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Published: April 1st 2011
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me
at the main temple thingie in chichen Hi,
as most of U probably already know, I travelled to Merida in Yucatan, Mexico.
Where I am currently staying in a nice hostel with pool and lots of hammocks.
It is perfectly located at a five minute walk from the central plaza, which is a big square surrounded by shops, café’s, restaurants and the local townhall plus church.
And it is mainly there that the people of the area gather at night for some local entertainment or just to do their own thing on one of the numerous benches or terraces.
Speaking of which entertainment, the first night I went there it was a big buffed up Mexican guy with allstar-clownshoes and some clown make-up.
He, within a minute after me arriving, noticed me(as I was probably one of two or tree non-mexicans attending the show) and shouted something in my direction.
My first impression was obviously to look around and see who the hell he was shouting to, but after a second he shouted back an I realised it was me so I shouted back 'HOLA'
It went on something like:
'HABLES ESPAGNOL??'
'NO'
'INGLESSOS?'
'SII'
'Yo no hables inglessos 😞 … WHERE U FROM??'
'BELGICA!! 😊 '
At which time he stormed my way while shouting out something I couldn’t understand really and giving me a hug.
After that he returned to the centre while making, I think, a belgian-joke which appeared to be quite amusing as the crowd was loving it.
He continued with some more jokes and a little game including four locals which had to sell a chicken to one-another in a set routine and received a spanking when making mistakes.
Since I didn’t understand a whole lot of what was going on I decided to move on …
But OK, first things first, I flew into Cancun after making a stop at Atlanta.
Cancun, which I wanted to leave asap as it is a long stretch of hotels and resorts where tourists can pay just as much as back home for a heineken or budweiser.
I picked Merida as base for visiting Yucatan as I heard many good things about is such as it being an authentic Mexican city and relatively cheap compared to the Mayan riviera.
I took the bus from Cancun to Merida as the Mexican bus system is renowned to be more than good and payable.
While getting of
Temple of the warriors
those names were given later by the archiologists since there is no written word of it all so they have no clue what it is all about really... the bus it came to mind that it might had been better to make some kind of preparation towards finding the hostel after reaching Merida since I realised that I didn’t know anything really except the address...
But no worries, adventure was what I wanted, so I started walking..
As the streets in the address were numbers(I had to get to the junction of calle 62 and 51) it couldn’t be that hard, right?
So after ten minutes of walking in a slightly lid(it was well dark already since it was about 10pm) Mexican city I realised two things: this was not such a bad place, like the movies and news tend to make U believe and the even numbers went from east to west and the uneven from north to south.
Which meant that I was just about 12blocks away from the hostel.
Nothing in this city made U believe that it was actually quite big at about 1mil inhabitants since the buildings were small and so were the shops and other public places.
All of it being in a style which U typically imagine a Mexican town to be like.
And again I felt rather comfortable walking around
in a strange city, all alone, after dark and far away from home...
The thought of me simply being a bad ass comes to mind at such a time but it probably has more to do with the fact that the world is not such a bad place as the TV leads U on to believe.
The next day I mainly acclimatised, booked some trips and strawled around in Merida for a bit.
I decided to go along with guided tours rather than to go by myself, mainly because I know fairly little about Mayan culture(and this seemed an easy way to learn a bit more) and they offered airconditioned buses right up to the entrance of each site. 😊
The first daytrip took me to, where else? Chichen Itza.
On the 2h30 ride over there I got to know a couple from Bologna, Italy, who were about my age and were at the end of a 1month trip trough Mexico.
They were friendly and a nice talk aswel as they offered me some advice about Tulum, where I wanted to go next.
We arrived at Chitzen around a quarter past ten and it was already well hot
A feathered snake
one of the forms Kukulkan could take and crowded.
There were even more people and vendors there than I imagined even after being told both are more than abundant at the site.
With a funny and friendly guide I got to know a bit about the Mayans, which is primarily that there isn’t a whole lot certain about them since the bloody Spanish burned pretty much all of their written work.
The site had, despite of all those damn tourists, an aura of history and culture about it and turned out to be well worth the trip.
On the way back we stopped at an open cenote where we were offered a swim.
A cenote or sinkhole is pretty much a an opening above an underground river(a cavern I guess // they have hundreds of underground rivers or pools in most of Yucatan and thus water is not scares at all)
And when the top of such a cenote collapses U get an open cenote.
But it too was a bit crowded so I decided to not go for it and rest a bit in the shade.
When we got back to the hostel I went out for pizza at a place the Italian couple advice me
Stellar observatory
i forgot the actual name... to go to, had a beer at the central plaza, went back to have a shower and spend the rest of the evening in a hammock stretched over the swimming pool.
Daytrip2:
started off pretty much the same as the day before.
I was picked up by an airconditioned van which after picking up some other people at hotels took us to Uxmal, which is like chitzen itza, a mayan settlement.
And it turned out to be a much nicer place than Chichen, as it was better preserved, more accessible as U could actually climb up and in some of the temples there.
And on top of that, for most of the time our group of twelve was all by itself there which made the experience all the more pleasant.
Between the guides explanations, climbing temples and fighting giant iguanas ...(ok I didn’t fight any and they weren’t giant, they were more like 40cm long and I think they were just lizards but anyway..) I got to know 4people of our group a bit better, with whom we formed a little subgroup, which was fun as they were all friendly and amusing people.
They were a lady from Mexico-city,
Uxmal
temple of the wizard, if u stand in front of it and clap, it echoes but the echo sounds like the sound of a bird :O an Argentinian dude and a retired couple from Portugal.
So with my new friends I explored the last bit of Uxmal, after which we went to the next place called Kabah.
Kabah was a smaller site and took less time to get around but nevertheless was still plenty interesting.
At around two o'clock it was time for our meal a la carte which was included in the trip.
I had a Mexican style steak, which after comparing we decided looked the best by far and it was a nice meal too.
During the meal we talked about travel, beer and the best ways to prepare steak(on which we didn’t really agree, but everyone knows the best way is to throw it in a pan whit lots of butter right? … on a stick over a campfire -.-' what were they thinking ..)
So after the meal we went back Merida where we were dropped of at our hotels.
That evening I went trough the same routine as the night before: eat, beer at central plaza, shower, hammock at pool.
So now at the moment I am at the hostel and I don’t have any real plans.
I think I'll
go out for lunch in a bit and then make my way down to the beach, where at around 4pm the sun hopefully will be bearable enough to sink my bottoms down in the white sand and forget about all else for just a little while 😉
Greetings from el Mechico,
Pieje.
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Jacques
non-member comment
vaya con dios/ ga met de goden
As requested yesterday, we got your full report on your latest adventures. Much appreciation again for making us feel part of your world tour. Must we repeat ourselves? Again enjoyed reading your experiences. Great writing. Great narrative style. Great vocabulary. You make us dream with that hammock at the pool. In your report we find interesting info on cultural aspects( the Maya people), the urban aspect( one million inhabitants, who apparently live in a small area in small houses), activities in the company of other nice people and how you have to prepare a delicious steak meal. We were also amused when you wrote something like this: adventure was what I wanted...so not allowed to worry. Peter travelling alone has advantages and disadvantages. How are going on with this situation? Can you cope with being alone ? Or would you have preferred to travel together with someone else ? Finally it would appear that you have not yet made up your mind. What are you going to do next. Are you going to visit Fidel in Havanna or are you heading for Belize ? Another thing. Good decision, we think, to avoid Mexico City. As you said, more than 10 million inhabitants! Unless you like busy and crowded streets, but we think this isn't the case. Have a nice weekend, Irène and Jacques