Uxmal
Itching for warmer weather, and with the boat still needing
repairs, we (just David and I, kidless) decided to head to Mexico.
We’ve been to the Yucatan Pennisula a few times before. The water is warm and it would be a good
place to pass off a Rescue diver course.
We had first looked at going to the Philippines but I didn’t want to
give up time to do Rescue diving there.
I’ve never been there, so I’d want to see everything, not just spend the
trip working on Rescue diving. And then
the price and time was going up and up, so we came up with Mexico. I’ve already seen everything in the
Cancun/Playa Del Carmen area, so it was a good place to go. Combine it with a few days out to the western
side of the Penninsula to see some new sights and towns, and it would be a
great trip.
Most places to stay in the Cancun or Riviera Maya area are
All Inclusive resorts. Which I guess is
great if you don’t mind over paying for food, and plan to sit on the beach all
day. But that’s not us. We did that the
first time we came to Cancun 10 years ago.
But it seems to me that the All Inclusive prices have risen a lot, and
what you get hasn’t. We enjoyed the
resort we stayed at 10 years ago, we spent portions of each day laying on the
beach, but we also picked to go at low season, and the beaches and hotels were
empty. It was a great trip. We took a
few fun trips, the bus to church.
Another day we rode the bus to downtown Cancun, then took a collective (
local minivan bus) to the ferry terminal, took the ferry to Isla Mujeres, a
small island near Cancun, and did some golf cart exploring and snorkeling. Another day we rented a car and drove the
ruins route (Chichen Itza, Coba, Tulum).
Great trip. Six years later we
came to Cancun by boat. You can read all
about that on this blog. That was an
even better trip. After spending more
than a month in the area, we got a good feel for it. This area is very safe, the people friendly,
the food delicious. So we knew we could
come and not stay in a resort, especially since we would spend most of our time
diving. It’s a very affordable way to
go, and very fun! It’s not the wait on
me hand and foot, vacation, but a more real experience.
We booked a small boutique hotel thru Expedia. There are literally hundreds of them in Playa
Del Carmen. I knew we wanted to stay in
the heart of Playa, so we could walk around easily for meals, and access to the
dive shop. Our room was fantastic, had a
nice sitting area, a beautiful bathroom, and a private out door garden shower. It was perfect! The room also came with a cooked to order
breakfast each morning. The heart of
Playa Del Carmen has a walking street filled with shops, and restaurants. It runs for a few miles. We stayed on this strip and with all the
music and noise outside, our room inside the garden area was perfectly
quiet. We parked our rental car on the
street behind the hotel, where it sat safely for days. Each restaurant we ate at was delicious and
reasonably priced! Water is cheap and
easy to buy, our hotel had water stations where we could refill our bottles
each day. The tourist strip in Playa
Del Carmen is quite the mix of tourists and I believe locals. It had quite the variety of people. The majority were not speaking English. You could hear several different languages in
a day. Along with the locals that would
be out walking the strip with their families in the evenings.
Our favorite eating spot was a few blocks away, off the
tourist strip and had delicious tacos.
The first night we ate there we tried 3 different tacos each. About $1usd per taco. David’s favorite is the Pescado(fish). As we walked back to the tourist strip,
towards our hotel, we found a great ice cream shop, $2.50 for a good sized cup
of ice cream, or 4 small scoops on a cone.
My favorite flavors were thousand flowers, Nata, and Avocado. We visited the taco place a few times, and
the ice cream shop a few more.
We arrived at the dive shop our first full day
to find out the harbor had been closed all week due to windy weather, and well
large waves. We were able to take our
Rescue tests, and head to a pool to pass off most of the skills. Rob, our Rescue instructor was great to work
with and did a good job helping us accomplish each task.
With the harbor closed, we booked a cenote
diving trip for the next day. Olivier
was our cavern dive guide and we had a good time exploring Dos Ojos on 2
different dives. I told him I didn’t
like caves, and I think it had him worried about me. I explained I wasn’t scared of caves, just
not a huge fan. He was less worried
after the first dive. And maybe too distracted with David’s buoyancy
issues—his BCD valve was stuck open for most of the dive. We fixed it for the next dive, so no
problem. The cavern dive was beautiful. My favorite part was heading away from the
light and openings, then looking back and seeing the sun shine in and the
shadowed stalagtites and stalagmites. It
was very pretty, but I missed the aquatic life you find in the ocean. No corals here, only a few teeny tiny
fish. I’d do it again, but not my
favorite diving. That evening we walked
down to the ferry terminal. We found a
park next door, filled with locals. They
were all watching 2 different shows. One
was a couple of clowns. They were all
laughing or chanting along with the clowns.
