Mexico - Day Seven: On to a different ruin, state and biosphere

I'm up early, just after sunrise (so about 6:30), but the pool area has already been soundlessly mopped.  Luis comes to take me to the Maya breakfast.  Rosa (whose last name means “Rainbow”) teaches me to shape dough into tortillas.  Under her watchful eye, and encouraged by Luis, I make two of them... and they’re not too bad, if I do say so myself.  Of course, the hard part is making the dough, but at least I didn’t embarrass myself.  Meanwhile, Victor has prepared the chocolate in the Maya way, but without the traditional blood from a decapitated head.  What’s a Maya breakfast?  Pasteles (pastries), fresh fruit, tortilla with a raw egg dropped inside to cook (like into a pita bread), omelet with spinach.  I have trouble finishing.
       We walk around the homestead:  the raised garden (to protect from animals) - peppers, tomatoes, mint and oregano - the outhouse, chicken coop, washstand.  Victor has put out some old tortillas to attract the “blue jays”, who look to me more like blackbirds but do have a bluish sheen in the sunlight.  Then Luis walks me back to the spiky “arbol de la vida” (the tree of life).  It is here that Xtabay lives.  Legend says this female demon of incomparable beauty seduces men and leaves them naked, which is a surprise to them when they wake up the next morning (and also a handy excuse for staying out all night).  Under this ceiba tree, he gives me the Mayan blessing to send me on my way, and we finish with the Mayan amen: “bay ya”.
       On the way to my waiting taxi, we run into Jorge, who is as glad as I am to have the opportunity to say good-bye.  Big hugs to him, and to Luis.  I leave behind the heavy, tight-grained dark red-brown wooden doors with the Maya warrior of my home away from home.  I leave behind Luis, who went to the Simi Valley at age 19 to live with his uncle and finish school.  And Jorge, who, from his early teens, learned archaeology from the archaeologists digging in the ruins and English from Frank Sinatra records, and with whom I sang under the Maya arches of the ruins.  And Prospera, last night’s waitress who kept me company in Spanish, even though I didn’t understand everything and who’s been here since 1989.  And the mourning doves, the contortionist trees tortured into strange shapes...  This world slips into the past, but I will always remember it fondly.

Jorge

Rosa

I’m whisked off by Rodrigo from Mérida, my chauffeur for the long haul to my next destination:  Palenque.  Rodrigo lived half his life in Chicago, so his English is excellent, which is a good thing because I don’t think I could keep up a conversation in Spanish for seven hours, even with the practice I’ve been getting since I arrived in Mexico.
       After a loop to the north to catch the M180 highway, we head southwest until we reach the Gulf Coast, transitioning from the Yucatán into Campeche.  We reach Champotón and turn due south, inland.  There begins an area Rodrigo does not want to drive through after nightfall.  Evidently, there are banditos who attack cars and semi-trucks to rob them.  For protection, the semis have taken to forming caravans to cross this stretch together, but even then sometimes the robbers’ cars cut off the last semi in the caravan.  For someone brought up in Chicago, Al Capone’s crime city by reputation, Rodrigo seems to have a healthy respect for the danger.  I doubt if he’ll make it back through in time though, but he’s promised his wife he’ll stop overnight at a motel if it gets dark first.
       We cross a sliver of the state of Tabasco, edge around the northern border of Guatemala and slip into Chiapas.  The earth is black now, not red.  The road rises and falls, twists and turns, with hills in the distance, the beginning of the southern Sierra Madre mountain range that links up the Andes with the Rocky Mountains.  There is greenery here, and cows grazing... and actual rivers!  A bit like rural Michigan.  Small, very rustic stands sell everything in the towns we cross, including cockteles at a tiny booth that - presto! - becomes a cockteleria, a cocktail lounge.

Palenque

 My destination, Palenque, lies just inside Chiapas.  The Spanish there is more mumbly and the people more laconic.  Fewer smiles, more business.  This hotel is called the Chan-Kah, which means “small village”.  It’s more rustic than the two Lodges, more like a 50's resort (actually built in 1971) and does seem to form a little village among the lush vegetation.  My room turns out to be a small bungalow above a small stream called the Michol, all just for me, with a shaded patio and banana trees and other tropical greenery just outside my big window.  Howler monkeys settling in for the night greet me loudly.  To misquote Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, I’m definitely not in Yucatán any more.  This is the jungle.
       I get off to a bad start when I lie down on the bed to stretch away the miles.  My back begins to itch, then sting.  When I look in the mirror, there’s a big red welt.  I look at the bed and see a tiny red ant.  I guess it’s only fair; I did lie on him.  But I kill him anyway, and his friend nearby, too.  Then I go on the patio, turning the deadbolt so I won’t be locked out... but when I go to close the door later, the deadbolt won’t go back in.  Soon I have two workers in my room:  a maid armed with Baygon bug spray (which later kills a huge roach-like thing on the ceiling) and a handyman who has to remove the deadbolt and put on a new one.  Problems solved.
       I’m tired from doing nothing, so after a dinner of camarones con ayo (garlic shrimp) and a piña colada, it’s sleep for me.

