09 de Enero 2011

I was chatting with my mom last night and she was telling me she loves the blog, but misses the pictures that should accompany the posts. I highly agree, but for example right now, I am posting from Mari's I-touch. Although there are computers at some of the places we stay, it's more typical that the hostels and hotels have Wi-fi and not communal computers for guest use. Thus, it's impossible for me to add photos with the post.

Even when I have a computer, it's still difficult cause my camera takes wall size photos, much much much too large for the blog. Thus it's a thirty minute endeavor to pick and sort photos, upload them, resize them, then link them to the blog. If it were easier, I would add way more. So please excuse the photo absences when they occur.

This morning Mari and I visited the Copan ruins. I am glad we went. Sometimes I get the feeling from others that all ruins look alike, and that that after you've seen a few they are not all worth the visit. But today I found the Copan ruins just interesting as the rest. I have found that the five we have visited (Monte Alban, Pelenque, Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copan) have all differed and have been interesting in their own unique way. The Copan ruins are renown for having the best sculpture of all the ancient cities - and I can see why. The stellas are impressive free standing sculptures that show great skill. The temples are not huge, but in it's hey day it is suggested the city had as many as 20,000 inhabitants. One thing I thought was great about today's ruins is that at some points along the way they have artist interpretations of what the city may have looked like in it prime. And it looked mighty. Much different than the crumbling mess of modern times.

Anyway, after the tour Mari and I returned to the Hotel Marjenny, packed our things, grabbed a quick lunch of fresh bananas and chicken empanadas, and then caught a bus outta town. We took a local shuttle from Copan to La Entrada, then transferred to a bus headed south to Santa Rosa de Copan. The trip took us about three hours and we traveled with the locals, which usually means packing 40 people into a 20 passenger shuttle van. It's an interesting thing taking the local buses in Central America. Remembering back to the bus trip we took from Antigua to San Pedro (actually a bus to Panajachel, then a boat to San Pedro) but anyways, that bus ride was something. At one point someone took note that we had twelve people in 3 two person seats. If there's an edge, Enoch space for a quarter cheek, or even a half cheek, someone will squish you over and sit, sometimes even when there are free seats near the back. Space requirements are thrown out the window for a mother of two who squeezes in with her baby and small child. It's hilarious and interesting at the same time.

Tomorrow I believe we will head a little south (47 Km) to a little town named Gracias. It sounds interesting as a small mountain town.

It's Sunday evening here in Santa Rosa, and most stores are closed. We are going to make soup for dinner, but ran out for a quick snack of pastelito de harina, pastelitos de maize, and one chalupa. They were all absolutely delicious and cost less than $3. The prepared street food here in Honduras is the cheapest we have found along our journey. Fantastically delicious and cost effective.

T

23 de Noviembre 2010

Mari and I arrived in Valladolid after staying 4 nights in Merida where we had Wifi access but no computer at hand. Merida is the capital of the state of Yucatan (the northern point of the Yucatan Peninsula) and has a population of around 1.4 million inhabitants. It is a bustling city with narrow streets and even narrower sidewalks, making sidewalk navigation during the day frenetic and somewhat frustrating. We stayed at a wonderful hostel named Hostel Zocolo located just off the Grande Plaza smack dab in the heart of the city.

Hotel Zocalo - Merida

The hostel is housed within an incredible building, which at one time must have been someones immense personal flat - or mansion by modern terms. Located up a flight of stairs off the street on the second floor, the rooms have high vaulted ceilings with massive 10 foot tall folding doors between each and every room. The morning breakfasts were totally amazing feasts far more exquisite and impressive than any hostel breakfast I have ever encountered in my life. They consisted of fresh cantalope, papaya, pineapple, bananas, and watermelon, plus cereal milk and sugar, coffee, omelettes, crepes, bread, peanut butter and jelly, yogurt, honey, dulce de leche...... basically.... the works. It was great. We were paying about 110 pesos each per night ($9.50). The atmosphere was open and easy going, the staff friendly and talkative. All combined, it made for a wonderful stay in the city. With the overwhelming breakfast, free wifi, free purified water, and an enormous kitchen that we used for every lunch and dinner... we found it hard to leave. But as travelers we knew it was time to go.

After 4 nights we decided to push forward and left Merida bright and early the morning of the 22nd on the 6:20am bus headed towards Valladolid, with a quick early morning detour to hit Mexico´s most famous Mayan ruins, Chichen Itza. We arrived at Chichen somewhere around 9am and were quickly rewarded for the cranky early rising discipline. The ruins were quite empty and as we made our way out of the reception area into the park the local vendors who set up on the sides of all the major walkways throughout the ruins were still setting up their displays, filling their tables full of touristic handy crafts such as ruin replicas, hand carved wooden masks, chess boards with hand carved pieces, T-shirts, rugs and much much more. Walking down the path into the site the most striking thing as you enter is the dominating Temple of Kukulcan, or El Castillo as it is called in spanish. It sits in the center of the of the city and rises up higher than any of the other ruins. This temple is built to reflect the mayan calender.

El Castillo - Chichen Itza

"Each of El Castillo´s nine levels is divided in two by a staircase, making eighteen seperate terraces that commemorate the eighteen 20-day months of the Mayan year. The four stairways have 91 steps each; add the top platform and the total is 365, the number of days in the year. On each facade of the pyramid are 52 flat panels, which are reminders of the 52 years in the Calendar Round."

Another Chichen standout is the great ball court named the Gran Juego de Pelota that stands near El Castillo. It is by far the largest ball court we have seen in any of the ruins so far, actually quite giant in comparison. The details of the game are not exactly known for sure, but there are two giant stone circles 21 feet in the air on either side of the ball field that were used as goals for a rubber ball game where players were able to use any body part except their hands to manipulate the ball through the goal. They speculate a bat of some sort must of been used as it is unlikely the ball could have reached the height of the goals without one. Reminiscent of Schwarzeneggers 1987 film Running Man, the losers of the game were decapitated and sacrificed to the gods, which supposedly was a great honor. Although, I suppose the honor of winning felt much better.