It looked like a funny show. The
other show had ended and it seemed like it may have been a cultural sort of
show. There were vendors all around
selling fruit and marshmallows
Sunday we took the day off from diving, and went to
church. Half the sacrament meeting was
filled with tourists, but only a few of us stuck around for classes after
Sacrament. The ward is somewhat small,
maybe more tourists then ward members, and I am sure they have tourist every
single week, that they weren’t the most welcoming. But I still love attending church, even if I
can’t understand any of it. I’m happy to
guess at what they are saying and read along in the app on my phone. And I absolutely love singing in worship with
them. I can sound out syllables and the
tunes are always familiar. After church
we changed clothes and took the ferry to Cozumel for the afternoon. We rented a scooter and drove around the
island. It was a beautiful day.
Monday morning our hotel prepared a takeaway brunch for us
as we had an early departure. The harbor
opened on Sunday, so we were booked on the speedboat to Cozumel for
diving. Our guide was quite
intense. Al, was once a marine. He wanted to check over all our gear multiple
times, we had to maintain order, so we were “good to go”. Not our favorite dive guide. But we had 2 great dives at Cozumel. Ranked high in the list of dive spots for the
Carribbean we hoped for amazing dives, but we’d say average diving for the
places we have been. It was still fun
and we can check it off our list of places to dive.
Tuesday we met up with Rob to finish up our Rescue diving
course. We had a few open water
scenarios to complete. We passed of
course, but what did we learn? I learned
that it is difficult to give rescue breaths while swimming in open water. The likelihood that it will save a life is
slim. I learned to practice sharing my
air source. I practiced other safe
swimming and rescue procedures I’d learned as a lifeguard many years ago. If someone in the water is struggling and not
think clearly—be prepared to dive down, or they will try to drown you. I teach my kids this as swimmers. It was good to practice in all my dive gear
and then how to get behind them to help inflate their buoyancy. I also learned I need to know how to safely and
slowly ascend with a victim. I rocketed
to the surface with David in tow. Good
thing we were only in 30 feet of water.
I’ll need to practice that the next time we go diving. David did a much better job when it was his
turn. And I will continue to practice
sharing my air source so it won’t be so foreign should I ever need to share for
real. The last step of the course was
learning about how to set up the oxygen tank and give oxygen. Completed that and we are now both certified
Rescue Divers!
We did all our diving and course thru Mexico Blue Dreams
dive shop in Playa Del Carmen. They were
a great shop. The owner was often around
and we enjoyed chatting with him. Jean
Francoise bought the shop several months ago.
He moved his family to Mexico from Paris 1.5 years ago, for a better
family life. He sold his business in
Paris and now enjoys more time with his family.
Similar to us and our mindset.
We stopped at the local water park where we paid $1.5 total for both of us to get in. They have chairs and picnic tables and docks to jump off of. For a few more dollars you could pay to use a couple of large slides. After spending 5 days in the water, we just wanted to enjoy the view, so we ate lunch at the restaurant. After spending some time looking at the menu the server said he would bring us the chickend special to share. At least we were pretty sure that’s what he said—in Spanish. We were far from English out here. There were maybe a handful of tourists, the rest of the people here were all locals. We enjoyed the beauty, and the chicken fajitas were delicious. Bacalar has the remains of a fort, most likely to protect its source of fresh water from pirates long ago.
After our lunch we continued on our journey south west. We were in rural country now. Cell phone service was intermittent, only when we would pass thru towns. Our next stop was in Dzibanche, some rarely visited Mayan Ruins. Mayan cities and towns once dotted the entire peninsula, and now we are only left with remnants of their presence. It is amazing to walk among the ruins and imagine what the towns and cities were once like. We arrived 1 hour before closing. No one else in sight. We stopped at the ticket shack a mile before the parking “field”. The sweet lady sold us 2 tickets but informed us, in Spanish, that the site would close at 5pm, we had only 1 hour. While I wish I could speak Spanish and communicate better, I am always amazed at how willing and patient people are in communicating with us. We walked around the small site. Climbed a few of them. It was peaceful and quiet. This city once was the head of government for several cities in the area. Now it is rarely ever seen, and frankly, a treat to have it all to ourselves for an hour.