Mexico - Day Six: Uxmal with George/Jorge

The Dwarf's Pyramid

After the best night’s sleep yet, I’m already awake when Luis dutifully comes to wake me at 7:30.  Throw on my clothes, just time for a hot chocolate (it is Mexico, after all!) and off across the street to the ruins.  Very convenient; that’s why I’m at this hotel, not a different one.
       And there, waiting for me - oh surprise! - is my guide.  George.  Well, Jorge.  I kid him about having put the old people with the old people... but only after an hour or so with him.  Turns out he’s two years younger than me, to his surprise.  I try to keep up with him; he’s as nimble as a goat on these old Maya stone steps.
       And these are the only ruins I’ll be able to climb extensively (except for Teotihuacan).  The rest - Tulum, Chichén Itzá, Palenque - are off-limits, either because of potential damage to them or past fatal falls by tourists.

Nun'ss Quadrangle

Snake head & tail, Nun's Quadrangle

       Unlike the Peruvians, who sculpted their stones to fit together without leaving room for a sheet of paper to pass (and I tried), the Maya used mortar made of water, charcoal, “white earth” and honey... a second new use of bees for me.  At Uxmal, the stones are fitted together with much decoration, including stone latticework - another difference from the other sites; the latticework is meant to symbolize water.  Jorge points out the snake on one wall of the Nun’s Quadrangle, a feature the show last night highlighted.  Each of the four platforms forming the Quadrangle is different, built at different times, with a different symbolism.  There are even some male figures sticking out of the facade of one, and Jorge explains that they symbolize the astronomers whose role was vital in Maya culture.  The East and West buildings are the most striking, with intricate decoration:  heads of Chaac, stylized Maya huts, columns, serpents, flowers, the traditional Maya arches...

       The concept of the keystone to hold up an arch was known to the Maya.  There are even two triangular arches (looking like pine trees) in the Governor’s Palace, which Jorge and I climb now.  From that platform you have a view out over much of the complex:  the Dwarf’s Pyramid, of course, and the Nun’s Quadrangle, but also the pelota court and a small simple temple with turtles on the upper frieze (thus the name the House of the Turtles).  And in front of the Palace stands a double-headed jaguar throne from which the governor must have ruled.
       As we gaze at all these wonders Jorge explains about the region, called Puuc, meaning “hills”.  Explains that the owl is the symbol of wisdom, water or death; take your pick.  I tell him on Easter Island, the symbol of wisdom is the sea turtle, which is their guide, and that’s why I have on a T-shirt with a turtle, given to me there, as I was seen to be wise.
       Next to the Palace rises the Great Pyramid, with a temple at its top.  Only one side has been restored; the rest lies partially obscured by earth and undergrowth, as was everything when this site was rediscovered.  The stairway is said to represent a snake, and at the solstices (December 21, and then June 21 in reverse) the sun casts the shadow of a snake (as at Chichén Itzá) and the people stopped working to celebrate the event.

       Beyond the Great Pyramid is a building dubbed the dovecote
by the archaeologists because of its many niches.  It was probably a residential complex, but still stands partially in ruins, its triangular peaks rising from stone-columned walls.
       On the way back, we visit the pelota court, much smaller than the one in Chichén Itzá but with a bigger and much lower hoop.  “It’s Maya pelote”, Jorge tells me, “not Toltec”.  Here, too, they played with their hips, elbows and knees; no hands.  The game was seen as the struggle between the forces of light and darkness.
       As we pass the Dwarf’s Pyramid on our way out, Jorge tells me its story, or rather its legend.  There was once an old woman, a witch, who went out into the forest.  She found a big egg and brought it home, keeping it warm in blankets.  Finally it hatched, and inside was a dwarf, whom she loved and raised.  One day, for some reason, the dwarf wanted to rule over everyone.  Not wanting to be replaced, the  Governor set him two chores.  The first was to build a pyramid in one day, but his mom, being a witch, made a deal with the evil powers.  And when the Governor woke up the next day, there was the Pyramid of the Dwarf!  The second chore was to break 100 cocoyoles, a small hard fruit, with his head.  But again his witch mother helped, making him a helmet out of a tortoise shell.  The dwarf broke open 99 of the cocoyoles, and then challenged the Governor:  “You do one and I’ll give you your realm back.”  The Governor tried... and died.  So the dwarf became the ruler of the land.  And his pyramid remains to this day:  the Pyramid of the Dwarf, also called the Magician’s Pyramid.

