Blogs from Valladolid, Yucatán, Mexico, North America

Baaabaaabaaa, ohhh no it can't be. That is the sound of the alarm going off at 2.15am in our apartment in New York after three hours sleep! This morning we are going on one hullava journey to Mexico. But first we must wake Ms Roling who has popped a sleeping pill! So today will consist of a taxi, flight, another flight, a transfer and then a 2.5 hour bus trip. We fumble our way through security and on to the plane, Ms Roling still has no idea what is happening. We land in Miami and my feet resemble ice blocks, I'm confidant that all the aircon for the flight was filtered through my feet. We have 40 minutes to kill before our next flight so we try and find somewhere to grab some breakfast. Ms Roling ... read more

We rent bikes to journey about 7km (4.3mi) west of Valladolid to two well-known cenotes. All I know about these things is that these are limestone sinkholes filled with fresh water and they’re well worth jumping in. The Yucatan peninsula is scattered with these formations, around 2,000 actually and they’re what kept many Mayan villages alive. Today, several of the more touristy cenotes are owned, run, and maintained by Mayan collectives (ejidos). Our bike ride takes us along a highway and then at a worn wooden sign marking the cenotes, we bear left. The forest hems in on us along our barely paved bike patch and I’m starting to flag due to the humidity. Heat I can stand, humidity wipes me out. Sweat drops, rolls, pools all over my body. But I keep pushing and finally ... read more

This weekend Cory and I visited a most charming Mexican town on the Yucatan peninsula with immense Mayan influence, Valladolid. Pronounced Valley-o-dally. Or Volley-doe-lolly. Or Valalalalada!  Only Cory can pronounce it correctly, so I kept him entertained with my tongue-twisted options! Valladolid is surrounded by dense flat jungle hiding Mayan ruins and dozens of cenotes. Cenotes are ancient collapsed cave systems filled with clear freshwater that are fed through an expansive underground river system. Their geologic formations go back to the meteorite that was believed to strike the Yucatan Peninsula over 65 million years ago and wipe out the dinosaurs. This impact dotted the soft limestone rock of the peninsula with fissures and cracks of varying sizes. Over millions of years, the porous limestone allowed water to seep through its numerous cracks forming gigantic cave ... read more

My friend "Hammockman" Paul Rounds has put up a post at his blog about our November visit to Jim Conrad of BackyardNature.net . I'll now supplement that post with a few additional photos and recollections. Being only a junior-blogger wannabe, and newcomer, I felt it appropriate to let Paul break this story first; and he's done a fine job. He blogs from Merida, and can be found at HammockmanPaul.blogspot.com . I've enjoyed Jim's newsletter for about a year, and found my way to it through Paul's sidebar of blogs which he follows. I was an avid reader of Thoreau when in high school. So it was compelling for me to make an effort to visit someone who was living like that 19th century contrarian in the modern age. And I wasn't disappointed. Jim has a spiritual ... read more

We decided that we would visit one more Mayan ruin before we headed towards the east coast for some beach time. A small ruin near Valladolid was recommended to us so in the morning we caught a taxi to Ek Balam. The site was partially restored with some nice buildings including a huge pyramid with sweeping views of the entire site. There were also two huge ruins on either site of the main site. These ruins were apparently temples but looked just like big piles of rocks with vegetation growing all over it. This really helped us appreciate the effort and skill it must have taken in restoring the sites we have seen over the past few days. After returning to Valladolid we hired bikes for the afternoon in order to ride out to a natural ... read more

Ola, Vandaag opnieuw in Valladolid beland. Medicatie van Little Luka slaagt aan en ze heeft nog steeds geen koorts gemaakt. Haar hoestje verdwijnt stilaan. Dus alleen maar goed nieuws deze keer. Morgen rijden we langs een van de mooiste cenotes (onderwaterbronnen) van Mexico om zo uiteindelijk te belanden in Puerto Morelos, onze (slik) laatste stop vooraleer terug te keren richting Cancun. ... read more