After leaving Dzibanche, headed down the road again, we
noticed the time had changed. I was not
aware we were crossing a time zone. Had
we known earlier we may have tried harder to make it to Xpujil a little
earlier. We missed visiting the Becan
site by a few minutes. So we headed
straight to our accomodations for the night, just down the road. There are not a lot of choices in this part
of the Yucatan. Far from populated areas
there are about 5 choices. Thru email I
had prebooked us a room in the woods at Rio Bec Dreams. There are about 6 small one room cottages at this owner run place outside of the town of Xpujil. The only reason you would be out here would
be to visit the Rio Bec Ruins in the area.
The owners were a little unique, with a colorful vocabulary.
They gave us a few handouts of tomorrows destination to help us
out, which were good resources for our visit to Calakmul. They also had several books on the
ruins that were interesting to read.
Can't you picture it? Mayan's living here, sharing the courtyard, kids running around.
Our next stop and the main reason we had traveled so far out
here was 2 hours down the road into what is now a jungle or biosphere,
Calakmul. It is a Unesco world heritage
site now, but a thousand years ago it was a massive city and power among the
Mayans. Calakmul was one of the big
cities, along with it’s neighbor to the South, Tikal- which we visited while in
Guatemala 4 years ago. More than 60,000
people once lived in and farmed the area around Calakmul. We spent 3 hours exploring Calakmul. With the information Rio Bec Dreams passed
along to us, we were able to learn a little about the city and it’s
buildings. We climbed 3 different large
buildings and temples. Each rising more
than 100 feet high. To be on top, above
the trees and see the ruins peeking out of the jungle is a spectacular
sight. To sit and wonder about the
people who once farmed the land, and roamed the city. Within these temples, few murals have been
found that tell of the people. Several
Stelae pillars were constructed throughout Calakmul to commemorate buildings
and record significant events, but the weather and time have made it hard to
determine what was once brilliantly recorded on them. Within the tombs pottery,
jewelry, and jade masks have been left to tell stories.
To walk on the rocky path that was once a small city road
among the ruins makes us wonder what will be left behind of us in 1000
years. Not our homes, or our cars, or
our “things” we collect. What of
substance do we have that will last the test of time to tell our stories? Of
who we are and of what we hold sacred and dear?
Many of these ruins are in ruin.
Piles of stones hidden beneath the earth, they were once great
structures, stuccoed in bright colors and carved beautifully, now left in piles
of rocks as a puzzle to figure out how they went together. If we learn from them, hopefully we’ll be
able to preserve what is truly important to us.
Our family histories, stories of life and love, our faith in God.
After spending the afternoon sweltering in the Jungle with
about a dozen other people, it was time for us to hit the road again. We had a 4 hour drive to our next stop—the
city of Campeche.
Campeche is on the
west coast of the peninsula. It was once
a Mayan town, until 1580 when the Spanish came and turned it into a colonial
city. The old town of Campeche is still
enclosed with it’s old city wall, and it is beautiful. It is easy to see why it is also a Unesco
world heritage site. We had booked a
room within the city walls, inside an old Hacienda. The ceilings were at last 15 feet high, the
rooms beautiful. In the middle of the
Hacienda is a beautiful garden courtyard that our first room looked out into. I say first room, as we moved rooms the
second day. They first placed in a room
with 2 double beds, and the next night moved us to a King room as I had
requested in my reservation. As
beautiful as the accomodations were I couldn’t believe how affordable at $50
per night. We had a short walk a few
blocks away to the town square. Walking
the town was beautiful. Especially in
the evening. They have a short road of
restaurants. As we walked down it our
first night, I was wearing my BYU tshirt, and a young man working at the pizza
restaurant we passed loudly said “BYU” as we walked by. We turned and with a
smile he said “Brigham Young University.
I am a Mormon!” We smiled and
said “us too.” We asked him where the
church was and he informed us he did not speak much English. No matter, the important words had already
been said- I am a Mormon! I love to wear a BYU shirt as we travel, it
declares who I am, and allows me to find those who know!
After dinner we walked over to find dancers performing traditional Spanish dances. The next night we enjoyed the light and sound show on the wall of one of the buildings lining the square, followed by an orchestra and opera songs in the cathedral.
During our stay we visited a few museums in the area, and walked and
walked. We walked up a Bastion and along
the top of the city wall. In the evening
we enjoyed different events at the pretty town square. We even ventured outside of the old city walls
and nearby found a real shopping market with hundreds of stalls of vendors
selling everything. Everyday goods,
clothes, shoes, fresh fruits and veggie stalls, meat stalls, fresh fish, even
hanging chickens!. We could have been wandering the markets of Poland, or
Thailand, I find it interesting that people all over the world shop this
way—except in the US. We picked up a cheap Lightning McQueen backpack for a cute soon to be 6 year old.
