January 9-21, Merida and Cancun

Merida

We flew from Mexico City to Merida on January 9, Luke and Alex’s 10^th birthday. Now I know, we gave them a birthday party at home with their friends and their grandparents gave them a little celebration in Tucson but my mommy-guilt is the real deal and I DO NOT like my kiddos to have a birthday that goes by without that day feeling a little bit special. We were up early for the taxi to the airport; travel was ok, no issues; we arrived in Merida with a very good first impression – Warm weather (high 80s.. in January...would not want to experience summer here!)), nice airport, easy to find tourist desk and taxi information. We made it to our apt right at check in time (and were blown away by the place – it’s so hot, most places have very tall ceilings, 12 feet in every room, our house was U shaped, around a central courtyard and small pool, different tile designs in every room, it is the kind of bold, interior color-scheme I so admire as brave!)… But I digress! After finding water and snacks, walking in our neighborhood, having some dinner, and even allowing some ice cream (we have scared them with some of our ice cream=bad tummy ache stories from ingesting frozen items in Central America) we gathered to watch the ~40+ minute slideshow + videos show I had put together - All of Alex and Luke’s 11 birthday celebrations (which counts their actual birth, so, more 11!). I had so much fun putting it together and we had so much fun watching it; the kids crack up at videos of themselves. Then we gave them homemade cards with money, one of their favorite things, as presents. Happy birthday, my hilarious sons!

Happy birthday-flight!

Just two dudes, chatting, in the common-pair-seat in Merida.

Happy birthday dinner!

Luke + ice cream = smile

Alex, ditto.

We rented a car for two days (ah, the at times agony of renting foreign car and the dreaded insurance discussions! I bought extra insurance because the alternative was an $11,000 'hold' on my credit card until I returned the car unharmed, and I imagined some terrible thing happening and us needing that credit card capacity and I just questioned myself incessantly about that decision). And we used those days fully!

Day 1 rental was great, we navigated to Uxmal, about an hour south of Merida, to see the odd and interesting rounded-edged Maya pyramids (built around 700s, this is a great sight, not too crowded, really interesting buildings and decorations, great views to other areas around Uxmal where there are clearly unexcavated structures – that look like “jungle mounds” where the jungle has swallowed up a tall structure.

The day was still young, so we kept driving south another Mayan city, Kabah (occupied and built 700s to 1000s), which we almost had all to ourselves. It would have been 100% fun to explore around the site, but sadly, it was 90+ degrees and humid, so we leapfrogged from one shady spot to another to enjoy different views and perspectives, so, with the sweat and whining, maybe 80% fun. The excavation sites give ample opportunity to wonder about archeology and anthropology; so many stone 'jig saw' puzzle pieces to be reassembled and used to direct the restoration of buildings.

Big iguana on the way to Uxmal.

Uxmal, why oh why did they build the pyramids so steep.

Uxmal, decorative building.

Sad to say that climbing up (down is much worse) these steep steps even to this small height was a bit disturbing.

This building had the only statue-depiction of a person in the complex; the rest are gods and animals.

Careful Scott!

.. Made it.. !

Ack, snakes.

And still, the day was pretty young, so we drove back north and stopped off at a hacienda the rental car guy recommended to swim in a cenote - the geology of the Yucatan is crazy and interesting. There is a whole lot of limestone and as water percolates through the rock, it carves spaces and, when they get big enough, sometimes the ground collapses leaving, a the ground water and a great, dee swimming hole exposed. The Yucatan has so many cenotes because the giant asteroid from 65 million years ago hit Earth in this area of southern Mexico – the asteroid hit and created the Chicxulub Impact Crater; there is a ring of cenotes around the impact zone. This of course is also the asteroid that is thought to have caused the dinosaur extinction.

We drove off the highway a ways to this hacienda and cenote and were surprised to find a very well developed parking lot and visitor center. Our high hopes of cooling off were dashed though, the ticket clerk told us they were booked for the day and we should reserve for another day; that wasn't going to happen though (not enough car-rental days) and besides, the entrance fee was more than $40 a person - Like going to an amusement park (to be fair, this cenote was a swimming hole and swimming caves, where the pictures showed lighting and other infrastructure that of course cost some money). We were bummed, but decided we had time to try one of the hand painted 'Cenotes' signs on the road (there were several cenotes in the area that looked more… informal).. We stopped at a wooden sign and hopped out. We found a rustic setting (some dudes in folding chairs, a sheet strung up to change behind, life vests, and some wooden steps going down maybe 30 feet). There were about 10 people swimming in the hole, so we went for it. The water was cool and clear, we chatted with the other swimmers, Luke enjoyed jumping off the platform, and we were all highly entertained when a newcomer showed up, we could see him way up top; he took a look down the 30 feet, stepped back, then, after looking at his girlfriend and her saying, warningly, 'Nooo,' he jumped from the top into the water! It was crazy, he just did it, not knowing how deep it was or anything at all. When he popped up, he said, It's not that high. (We all disagreed). He said, you can't look down for too long, you just have to look, decide and then go, you can't hesitate, or you won't go. Hmm, this apt description, coming so soon after I had seen something a bit astonishing, seemed profound to me as an observation that has many applications.

In the cenote.

