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Well after a week of Spanish and exploring Merida, we were fairly tired so on Friday we went to the local university and saw some traditional dancing and retired fairly early. The dancing turned out to be amazing, and extremely impressive; incredible tap dancing with Cuban heels, men and women, extravagant, highly colourful dresses, and it was sweltering so I felt the dances were really impressive if they could preform such energetic routines with zeal and enthusiasm, while streamng in sweat under such heavy costumes.
It was just as well as we needed all our energy to travel to Uxmal on the Saturday. We managed to get public buses all the way there, which saved us a lot of money, as a 2 hour journey cost only 55 pesos ($5.50) and was airconditioned so we could make no complaints. The site itslef was incredible, huge Mayan temples, beautifully carved, set amongst unspoilt jungle. The experience was particularly spectacular as there were less than 20 tourists, and so very tranquil. We were able to explore the site, often going through small paths in the jungle surrounding, and complete with my rather large hiking boots, I really did feel exploreresque. Along with the impressive temples, there were butterflies, swallows, and iguanas everywhere, which gave the place a magical feel. Unfortunately we were unable to climb the main temple, but climbed several others, and as we sat on the top of the second alrgest we could see over all the surrounding jungle and even a few eagles graced us with their presence.
So after successfully navigating the bus system, speaking in Spanish to buy the tickets and enquire duration etc, wthe return journey was not smooth. The bus to return home was not for another two hours, which was fine, we got an ice cream and lazed in shade, until it started raining. But we went undercover and it soon stopped in time for us to get to the main road to catch our bus. Of course it promptly started raining again, but really raining, and we realised how that lush jungle was created.
But we were able to fidn shelter, but had to come out of it in order to see and so catch the bus. We got completely soaked through, and were forced to stand in the peltering rain, until I had the ingenuity to find soem more mobile shelter. It was about 30 minutes to late to stop us getting wet, but it was some relief. It was a rectangular piece of think plastic, as we balanced humerously above our heads I realised that it had a label on it reading ´Please place the paper in the bin and not the toilet´, so if we didn´t look rediculous as it is, soaked through, resembling drowned rats, Nicola´s white trousers having gone transparent, and my clothes clinging inelegantly to me, we were also holding a toilet door over our heads.
Luckily we laughed throughout the whole ordeal. We fianlly saw our bus, dropped our toilet door, and grabbed our bags, running through the rain to the road, only to realise it was a Thomas Cook tourist bus, oh the humiliation as all the tourists saw these rediculous white girls running for the bus. We still felt it was better than being forced to follow round a site in mathcing t-shirts or hats, like a herd of sheep following a raised umbrella, not to mention their embarassment as they have to request to stop for a photo or to raise their hand to go to the toilet!
Eventually our bus came, and although the driver was kind enough to turn the air-con off for thirty minutes, for the remaining hour and half we sat shivering in our sodden clothes, and dripping hair.
All in all the day was a success, even if it took over 5 hours to get home, it created a highly amusing story to tell to our Spanish teacher today. I can assure you ´we held a toilet door above our heads´does not translate well.
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Uncle Cos
non-member comment
Sounds like fun
Hi Just read all the blogs and they look and sound good. Glad to see you are enjoying yourself and I hope your Spanish gets better than your typing But I will let you off (I am like that) as you probably want to get the blog done so you can head off for the next adventure. Take care and look forward to reading more. Me I'm off to have a drink of Sangria