ours remains a pitted limestone lane, he has taken matters into his own hands.  On his afternoon walks, he has discovered piles of black top  and cement chunks which he is reallocating to our street.  Now the construction crew from across the street is helping out with pieces of tile, cement, and sand.  We’re thinking a 2015 completion date?

Just because!

Just because we haven’t posted for awhile, we thought we would steal a few photos from our friend Jodi.  We promise we were there when the pics were taken.  It’s just that when we compared our photos to hers, her pictures won hands down!

Oh yeah we lied, we really weren’t here (here being “the other side”) when this pic was taken but we HAVE been there at some point!

Pelicans gather late afternoon on things  that stick out of the water.  On Peggy’s late afternoon swims, she likes to give them a good night wave with her fin clad foot.  Charming! 

A perfect way to end the day.  Photo taken from Blue Angel.