December 30/31 Vernacular photographs, Merida

Lunch spot at the artisan bazaar.

Colorful undies at the bazaar.  always red and yellow

Strange little boy.  Always in the same space, day after day.  

Cool art gallery. 

Homeopathy

Graffitti

Popular Art Museum Merida, December 30, 2011

The Popular Art Museum consists of art in various media of traditional subjects by local artists, with most of the work of fairly recent vintage.  The day of the dead theme is quite common.  Some examples below.

Snack time in Merida December 30, 2011

We stop by this local place - good size crowd, a band, and it's apparently happy hour because they bring us all sorts of snacks for free.  my favorite is like a falafel.  Two beers, shot of tequila and sparkling water for $10.  Life is good.

December 30, Contemporary Art Museum, Merida

Mario Martin del Campo.  Mexican artist, b.1945.  See examples of his work below. don't know why i seem unable to take a straight photo.

Vultures on the Way to Merida, December 29

Turkey vultures are just so cool.  They serve a very useful purpose - clearing the road (and other places) of carrion.  And they can barf at will!  Apparently they do this when they have been gorging on roadkill or whatever and then, when approached by a predator, vomit to reduce weight and make for a fast take off.  Plus they are resistant to clostridium poisoning.  I am going to stop using the word vulture in a perjorative sense.

Izamal December 29

Izamal has a complex history.  Ancient Mayan sites, razed to build the Franciscan convent of San Antonio de Padua.  Built by Bisop Fray Diego de Landa, infamous for his auto de fe of all the extant Mayan texts.  and in remorse he later tried to reconstruct the writings.  There is as yet to be restored ruin here, which gives a sense of the destruction (natural and man-made) experience to the Mayan buildings.   Convent and pyramid photo below.

Ek Balam December 28

Ek Balam is the most recently discovered Mayan "ruins",  so it gives you a better sense of what these sites looked like when first discovered.  overgrown with trees, rubble, indistinct carvings.  it is still a remarkable place with a pyramid even higher than the one in Chichen Itza, but in the process of being restored.  Below is a modest sampling of photos.  one of some carvings and another of sleeping dogs whom we let lie.

Vernacular photos

Barbara and giant beer bottle north of Valladolid

Santa imprisoned in Izamal.  He must have been very bad.

Colorful undies in Izamal.

Hot dog vendor in Merida

December 28 Lunch

We stop for lunch outside Chichen Itza.  I order pavo para escabeche - I know pavo is turkey and the rest of the dish is translated "message for pickled".  Below is what "message for pickled" looks like

December 28, 2011 Chichen Itza

Today is a day of not getting lost.  We get to Chichen Itza, a vast and awe inspiring collection of pyramids, governmental buildings, ampitheatres for athletic events and much more.  The north part is from the relatively more recent (but still a milennium old) Toltec civilization and the south from the Mayan civilization.  Below are some photos of pyramids, carvings, municipal structures.  It doesn't make sense for me to provide any description since i cannot begin to convey what we experienced at the site.  I provide photos, more to help me remember than to educate you, since my description would be so mundane.  Below are a carving, Kukul, the snake god, and the rain god.

But if you ever do go - get a guide.  There are several at the entrance to the area, and our guide, Mario, was extraordinarily knowledgeable, and was not stumped, not even once.

December 27 again. Cemetery in Leona Vicaria

Leaving the cemetery in Leona Vicaria, we happen upon a small cemetery with doll-house like structures on top of the above ground graves.  It is all a bit strange and charming at the same time.  

December 27, 2011 Cancun to Valladidod - pedi and moto-cabs!

Today was a challenging day.  Mostly we got lost, sometimes due to the incompetence of our cab driver seeking the Thrifty car rental spot, sometimes to my ineptness in giving directions on the way (but let's face it, the $15 map of the Yucatan was missing a number of towns) and sometimes to the incompetence of our GPS lady who didn't know what streets were one way and lacked knowledge of as many of the towns along the way as did my $15 map.  So we spent about 5 hours driving 200 miles on an 80 miles trip, some of which included driving on dirt roads through farm fields. 

Nonetheless we did  stop in Leona Vicaria where we saw many permutations on pedi-cabs.  Unlike in the US, the driver is at the back of the cabs and either pedals or, in some cases, has attached 1/2 of a small motorcycle.  The front of the cabs carry everything from people to potatoes to bags of flour.

More Cancun December 26, 2011

After the holiday celebration, we continue on our way - past the car with Angelito  portrayed so lovingly                             

And then past the shop of the three beautiful red dresses

December 26 - Cancun!

Feliz Navidad & Buon Natale

We walk down the street to our restaurant and we come across a combined Christmas and New Year's festival.   Santa, cotton candy, chimichurri's, even ice skating.  Everyone is there - kids, grandparents and all. Not at all touristy.  Plus feel like I am a normal height.

December 25 - first attempt blogging with for the Beans in Mexico blog

OK I am trying Blogsy out for the first time.  It is supposed to be intuitive - that is, if you grew up computer literate, and if clickety, clickety chang of a typewriter has no meaning and if you don't remember how white-out was a lifesaver when you made an error on page 80 of your 90 page report.  so this is the first official attempt.  

Now that I have somehow managed to enter text, i need to figure if I can upload a picture.  OK - I got it - there is the satanic Santa with flashing eyes and snippets of jingles.

OK - let's see if I can upload this