A Trip to Izamal

The guide book I read before coming here said that Izamal is a beautiful city as every building in the Historical Center is painted gold, including the Convent. It sounds quite amazing and we are looking forward to seeing it. The drive takes a little over an hour and we pass through three attractive towns on the way. We are learning that the one problem with driving ourselves is that when we reach a town, the road automatically takes us into the central square, and leaves us there. We drive around the square and there are always eight exits (two at each corner) and none of them is ever signposted. We have to ask directions from a local. The other problem we discover is that the locals are always anxious to please and feel that an answer of “I don’t know” is rude. Consequently they just make up something, often sending us in completely the wrong direction, which they consider to be polite, but we find extremely annoying.

Izamal is the “City of the Hills” and is thought to be the oldest Spanish city in Yucatan. Its history is dominated by religious events. We live near San Francisco which is also the City of Hills. There is no comparison. The hills of Izamal are only noticeable if you are riding a bicycle. Izamal is located in the middle of the Peninsula . It was conquered by the Spanish and it was the monks in their eagerness to convert the Indians to Catholicism who gave the city its religious distinction. To this day, the people of Izamal are devoted to the Immaculate Virgin.

True to form the road takes us into the square at the heart of the city, where we realize that the guide book was using a little artistic license with the use of the word “gold”. Every building is painted a very bright sunshine yellow. It is very colourful but gives a completely different effect than the one we had expected, that of a city of gold.


The square is dominated by a Convent that was built from and over one of the Mayan Pyramids. The convent is famous for its murals and its central courtyard, which is second only in size to that of the Vatican. We are lucky enough to arrive as the monks (it’s called a convent but it is full of monks!) are congregating in a small chapel for their mid day service. The chapel is lovely, built on the top of a small hill with large double doors on both sides, open to the surrounding trees. Inside there are painted murals, an altar full of flowers and a huge statue of the Immaculate Virgin. The only jarring note is that all the chairs for the monks are red plastic chairs emblazoned with the Coca Cola logo.

The monks generously invite us to be a part of the service, and offer us our own Coca Cola Chairs. The service is quite rousing with two monks playing guitars and the congregation singing along as the Virgin is wheeled forward from her shrine. We feel a little out of place and quietly leave.

The Cave at Lol Tun

Lastly we stop at the Lol Tun Caves. The caves are famous for their hand paintings dating back to over 10,000 years BC, the fossils of mammoths and other animals, wall paintings, ancient pottery and human remains.

We park in the small car park and are immediately welcomed by a very friendly and very pregnant dog. She makes a great fuss of us and follows us to the entrance.

Here a guide is compulsory as we will be walking for over 1 kilometre through these underground caves. It is not until we are nearly at the end of the walk that our guide tells us that everything we were hoping to see, other than the hand paintings, are in parts of the caves that are as yet inaccessible to tourists.


The lights throughout the caves are on separate circuits, and as we walk through the caves, the guide has to continually find the switch to turn the next few lights on. They are on timers so we cannot dawdle, or the lights go out on us. In true Mexican fashion some of the lights do not switch on. You would expect the guide to be aware of this and have a flashlight at the ready. But you would be wrong. Fortunately we have one of those tiny lights that attach to a key ring and that was our only light to guide us through some of the passageways.

We are amazed and rather touched to find that the dog has accompanied us the entire way through the tunnels. When the lights go off, she keeps quite close to us as if checking we are alright.

At the end of the tour the guide tells us that although we paid an entrance fee to go into the caves, that does not cover his charge and he expects to be paid. When we ask how much, he tells us $50 would be appropriate. Needless to say he is one very disappointed guide.

The dog, however, gets several biscuits from a package we have in the car and seems much happier than the guide.

Uxmal - More Ruins

From Uxmal we take a circular route back to Merida in order to see other Mayan ruins. But our first stop is at a village called Santa Elena where we are told there is an interesting Museum housing several mummified bodies that were found under the church floor. The museum consists of three small rooms with hardly anything in them other than four tiny bodies of children in open coffins, shown beneath a large sheet of extremely dirty glass. At the entrance are three local young women who presumably are there to take the entrance fee of ten pesos.


