We slept long and well, woke up, showered and headed out towards the center.
We stopped at a cafe, El Hoyo (The Hole) for expresso and breakfast. The coffee was good; it tasted like Oaxacan coffee. CM and Jess ordered waffles con crema batida and helado (whipped cream and ice cream). Xie got a panini w/ queso brie and de cabra (brie and goat cheese). The food was pretty yummy.
Roberto came and met us there and we sat and chatted a bit before heading out. After paying (with the exchange rate of almost 11 pesos to the dollar, coffee is $10-20 pesos, meals $25-80), we continued to the center, to catch a combi to Izamal. A combi is a van that works like a bus, where you buy a ticket (represented by a plastic poker chip), and ride.
On the way to the combi, we walked through the market. It was crowded with stalls selling many different things. The stalls were grouped by what they sold: jewelry, religious knick knacks, produce (large bunches of beautiful radishes, bowls of habenero peppers, bunches of fresh herbs), fruit stands, bbq’d meats, many, many shoe stores with large selections of women’s shoes that almost all looked the same, clothes (guayaberas — fancy men’s shirts, and hipils — the traditional woman’s dress of the Yucatán, a plane white cotton dress with colorful flowers embroidered around the neck and the hem line).
As we were getting seated in the combi, a vendor came up with bolis, icy treats similar to otter pops, but better tasting. These were just what we needed to combat the heat.
It wasn’t a long ride to Izamal, known as La Ciudad Armarilla, “The Yellow City”, because most of the walls on buildings are painted a golden mustardy egg yolk yellow color.
The first thing that we did was to stop in a little bakery to get some donuts and cold water.
Then we headed over to the large Franciscan monastery, built in the 1500s, on top of a Mayan pyramid. The monastery was named after San Antonio de Padua, a crazy missionary who destroyed a ton of Mayan books and artifacts before finally regretting it in his later years and working to document as much as he could of what he learned of the Mayan religion and culture. We wandered around the monastery for a bit, seeing the main cathedral and some other rooms.
We watched a group of young people (teens and twenties) practicing a passion play. They were very sincere and into it, with the “romans” whipping Jesus and the thieves with ropes. One guy kept shoving one of the thieves and knocking him over. Roberto thought that they were speaking Mayan, but it was pretty hard to hear them from where we were — we were up three floors in the monastery and they were practicing on the lawn below.
After that we went to climb one of the three Mayan pyramids in the area.
It was built in about 200 A.D., a massive structure, out of stone, where it was entirely flat before. The whole Yucatán peninsula is very flat, so when you climb up on one of the pyramids, you can see for miles around. We climbed half way up at first, to a huge old platform (maybe three city blocks on a side, square, and about 40 feet tall), overgrown with trees and strewn with rubble.
We went to the side where we could look out on part of the city and hung out a while at the edge. Jessica and Roberto climbed down the side to explore the side at the bottom of the pyramid a bit. They found an entrance to caves or something and chatted with some people down there and then came back up.
Then we went up to the top. It was interesting because it was partially restored, and some areas were still fairly run down. At the top, we could see all around. We saw the curch we had been at, houses, trees and other yellow buildings. There were a few people at the top. Most of the time it was us and these two 8ish year old boys, who were drawing on themselves with red and black markers. They were really good and were making neat tattoo like designs. One of them drew a swastika and we talked about the impact of a symbol and how that varies depending on who or where you are.
We were hungry when we got back down and went to this place that Jess knew about that had tortillas made by hand. We got there, had a set and ordered drinks. Like most restaurants in the Yucatán, there was a little pot of very hot (pica) habenero salsa, which we passed around to smell (it curled the nose hairs).
We ordered food: Xie – filete ala Yucateca, Jess – panuchos, Beto – poc chuc (an awesome marinated pork dish) and CM panuchos (his second choice, when they were out of the venison dish that he tried to order). While waiting for the food, we played cards, Liar or Mentira (“no te creo!”). The food came, and it was awesome, especially Beto’s poc chuc. We also saw the little palapa (thatched-roof hut) where they were making tortillas by hand. There was a woman there, flipping tortillas on a hot grill, over a fire pit.
Time to go home. We went back to the spot that the combi dropped us off, to wait for the next combi. A combi dude let us know that we had missed the last one, and directed us around the corner, to where we could catch a bus. At the station, we bough tickets, then sat on the benches and played Mentira some more, then taught Beto to play hearts and played that for a bit.
Back in Mérida, we wandered around the centro. They had a folkloric dance performance going on every Monday, and we wanted to see that. There was a lot going on in the plaza. There were many vendors selling jewelry, clothing, snacks and other things. There were musicians, including some hippy dready drummers that we stopped to watch doing their thing for a bit. Jess and Beto ran into the guy that had given them henna tattoos a couple of weeks earlier. Jess wanted to get the same tattoo again, kind of an abstract swirly sun pattern. The guy was busy, so we went over to see the folk dancers.
There was a big crowd around the dancers, and we had to search for a minute to find a place where we could get close enough to find a semi decent view. In a few minutes, we learned why there was any place to get a view at all. First Xie, then Jess and Beto got pooped on by the grackles nesting in the trees above.
Grackles are the most common bird in Mérida, kind of like crows or pigeons in Seattle — more like crows, because they are found in both rural and urban settings. They are black, with reddish or yellow eyes, and smaller, with a longer tail than crows. They inhabit the trees, but are often seen strutting around on the ground. They have many different calls, which they belt out all day, but especially in the morning, or when it starts raining.
The Yucatecan dancers wore the traditional dress (hipils for women, pants and shirt for men), made from white cotton, embroidered with colorful flowers. They also wore scarves, either folded neatly and dangling from their pockets, or in their hands, whipping them around as part of the dance. The dances usually paired men and women, dancing complimentary parts, facing each other, or in two lines, all women and all men, or at other times one mixed line.
Many of the dances involved balancing something on their heads. They danced with a bottle of beer on their heads and also with a round serving tray with a beer and four full glasses. For some dances they danced on a small wooden box, with or without something on their heads. They did one really neat dance with a maypole. Each dancer grabbed a big silk ribbon (of many different colors) that was attached to the top of the pole. They danced in a circle, weaving in and out from each other, to weave and unweave interesting patterns with the ribbons.
The dancers finished and started packing up, so we went to get ice cream at Jess’ favorite sorbeteria. Jess got helado de coco (coconut), Xie got helado de fresa (strawberry), CM had plátano (banana) and Beto had a champola con plátano. The champola is Robertson ice cream — ice cream in a glass of milk. All of the flavors were incredibly yummy, but the helado de coco was the best. It tasted like real coconut milk frozen up into ice cream.
We went back into the center of the plaza where the henna tattoo guy had been sitting, but he wasn’t there. His friend told us where to find him. He remembered which tattoo he had previously given to Jess and gave it to here again. Also, Jess drew a penguin for him to do on Beto’s arm. Apparently Beto’s totem is a penguin, because penguins mate for life. Before Jessica, Beto hadn’t dated anybody for seven years, so he’s pretty serious about her.
We were super tired by this point. We walked home, said our goodnights and went to bed.