Saturday morning we packed and hit the road again. This would be our last destination, the city
of Merida, before heading home.
On the way to Merida we spent the
morning exploring one more Unesco world heritage site (this means we have seen
all these sites in the Yucatan, we highly recommend looking up Unesco sites
when you travel, they make the list for a reason). We stopped at the ruins of Uxmal. Although still aways for most tourists to
visit, many do make it here. We arrived
before any of the large buses make it in for the day, so it wasn’t crowded
yet. The city of Uxmal was also once a
fairly large city of 25,000 people. It
has some beautiful restoration work.
This city was incredibly carved.
It is located in a very dry part of the land and oddly had no source for
fresh water. Much of the Yucatan is covered
with cenotes- an underground cave system filled with fresh water. Many of the
Mayan cities used these cenotes for their source of fresh water. Uxmal had none
near it. All water came from rain. So they built cisterns to capture and store
water. And they greatly worshipped Chaac
the rain guide. They decorated their
building with many many intricate carvings of Chaac. Much of the areas around the sites have been
cleared of the jungle giving a better representation of what the squares would
have looked like back when… of course they probably would have been filled with
vendors. You can still climb and
wander most structures at Uxmal, except the largest tower- the Temple of the
Magician. This Temple is quite steep
anyway. It has a legend. The Mayan legend they tell is a young man was
going to be put to the death, and the King said he would spare his life and
turn over the throne to him if he could build a temple by morning. As the sun rose the next morning, the Temple
had been built. The young man’s life was
spared and the throne relinquished to him.
And that is why they call it the Temple of the Magician.
We left Uxmal, hot and sweaty and drove into Merida, only an hour away. We decided to stop at Le Gran Musee of Anthropolgy before checking into our hotel. Here they had a lot of artifacts from many of the Mayan sites in the Peninsula. It was a great museum and worth the time and fee to see the pottery items, tools, jewelry, burial masks kept preserved here from the many ruins. I sort of wish they kept some of these items at the ruins as it helps to bring to life the people that once lived there. We then had a quick lunch at the nearby Costco. Always fun to visit a Costco in another country. I highly recommend it!
We arrived at our hotel looking a little shabby after a long
day of exploring. Our hotel was in the
old city part of town, and as in Campeche, we parked the car on a side street,
then walked around to the front of the hotel.
We’d left our bags in the car, first wanting to see if parking was
provide somewhere, like an inner courtyard.
We walked to the front to find a gate, that was locked with a pad
lock. A young man popped up from his
post that is somewhat hidden from where we were standing. We asked if the hotel was open?, gesturing at
the lock. I should mention here, that
for our last 2 nights I had “splurged” on a room in a high end boutique hotel,
also in an old Hacienda. (it wasn’t super pricy by US standards, but for Mexico
prices) I am sure the young man took one
look at us and figured we didn’t belong.
He said "one moment", and then radio’d inside for reinforcements. Another gentleman came out of the hotel. I said we were here to check in. He asked my name, and once I told him, he
responded that my reservation was for tomorrow night. I pulled out my phone and pulled up my
reservation to double check, but I was right, reservation was for tonight
staying for 2 nights. And he then said
come inside. And they unlocked the gate.
I got the impression, we had passed the test. I then wondered if they were locking us in
and now we could never escape! We
followed him inside to the reception office, where he apologized and grabbed
our paperwork for our reservation, which they had ready and waiting on the side
desk. I really think we did not look the
part and we had no bags with us, so he was “testing” us. Or maybe he didn’t
want to let us in—he didn’t like our “look’?
It was a very interesting
experience. And I was having a flash
back to our night in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia where we were turned away from the
fine restaurant because they didn’t like my shoes!
There was still a little afternoon left so we went for a
drive. We drove around the old city
first, the sidewalks filled around the city square with what appeared to be the
a garage sale type market. Merida is
much larger than Campeche and there were lots of people everywhere, shopping,
walking around. We found the best place
in the city—The Temple. Within the city
center, but almost hidden from it’s surroundings, you can barely see it from
the street. You may not know it’s there,
if you weren’t looking for it. The
beautiful Merida Temple.
From here we went back to the hotel to see if we could come
back in. We had our bags this time and
left the car with the valet (or guard) to park it. We showered and changed to some much nicer
(acceptable) clothes, then asked if they would make us a dinner reservation
somewhere good. Fine dining in Merida
only ran us about $50 total for the both of us.