Hand of the Creator

       It was this pyramid that brought me here.  It’s the only one, not only in Mesoamerica but in the entire world, that has rounded sides and an elliptical base.  In Mayan, the name Uxmal translates to “three times built”, but there are actually four smaller, nested pyramids within the one we see today.  The first, Temple I, dates back to the 6th century A.D. and is exposed on the west side of the structure, at the pyramid’s base.  If you were allowed to climb this pyramid, you could enter the second temple, Temple II, through an opening in the upper part of the eastern staircase.  On either side of the staircase are twelve statues of Chaac, making 24 in all... perhaps the hours of the day.  The whole thing, together, viewed from the east, forms a complex work of art.  One that struck Frank Lloyd Wright as “some of the finest expressions of art and architecture in the world”.  And I couldn’t agree more.
       One detail that struck me:  a red hand traced on a wall.  Jorge explains that it is called The Heavenly Hand or The Hand of the Creator... meaning a god.  But it reminds me of the human hands I’ve seen traced on walls in the prehistoric caves of central France.  I always took them to be the artist’s signature, the hand of the artistic creator.  Maybe it’s a bit of both?

Pyramid of the Magician, or House of the Dwarf 

Breakfast now and a rest.  Then Luis picks me up for a Jeep ride around the old plantation, founded in 1673.  Fruit trees are still grown:  orange, lemon, lime, other tropical fruits.  Pineapples as well.  The original owners were named Shu, yet another Chinese-sounding Maya name.  After the Mexican Revolution, the present owners were allowed to keep their land when many others had their property taken away by the government as punishment for treating their workers as virtual slaves.  Both Jorge and Luis say the present owners are good people.

     Luis ushers me around what’s left of the hacienda.  It once had a sugar mill and a noria to provide fresh water.  And a chapel.  Now all that’s left are remnants from which tangled trees with long roots grow, even high up on some walls.  We climb up to the top of an observation tower from which we can see the ruins of Uxmal in the distance, rising among the trees like something out of a dream.  Finally, we walk over to a thatched area where the driver has set up fresh fruit at tables made from gnarled tree roots.

Back at the Lodge, it's time for a cool-down, a swim, a shower and dinner, then back to the room with a mojito to go with a slice of Chocolate cake colorfully decorated with flowers and the Mayan thank you:  Yom bo'otik.  I feel I should be thankig them!

View of Uxmal from the old hacienda

Mexico: Day Five: On to Uxmal

Uxmal

After breakfast, Netto (father of driver Josué) is ready and waiting.  We spend the whole trip (3 hours via Mérida) talking in air-conditioned comfort... and mostly in Spanish.  He explains that the first little town we drive through, Pisté, is where all the people who work at the ruins and The Lodge live.  He tells me that people used to be paid 80 pesos ($4) for 11 hours of work; the new president raised that to 120 pesos.  That leads us into politics, and he says people are very hopeful that Mexico’s new President Obrador, who is originally from a small village in Tabasco State nearby, will make life sweeter for them.  As hard as I try, he won’t trade presidents with me.  All this in Spanish.  My brain’s fried by the time we arrive in Uxmal (pronounce oosh-mahl).

Luis and Jorge

       Luis, from concierge and customer service, greets me at the curbside and takes me in hand.  He’ll become my new best friend by the time I leave.  At the “desk” - an open air area under a thatched Maya roof - he introduces me to an older man - George - whom he says has worked here forever and knows everything.  I assume he’s retired and just drops by to spend time with his friends.
       I’m early for check-in, but a room has been cleaned already - an end room in a bungalow by the pool, with features and decoration much like its sister hotel in Chichén Itzá.  Same owner, same rich family.  Here again, no clock, no phone in the room.  You’re supposed to just relax and smell the... what kind of flower would you smell in Yucatán?
         I spend some time just relaxing... and sorting through old photos and erasing poor ones because I discovered the “new” photo card, the one I had brought along for when the current one is full, is in fact already full itself!  I forgot to check before leaving.  Silly me.
       Then it’s 4:00 and Luis comes to pick me up for the planetarium.  Turns out this is the same show as the one in Chichén Itzá, the one I didn’t have time to see.  The gods of tourism are smiling down on me.  Luis walks me over, although it’s very nearby (doesn’t want to lose one of his two paying guests, I guess).  He buys the ticket for me, accompanies me inside... and settles in the seat next to me.  We’re the only spectators.  Not the busy season yet.  The show - in Spanish - is taken from the Popol Vuh, the Mayan creation narrative that begins with the exploits of the Hero Twins Hunahpú and Xbalanqué, and includes Kukulkan and Chaac the rain god.  I find I can understand all but a few words.  Good for the ego.