Could the day be more fun? Yes indeed. Up top, a woman.and a man (with two kids playing at their feet) were making tacos and these yummy fried quesadillas. We all ate a quite a few of those $1.50 deliciousnesses but had to restrain ourselves to get on the road before it got dark. Wow, great day 1..

Taco time.

I was pretty tired from driving and being in the sun for a lot of the day, but we only had the car for one more day AND when we asked the kids how many Mayan sites they wanted to see, Katie said 'two or three' SO we resolved to get up early and make the two hour one way drive to ....Chichen Itza, what we called the grandaddy, the big kahuna of the excavated Maya sites (maybe alongside Tikal)... Scott and I had visited with friends back in... 2007 or so and were interested to see it anew.. wow, the surroundings had changed a lot! The place is full full of.. entrepreneurs.. As we drove toward the tourist magnet, there were several speed bumps where folks with official-looking vests had set up cones; we of course politely stopped where they told us (in any language we wanted) that the Park was just ahead, there was parking and an entrance fee and wouldn’t we like a guide to show us around? We did not want a guide; this happened +5 times on the way to the entrance, so often that I had to suppress my polite-genes and blow by these cones at a slow pace without stopping to talk.

The entrance was mobbed with tour busses, no parking at the site; we backtracked and found a spot in a “casual” paid parking lot some locals had set up. At the entrance, we encountered another interesting thing we’d seen at Uxmal – the federal national park entrance is inside of the State’s park entrance, so, you have to buy two tickets from two separate windows; a funny way to see how the federal and state governments are sort of politely at war with each other (cooperating governments would of course just have one window and collect-remit fees to one another).

We made it into the site! And the best building is right there, what they call the Castillo, though I do not think we know if it was a “castle” or a religious temple. The place is pretty overrun, so snap a few photos and keep going; we walk, from shade-spot to shade-spot, touring other temples, the ball court, the observatory (Mayans excelled at math and astronomy), a cenote (where folks were at times thrown as sacrifices), and the nunnery (of course, Mayans were not Christian! But some folks, perhaps the Spanish, thought the building looked like a nunnery, so there is its name on the Chichen Itza map). Throughout our visit, I was on a the lookout for a magnet among the many, many, oh so many, vendors that lined seemingly every walkway within the park – I was finally ready to buy one – as you walk by each vendor they call out to you, holding some nicely carved quetzal or other animal, “$1 dollar, almost free” – I picked up a much less nice looking magnet and ask how much. The man says, ah, that one, 300 pesos ($17)..! I am so shocked, I don’t even negotiate, I just put it down and walk away and he calls out, 200! 150 pesos! After two more tries, I buy one for .. 50 pesos I think..

Chichen Itza, the big dog of the Maya sites, the main pyramid, Castillo.

Chichen Itza observatory.

Chicen Itza giant ball court.

Another Chichen Itza Castillo pic.

We spent our other few days in Merida walking around the town (great town, nice and warm, mix of locals and visitors with a good-sized but quaint commercial area and a brand new park big park) and we were lucky to be in town during Merida fest – a monthlong arts festival with free performances almost every night of the month. We went to see a Canadian acrobatics show (very entertaining, seemed six or seven people who had aged out of Cirque du Soleil, they did funny variations on Cirque performances, r=man throwing woman around, but on roller skates; juggling but with frisbees and ping pong balls launched from one performers mouth to the others; etc) and we saw a Cuban full orchestra+singers, where there were long lines of chairs set up and eventually people were up and dancing in big groups. We also got in two Maya museums and we stopped off at a mall near the museums one warm day and found a lot of people inside, enjoying the AC. The mall reminded me of a US mall in the 80s and 90s; many customers walking around, no empty shops, (like so many of the malls in SF and the East Bay), it felt like a popular place.

Giant, cool, brand new park along manmade lake.

Park-time.

Maya museum in Merida, in front of codices, these are some of the few Maya paper-writings we have.

Hanging at the Merida mall on a warm day.

Coloring at the Palacio Maya museum.

Luke Maya birthday calendar

Merida Fest, night parties!

Merida fest! Enjoying a band,

Cooling off in our sweet little Merida place's small pool.

Cancun

It was hard to leave our Merida place ... But, we must travel! We hopped on the bus for Cancun.

Why Cancun? I do not recommend it. It was expensive. It has nice white beaches but its just too touristy (I do not mind a lot of visitor places, like, of course they are touristy, they contain visitation-worthy places, but Cancun is just too too much even for me). But, it has a big international airport (if we flew from Merida, the international flights backtrack to Mexico City) and we needed to fly far, to southern Chile. Also, we knew we’d do some harder traveling in Chile and figured we would take a little “vacation” from traveling with a few days in a resort, no cooking, planning, and entertainment by the parents required! So! We forked over more money than we spent per night in any big city in Europe and got to the vacationing! And it was a fine break; we kept comparing it to Belvedere, the resort place we stayed in Greece; and it kept coming up not as good. The place we stayed as all inclusive, but tipping is expected all the time (embarrassing moment for me, when the guy brought our bags to our room, I grabbed a 20 peso bill (about $1.20) and the bell guy sort of reluctantly took it and said, like I hadn’t been in Mexico for 20 days and didn’t know how much 20 pesos was worth in US money , “Umm, this not much, this is like, nothing.” Umm, ok, got it dude. To sum up an uneventful 4 days: we enjoyed swimming, the swim up bar, no cooking, and the beach.