Blogs from Valladolid, Yucatán, Mexico, North America - page 4

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

Mèrida, Yucatàn, a 7 de octubre del 2009. Saludos a todas y todos. Aprovecho la oportunidad de remitirles fotos de la ciudad de Valladolid, Yucatàn, que con sus 45,000 individuos e individuas es la tercer ciudad màs grande de Yucatàn, misma que utilicè como hub o base para visitar algunas ruinas de la regiòn. El centro de la ciudad es del mismo estilo colonial de Oaxaca, Antigua o Leòn Nicaragua, y buena parte de su poblaciòn habla maya como primer lengua (de hecho, en un negocio tenìan el letrero: "SE SOLICITA TRABAJADOR. HABLE MAYA"). Son numerosas, màs no mayorìa, las mujeres que visten el vestido tìpico yucateco de color blanco con bordados de flores. Si bien es chica y sus atractivos turìsticos pueden visitarse en un dìa, la verdad es que para mì su principal atracciòn ... read more

Well, I am back in North America! Mexico anyways :) December 31st turned out to be a beautiful day, and I really enjoyed spending it with Megan. We had lunch at a cute cafe south of the hostel, enjoying the two-for-one special on the pina coladas ;) After we got our errands done and had lunch, we headed off in search of the Cake Lady. The Cake Lady is this marvellous woman who bakes cakes in the morning, and sells them from a push cart in the afternoon and early evening. She makes all kinds of cakes and pies - key lime, coconut and chocolate pies, and chocolate fudge cake, with chocolate or caramel icing. There are also brownies! She sells them for 4-5 Belize dollars, or about $2-$2.50 USD. They are so delicious, that I ... read more