Gran Juego de Pelota - Chichen Itza

Leaving Chichen we hopped on a second class bus to continue the 30 kilometros of so to Valladolid. We are now staying in a little hostel named "Hostel La Canelaria". Valladolid only has around 60,000 inhabitants and has a much more relaxed feel than Merida.

Street and Buildings - Valladolid

As we have worked our way east, we have finally run into our first rain of the trip. Must be the tropical carribean winds carrying the moisture inland. Both yesterday and today there have been little showers that remind us of Seattle, yet from what I hear from back home its snowing right now. Even with the little rain falling here, its still near 90 degrees with heavy humidity. With little to do in such a little town, we are just relaxing and killing a little time before we head to Playa del Carmen on the 26th for a bit of high class living.

In an effort to conserve a little money, we decided to try an experiment. We´re switching over from beer to a bottle of Cuban Rum. With the additional purchase of a liter of coke, we see some some rum and cokes in our near future. As a six pack of beer costs roughly 60 pesos and goes so fast (and so smooth), we decided to upgrade to a bottle of 133 peso cuban rum and a 12 peso liter of coke. At a total cost of 145 pesos ($12), the breadth of the bottle should spread over several days and help us save a little cash. We´ll see if the experiment works or not.

Hope all is well with you - Travis

15 de Noviembre (A reflection)

We moved from Zipolite on the night of the 13th headed to the city of Palenque. We had originally bought tickets for a 14 hour bus ride heading to San Cristobal de las Casas, but having heard that this mountain town was freezing cold we decided to skip it. Instead, Mari and I bought tickets that circumnavigated the vomitous mountain roads leading to and from San Cristobal, opting on a lesser known path that goes from Zipoite to Huatulco, Huatulco to Juchitan, Juchitan to VillaHermosa, and finally Villahermosa to Palenque. This route was a little more expensive, but proved to be the faster more efficient route in the end. In total it took us around 12 hours from start to finish, but that includes a few short layovers as well.

Having reached the city of Palenque, we quickly hopped in a collectivo headed out to the ruins and a hostel community called El Ponchon. El Ponchon is located out in the jungle just a few kilometers from the ruins themselves, and consists of only 5 different hostel/hotel accomodations and 2 restaurants. We ended up staying at a place aptly named Jungle Palace. It consisted of individual cabañas interspersed in the jungle placed next to a meandering stream. Both mornings we awoke to the gutteral howl of monkeys in the trees above.

The first day we settled in and made reunions with our group of friends as we had all split and taken differing paths and timelines to arrive in Palenque. But the second day we signed up for an all day tour that would allow us 4 hours in the Palenque ruins, 1 hour at Misol Ha, and another 4 hours at Aqua Azul.

Our morning started around 8:00 am with the Palenque ruins.

Palenque was exquisite, and I find that I could walk all of these ancient ruin sites if I had the time and money to reach each and every one of them, as there are many scattered across the landscape of Mexico. The thing I find amazing is the lack of knowledge we have about the civilizations that flourished here in its hey day. Many of the buildings have plaques that explain what experts believe the building may have been used for, but I get the feeling little is absolutely certain.

After leaving the ruins, we headed to a waterfall named Misol Ha.

The waterfall was beautiful, with a large swimming pool for cool refreshment. Mari slipped in for a quick swim, while I made my way around the back beneath the waterfall, doused in the moist mist sweeping up from the crashing impact of the falling water with the pool. Time escaped quickly here, and before we knew it we were racing off to our final destination. A four hour date with Aqua Azul, an exquisite site located roughly 60 kms away.

I have to segway here for a second to better explain what it means to have a site located 60 kms away. This means that one must get into a van or taxi and drive there, as is typically done anywhere in the world. Yet, no one fully explained to me (or prepared me at all) what Mexican roads and driving are like. Coming from a Civil Engineering background, I really want to meet the guys that created the roads here. It seems they were very very averse to any thoughts on creating a straight section of road. Rather, I think they tried to squeeze in as many tight death defying curves as possible per kilometer. This, added to the fact that everyone here drives around 80 kms per hour makes for some white knuckle rides. It was possible for me to relax a bit and enjoy it for what it was - an experience and an adventure, but in no way was it actually acceptable and I feel lucky to still be in one piece. Anyway..... I am here to write again so lets move on.

After a harrowing drive through the Mexican country side, we arrived at the Cascades of Aqua Azul.

A beautiful series of blue water cascades with many swimming pools located both up and downstream. I went swimming here. The water was crisp and cool, but felt good once the initial cold shock had subsided. The site had a wonderfully constructed "boardwalk" that meandered next to the river and allowed easy perusal when moving along the length of the river with local stalls on the other side selling local wares.

As we were outside the rural zone, we were in a location where the locals speak a mayan language named Tzeltal. The locals take the opportunity to sell their products to the foreigners, and there are many cute little children running around selling food products.


Mari was having a great conversation with two little girls that were cousins, asking them about their life, culture and language. Luckily these girls are learning spanish in school and could communicate with us. They were friendly and quite enjoyable, probably loving to speak to us and much as we loved speaking to them. While at the ruins in Palenque Mari tried to strike up a conversation with two little boys playing on an abandoned truck on the side of the road, but the conversation didnt get too far because the boys only spoke the local mayan dialect and not spanish.

Its now morning here in Campeche and we have a wonderful roof top patio at our disposal. I am going to atake this opportunity to catch some morning sun on the roof and read my Spanish Review and Practice book. Take care.

T