But they are so excited to see a foreign tourist that all they can do is giggle and blush. We try to talk to them, but they just turn an even brighter shade of red and giggle some more. The museum itself is so depressing that the giggling girls are a welcome relief.

From there we go on to Sayil, where the Palace of the Ants is found. It is a huge Palace of 90 bedrooms, but little has been restored and you are not allowed to go in or on it. Consequently very few tourists come here. In fact we are asked to sign a guest book which shows that the last visitors came three days ago. The site actually boasts a gift shop, which is a truly desultory affair, the entire stock consisting of about seven rather dirty white dresses on coat hangers, hanging from an open sided Palapa. Maybe the last guests were major shoppers and bought up everything else.


Our next stop is Xlapak, which even the tour book describes as “a site of some fourteen mounds”, which makes it sound so unimpressive that they couldn’t even be bothered to make an exact count of the mounds. We drive on by.

The next site is much more impressive. Labna used to be a Mayan city of over 2000 people. It is a large site with three partially restored buildings. Again the setting is lovely with raised streets crossing huge lawns. This site is famous for The Arch of Labna, a beautiful arch that once marked the entry to a nobleman’s house.


Labna is lovely, and we are amazed that there are only two other people here. They are a very elegant pair of Mexican women carrying huge sun umbrellas and strolling across the lawns as if they were at some garden party.

Uxmal

One of the reasons for this trip is to see the Mayan ruins . Next week we will be going to Chichen Itza and Tulum which are the more famous sites and therefore full of tourists. But there are many other sites just as impressive where there are far fewer tourists, and we set off to see some of those today.

Uxmal is a World Heritage Site where considerable restoration has taken place and is still taking place. It is an hour and a half drive from Merida. The drive is easy, as the Yucatan is almost completely flat and the roads are straight, good and fast. But because the land is flat there is no scenery.

Uxmal and the other sites we are seeing today are built in what is known as the hill country, but the hills are only a hundred or so feet high and hardly cause more than a bump in the road.

Uxmal is truly impressive, both in its design and its scale, and even more pleasing is the fact that there are only maybe 25 cars in the car park. In fact the car park is only set up to take about 100 cars. We wander around this wonderful World Heritage Site with just a handful of other tourists.

There are four major buildings that have been beautifully restored: including the Governors Palace, the Nun’s Quadrangle and the Magician’s Pyramid. The Magician’s Pyramid is what we all recognize as a Mayan temple. It is similar to an Egyptian Pyramid, but with steps up two sides and a decorated top. It is more faceted than the Egyptian Pyramids . The Mayans were, what could be called, lazy builders. They built their structures using rubble and then clad them with stone, whereas the temples of Angkor Wat were built stone by stone, each one fitting precisely into the next. The exteriors of Angkor Wat are far more elaborate with carvings and statues. The Mayans decorate the top of their buildings but the bottom half often remains plain.


The decorations are much more geometric, and indeed a deep understanding of geometry obviously pervades everything the Mayans built.

A strong sense of setting dominates Uxmal. There are manicured lawns and trees everywhere. Each building is built on a small plateau affording sweeping views of the land and the other structures.


As in all civilizations water was very important. The Yucatan receives very little water, but the Mayans developed a system of collecting the water and storing it underground that is very impressive.
Equally as impressive is the games arena that sits in the middle of this Mayan city. A large playing field has a huge sloping stone wall at either side with a hoop half way along built out of it. The hoop is set on its side and is 12 feet or so up the wall.


The game was played by two teams of seven, and the object was to get the ball through the opposing teams hoop. The major difference between this and basketball, is that in this game the losing team or team leader is sacrificed. A major incentive, I presume, to play your best game.

Merida - Our First Impression

Joany, despite the non stop talking, is a wonderful hostess and provides free wine and beer, stocked in her fridge, to which we are welcome to help ourselves. After a drink we decide to walk into the center of Merida to have dinner. We are in the Historical District and we walk through streets lined with wonderful old colonial houses, some of which are waiting to find an owner that cares enough to return them to their previous glory, and some of which have already found that person.