The Nun's Quadrangle

       Then just a quick drink and it’s time for the Sound and Light Show.  I buy my ticket (103 pesos - $5) and as I stand in line, my new BFF Luis shows up.  Oops!  He had bought a ticket for me, and I forgot.  (Luckily they reimburse him... I mean me... well, us.)
       The walk alone through the semi-dark (it’s 6:45 p.m.) is magic.  I seem to have the place all to myself as I make my way past the Dwarf’s Pyramid to the platform of the Nun’s Quadrangle.  A small tour group is already there, taking up all the front row, but I move a chair down next to them on the far end.  A few minutes later a handsome barbudo arrives - white hair, white beard.  I don’t know who started speaking first but I learn he’s retired, like me, and, like me, lives six months here (Mérida) and six months there (Mexico City).
       Compared to the show in Chichén Itzá, this one is disappointing.  The colored lights are good, but there are no special effects.  The main problem is the sound:  too loud, speakers badly oriented from the side so there’s an echo, voices blurry and overwhelmed by the accompanying music most of the time, so I really don’t understand much of the two stories:  one about Chaac the rain god, the other about some princess.
       I wish I’d invited the barbudo for a drink back at the hotel across the street, but I didn’t.  So it’s dinner alone for me:  a delicious grouper for one and a glass of white wine... then to bed.

P.S.  A detail for you plant lovers:  The plant I’m seeing all around in the garden of The Lodge at Uxmal is Sansevieria.  In English it’s also called mother-in-law’s tongue (in French also: langue de belle-mère), but in Spanish it’s called lengua de vaca (cow’s tongue).  And yes, there’ll be a quiz at the end of the hour.

Mexico: Day Four, Part 2 - Chichén Itzá at sunrise

Las Monjas (the Monastery)

Back at the hotel, the waiter sees to my needs:  first a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice.  Then he suggests an omelet - with a bit of everything:  cheese, onions, ham, even champiñones (mushrooms, or champignons in French), which Mayas don’t eat because they don’t grow here.  He says he’ll trade out the refried beans for half a nicely ripe avocado... but it’s Mexico so the beans come as well anyway.
       As I eat, the blackbirds dart in and pick off leftovers from cleared plates.  I find it funny but the staff doesn’t and either removes the plates or coifs them with those silver serving covers.  But the birds are smarter still and know there’s a hole iin the middle of the cover’s top, which they feed through until, defeated, the waiters clear the plates to the kitchen.  (It’s also mating season, so some fine dancing and feather-shaking goes on everywhere across the park.)
       My neighbors, Justin and Babette, who have a rental car, are at breakfast too, and we decide to try the cenote nearby.  It’s called Ik Kil, which means “the place of the winds”.  There are winding steps leading down - waaaay down - and they’re very slippery when wet.  Justin decides to be the Goods Guardian and Photographer while Babette and I fray our way through the Young Things on Spring Break.  The water is opaque and cool, vines hang down almost to the water’s surface, and about five waterfalls keep the cenote full.  It’s fun to swim underneath them... like swimming in the rain.  What’s less fun is climbing up the ladder behind one of several overweight young women in a thong bathing suit.  So little - almost nothing - left to the imagination!  I should gouge my eyes out!
       I give in to the urge to jump in the water from the platform 16 feet (5 meters) up.  Justin gets it on film.  And as I don’t kill myself, I do it a second time, to the guard’s slightly surprised “Otra vez?!” (“Again?!”) and to applause from on-lookers.  Or so Jason tells me when I surface.  Should have held my nose because some water got up it, and I cough a bit.  Obviously I didn’t touch bottom, as the water’s 150 feet deep (46 m)!
       We head back to the hotel where I just sit on the porch and enjoy where I am.  Life is good.

After they head back into Chichén Itzá for a hot extra visit, Justin and Babette invite me to join them for dinner at 7.  I choose the poc chuc, pieces of pork marinated in bitter orange.  I get it with guacamole and of course... refried beans.  As a starter, the proverbial chips and salsa, which are very good.  (Chips throughout the trip will prove iffy, depending on the batch you get.)  We polish off my bottle of red wine from last night.

El Caracol, from the hotel

     Justin suggests a nightcap at the bar, where it appears there are telescopes.  Turns out neither telescope works but the mojito is better than yesterday’s poor excuse.  Of course, this time I specify “más menta y mucho limón verde” (more mint and lots of lime).