That include an appetizer to share and 2 deserts. You can see why many expats come to Mexico to
retire or just live more affordably. The
food was delicious, a fusion sort of restaurant. Our appetizer looked like charcoal
briquettes. They were delicious
briquettes! And my desert was a
salad—with greens. Very interesting
stuff.
In the morning we headed off to an 11am ward at a building
near the Temple. But the church building
was boarded up. The church’s site says 2
wards meet there. But we couldn’t figure
it out. So we plugged in the address for
another ward meeting across town also at 11.
We’d be just a little late.
Except the map app did not take us to the same place on the church’s
site. So we dropped a pin where it was
on the church’s site, different neighborhood maybe, not too far, but now we’ll
be even later. We found it and arrived
in time to catch the last half of Sacrament meeting. It may have been a branch as there weren’t
very many members, but they were far more welcoming than the ward we attended
last week. No one spoke English, but
they welcomed us wholeheartedly and tried their best to communicate with
us. After Sunday School a few sisters
invited me to follow them to RS. After
church I told David, I really wish I spoke Spanish—I missed out on a great
meeting! It was on the Atonement, I was
reading the lesson on my phone, and my past experiences in attending church in
Mexico had me thinking there would be sweet sharing of testimonies and love of
the gospel, maybe some tears. Everytime
we attend church in Mexico, while I don’t speak the language I can always feel
the great love the members have for the gospel (even the ward we attended last
week, you could tell the Gospel Doctrine teacher enjoyed teaching the
gospel). The sweet sister sitting next
to me would point out where they were in her manual. At some point early in the lesson, this
sister started talking adamantly with the teacher. They went back and forth. I was trying to decide if the sister next to
me had it wrong, or if the teacher had it wrong, as they kept going back and
forth, and the teacher seemed to be saying “let me speak” but then a sister on the other side piped in,
and she seemed to be agreeing wholeheartedly with the sister sitting next to
me. And they were all talking back and
forth. Their was no yelling or raised
voices, but definitely adamant discussing.
The bishop stepped in the back of the room, and after listening for a
few minutes, asked the sister next to me which lesson it was, and she showed
him. Then the RS president spoke up and
commented, and then they were all going back and forth. There were only about 10 of us in there
total. After a few more minutes, the
bishop went and sat in the front of the room off to the side. He made a short comment and then I believe
the RS president said let’s move on, because the teacher turned a few pages in
the lesson book and somewhat stiffly spoke the rest of the time. They had spent at least half the time on
whatever heated discussion they were having.
When she was done she came and sat in the back. The bishop then got up and said something,
but didn’t take long. And then RS
president stood up and held up the lesson and said it was lesson #6, and “mui
importante”. I believe encouraging
everyone to read it. Mui
importante. Everyonce in awhile during
the lesson the sister next to me, would put her arm around me and squeeze my
shoulder or touch my hair and say something in Spanish, then she would smile
and put her hand over her heart and then gesture to mine. She was so sweet and I believe suggesting
that while we don’t speak the same language we communicate through the Spirit,
and it touches both our hearts. I truly
believe this and always feel the spirit no matter where we are in the world
when we attend church. The spirit truly
touches our hearts and testifies of truth even when it is in another
language. The sister that taught the
lesson snuck out the back door and was waiting outside for her
grandchildren. She seemed a little
upset. I really wish I knew what had
happened! I need to learn Spanish! Or when is google translate going to work so
well I can just turn it on and it will translate into my ear bud. That would be awesome right! I did watch the Bishop approach this sweet
sister and shake her hand, exchange words with her, and smile at her. I could see in his eyes his sincere concern
for her. David said Priesthood was not
nearly as exciting. They had a different
lesson on magnifying callings. He knew
that because the brother that sat next to him spoke some English and so did the
teacher. Lucky him! They even included him by asking what his
calling was. He said boy scouts—do they
even have the scouting program in Mexico? I am not sure.
Our breakfast table, just outside our room in the beautiful courtyard. Breakfast was included with our room, and it was a treat to sit in the courtyard with the peace and beauty.
It started raining lightly after church, so we spent the
afternoon driving around the city seeing the old and the new. Almost 1 million people live in Merida. So it's a good sized city with lots to see. We enjoyed our time there. Monday morning we were packed and on the road just after breakfast. We had a 4 hour drive back to Cancun where we would fly home from that afternoon.
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