Running out of title ideas...

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So, I missed posting yesterday because I completely forgot that the Netbook shuts off at 25 mins and it was too late to ask my housemate if I could borrow his surge protector (and adaptor. Failed to mention earlier that in Mexico, few places, if any, are grounded. So instead of 3 prongs, pretty much every socket is two pronged).

I started the day with being pretty much ditched by my long-legged housemate on the way to the HQ (apparently he did that on purpose. Pfffft...). While we were waiting for everyone else to arrive, one of my classmates came in with a mark on her forehead area. Apparently, she didn't watch where she was going and rammed her head off a plank that some woman was carrying (ouch!). If I remember correctly, she was in fact tying her shoe before the incident.

The discussion for the morning session was on the experiences that a handful of the group had doing their shadowing. It later got into a nice circular discussion on the problems of someone being looked upon as a saint by the people (the problem that people would become dependent on that person).

As for the afternoon... went to the museum which is called the Na Bolom (whom later one of my classmates mislabeled as Naballoon. Lol at M :P. Sadly I didn't get a screenie of that before she fixed it...), which translates into 'The House of the Jaguar'. Oooo, ahhh... Sounds exotic doesn't it? It was named such because of the last name of the founding couple (which is Blom, so you can see where they were coming from. By the way, it's the Mayan translation of jaguar, not Spanish).

It's a pretty beautiful place, colored a brilliant golden color, with nice pillars, archways and all. Apparently this place used to be a monastery... Plenty of greenery and plants around in the courtyard and a garden somewhere out back. Sadly when we were there it was during winter so the garden was rather bland 😞 Wonder what it looks like in the spring 😊

We had a tour guide who spoke English (coincidentally, he stays at the same place that my neighbouring classmates do. Small world! In fact, apparently the homestay mom is one of the big cheeses and her son also works there part time) so thankfully K (my teacher in this case. Accidentally used it for another person in a previous post, but I fixed it) didn't have to do any translation. Some of the stuff on display are stuff that belonged to the founding couple while other stuff were things from the Lacandon people.

The garden, while bland, had one interesting statue in it (only remember that one side was like a warning about women only after you for your money and stuff. If I recall correctly, this particular side portrayed a young guy caught between two women who have their hands in his pocket and stuff). Then there were a number of blown up photos hanging off some string tied to tree trunks for some distance (there were also several hanging inside somewhere. It's a bit of a maze inside) which were pretty nice, though I was confused by their presence (though I saw that some of the photos were from the Lacandon Jungle ). Also located in this outdoor area was a small model of a hut made out of adobe bricks; it had a few Mayan crosses inside it.

Sadly a certain person wasn't around D;

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Now for today's update... since it was a free day, there was a group that was planning to go to see some caves that's located at a park. Ironically, my host family was planning to go to the same location that day (and this time it's the whole family, not just the parents and the youngest daughter). I decided that I'd go with my school group instead (nothing personal and I felt it'd be more appropriate since they have to put up with me every other day), while my housemate decided to go with them instead.

We had to take public transportation to get there (we got to be on the back one of those canvassed trucks :D or whatever it's called. . .) and on arrival, we split from our teachers. Now, originally we were told that our transportation and our visit to the caves would be paid for but apparently not. We ended up having to pay for our caves visit and the ride home. I guess we can't really complain since the caves only costed 10 pesos to visit (which is $1) and the transportation wasn't that much more expensive.

I wasn't impressed by the caves, but I guess that'd be because I had my expectations too high ( thinking of the really colorful, sparkly caves. There wasn't even a river, wall paintings, or anything like that. Not even bats!). At the same time though, it was rather short (probably navigated it in like 15 minutes) and the path straight-forward. After exiting the caves we went into the main park area and parked in a clear spot amongst some trees. Looks quite a bit like a park back in Canada...

Oh look, there's a high gated fence over there... My coordinator had said that the park would have been bigger if it wasn't for the military base that was just on the other side of that fence.

Some of the other activities around the place was horseback riding (I wish that I could ride a horse without having someone taking them around by the reins. So boring having the horse just walk around but I understand... it's for safety reasons) and a really tall slide which a couple of my classmates went down. They said that people sit on flattened bottles to speed things up. I'd probably do a faceplant if I went down one of the two slides on a flattened bottle...

We left at around 2 (without our teachers) and on our return to good 'ol SC, we split up into different directions for lunch. A handful of us went to a Mexican restaurant that the whole group's been to a few times, and when I made my order, I accidentally got it with chicken which made it rather filling. I confused 'with' (con) with without (sin). -sigh- After leaving that place, I realized I left my practically new bottled drink behind by my seat (if I didn't open it and take a sip, someone could have kept it). Great... that's like the 4th drink I've lost by mistake. I suppose I could have gone back, but I obviously didn't. Would have felt too self-conscious.

So this is my summary of two days.

~Kedi~

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Photos

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Apparently the Bloms would sleep in these hangy thingies.. how could they survive dangling high in a tree?

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Photos I've mentioned hanging around in the museum

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The Mayan crosses inside the adobe brick hut

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First time I got to sit in the back of an open end truck :D that was fun. not as adventurous as I figured...

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Forbidden the step! Hehehe... nice translation

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Hey it's like we're in Canada again!