       After a walk back through the darkness, a black dog appears on my doorstep and I end up giving him my just-in-case roll from dinner.  He sniffs but won’t accept it, so I leave it on the doorstep.  Two minutes later, both roll and dog are gone.  And I’m off to sleep.

Mexico - Day Four: Chichén Itzá at sunrise

Daybreak

As with everything, there’s an up-side and a down-side.
       Not having a clock or watch or phone or computer or anything that tells me the time, I’m at the mercy of the staff coming to wake me up in time for the sunrise visit to Chichén Itzá.  Which they said they’d do, but don’t.  Luckily I was half awake and someone did knock on my neighbor’s door.  After about 15 minutes wondering what to do, I throw on my clothes, grab my camera and head for the front desk.
       Good thing too, because the tour is gone already.
       The up-side is that I get to ride on the back of a motorcycle to catch up.

       Jaime, the guide, had just started so I missed nothing, except perhaps the background of this city that became important around 700 A.D.  Our tour begins with the centerpiece of this religious site that flourished until the 14th century:  El Castillo - The Castle - as the Spaniards named it, but really the Temple of Kukulkan.  Jaime explains the structure first:  nine levels on both sides of each staircase, totaling 18 in all, one for each of the Mayan months of 20 days.  The four staircases face the four cardinal points and each has 91 steps, so 91 steps times four equals 364.  Add one for the top temple and you get a year of 365 days.  Each facade has 52 flat panels, one for each of the 52 years in the Maya Calendar Round (i.e. cycle).  (Remember:  the Mayans were astronomers and mathematicians.)  The snake god Kukulkan has his head at the bottom of the staircase and his rattle at the top.  On the equinox, its shadow at sunrise looks like he’s descending to Earth from the heavens.

Sacrificial chac-mool

       But within this pyramid is a smaller one dating from 800 A.D.  Archaeologists accidentally found the door to it at the base of the north staircase.  Inside is a tunnel leading to a room with a red jaguar throne - eyes of jade - and a chac-mool for sacrifices.  Boy, do I wish I could go inside.  But you can’t even climb Chichén Itzá any more, ever since a Canadian woman fell to her death about a decade ago.  Not to mention the wear and tear on the monument itself.
       Jaime demonstrates the site’s echo, clapping his hands and creating multiple echo claps coming from everywhere.  Then he turns on his flashlight and takes a photo of each of our shadows against the stairs.  ITourisme oblige.
       He walks us to the Warrior’s Temple with its almost one thousand columns.  Again there’s the head of a snake, the symbol of life and fertility.  There are also jaguars, symbol of the sun to the Maya, as the eagle was to the Toltecs.  Next to this is the Platform of Venus.
       Although tens of thousands died here, Jaime tells us as we circle the pyramid, the Mayas practiced cremation and used a product (maybe quicklime?) to eat away any remaining bones.  So no skeletons have been found.

Pelota court, with stone hoop at top

The sun already risen, we head to the grand pelota field, the largest in Mexico.  Only the king, priests and political dignitaries attended the games, viewing from on high.  There were two teams of seven players each.  Players used no hands and the captain - the only one allowed to score - used his hip to send a ball through the vertical stone “hoop” far above, formed by two snakes facing each other.  The winner had the honor of being sacrificed to the gods, who deserved only the best, not second best (the loser).  Sounds like a good reason to throw a game to me!  The ball was made from rubber, which doesn’t exist in Yucatán but came from Guatemala, where the Mayans came from.  Proof of trade from afar.

 cenote because cenotes are on my To-Do List.  This one - the sacred cenote, one of two on the site - is a good walk north and not much to look at when I arrive.  So back I go to see whether the south side of the site offers better pickings.

My dog friend in front of the Platform of Venus

     I seem to have made friends with a yellow dog from somewhere; Jaime says he’s really a Maya jaguar.  He follows me for quite a while... until Jaime sends us off on our own.  I head first for the
       It does.  Down the trail, past the observatory (which is just across from my hotel’s entrance) is a major monument that’s off-limits.  But there’s also a building with one column still showing the original red paint.  And at the end of the south trail, a gem of a building the Spaniards named La Iglesia - the Church - because of all its carvings.
       Then it’s back to the pyramid for a quiet moment just sitting and looking and marveling.  It’s almost 8 a.m.; the floodgates of the park will soon open to the general public.  I could probably stay longer but I’ve walked miles, with no breakfast.  Time to go back to my bungalow and eat.  Maybe a quick siesta after.

La Iglesia

Observatory El Caracol  (The Snail)