They are painted in wonderful deep desert colors of burnt orange, sand and green. The windows and doors are covered in intricate and beautiful iron work. The rooms are tall and large with marble floors. The front doors are double, made of beautifully carved wood and 12 feet tall. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling. They call out “buy me” as we pass.

We find the main square, which is the perfect town square with beautiful colonnades on three sides filled with café tables and chairs, and on the fourth side there is an imposing cathedral, The Cathedral of San Idelfonso. It is actually the oldest Cathedral on the American continent dating back to the 16th century. The conquering Spanish dismantled all the nearby Mayan Pyramids and used the huge stones as the foundation for the Cathedral.

The center of the square is full of people enjoying the evening, and watching the clowns and musicians. The streets around the square are lined with horses pulling Victorian carriages. The carriages are all painted white and decorated with flowers. There are few tourists . It is mainly the locals enjoying all this. It is about as different from our life in Puerto Vallarta as it could be.

We end up at a restaurant called the Villa Maria Restaurant. It is highly rated in Trip Advisor and it is the first restaurant recommendation that Joany makes. She does however warn us that it is a huge restaurant and there will be very few people there, but not to let that put us off, the food is terrific.

Joany exaggerated about the number of people that would be there. The place was deserted, other than 5 waiters, all leaning against the wall, talking to each other.
Normally we would walk on by, but as we don’t know of another restaurant we go in. It is a gorgeously restored 17th century mansion with a central open courtyard with art nouveau hanging chandeliers, and beautifully presented dining tables. The waiter asks if we would like to sit there or inside . Inside there are two more dining rooms both equally elaborate in their settings. It is magnificent and deserted. We eat in the courtyard.

The restaurant has pretensions of grandeur, and everything about it appears first class, until we hear a loud bang. We turn in the direction of the kitchen and see two of the waiters dragging a large old water heater out of the kitchen and across the restaurant floor. It is too heavy for them and they keep having to drop it on the tile floor. Sweat is running down their faces. If this is a regular occurrence it might explain the lack of customers.

As for the rest of the evening, the staff is very attentive, the food is good but not excellent, and the prices are high but not exorbitant, until, that is, it comes to the wine list. Most of the wines are immediately recognizable as coming from Costco (they have a Costco in Merida), and the restaurant is charging 6 times the price they paid in Costco. It leaves an unpleasant taste in our mouths.

A Trip to Mexico City

We spend several months a year in Puerto Vallarta and love it. In fact we love it so much we have never left it to explore the rest of the country. But today we are finally doing something about that. We are flying to Mexico City for three days to start off a 15 day trip to the east of the country.

We are doing all our flights on Aviacsa Airlines, one of Mexico’s new low cost airlines, and are impressed by the clean new planes, the ample leg room and the efficient service.

We have heard horror stories about Mexico City’s huge airport, and expect the worst. But we are pleasantly surprised. Admittedly we arrive at the domestic terminal, and not the International one, but we are off the plane and into a taxi, with our luggage in hand all in the space of 15 minutes.

The taxis too are a vast improvement on the ones we are used to in Puerto Vallarta. These are new, clean and metered. The driver is wearing an elegantly pressed white shirt and tie with a rather natty waistcoat.

We are staying in the Zona Rosa, which everyone tells us is a lively and safe neighborhood close to the City center. It is one of the city's most touristy areas, filled with hotels, dance clubs, restaurants, bars and live music. Zona Rosa means “the Pink Area” which is appropriate as it is home to a large gay population. Our hotel is on Londres Street which no one told us was THE gay street. It is packed with mainly young gay men. Mexico City has passed a law allowing gay unions, an extremely advanced action for a Catholic country. The young gays in the area are definitely out and proud, many holding hands as they walk along the street.

We are amused to see that the latest street fashion for these young men is extremely tight jeans often paired with white Go Go boots. Their main accessory is hair gel, which they appear to ladle on with a trowel.

We are staying at the EuroStars Zona Rosa Suites Hotel, which was obviously a very hip hotel in its day, but its day passed several years ago and now it is comfortable but fading.