Days 40–47: Photo Dump

Went to some more cenotes with some friends from Institute.  Not my favorite cenote I've been too but it was pretty cool.  The ceiling of the cenote was right above your head the whole time (Mom would have hated that).  Yamij found a vertebrae in the cenote.  Cenotes are where the Mayans used to do their human sacrificing and would dump the bodies.  Perfect for swimming now, huh?

Semi-petrified bone from the cenote.

Entrance to the cenote

That's what you get to swim under.

Tom and I. Quite the fuzzy picture.

When you go under that, the ceiling stays at about that same level but it gets dark.

We also went to some cool underground caves last week.  They were pitch black so they had installed lights.  There was some climbing going on but most of it was just walking and learning about how the Mayans used the caves, really only 3 times a year.

When hitting these two columns of rocks, they made drum sounds.  Something about being able to tell who was a virgin based on the sounds.

Look familiar? We're standing on the bottom of a cenote, now without water.

We also actually left the state this week too.  We left Yucatán and went to Campeche.  This was kind of cool because we focused less on the Mayans and more on the Spanish after their conquest of México and the Mayans.  We got to go to the forts where they would battle against the pirates.  Campeche was basically just like El Centro here in Mérida but it did have a lot of cool sculptures.

This used to be the moat.

Just protecting us from the pirates.

And I ate some SHARK meat tostadas. Pretty tasty.

OK so I am finally finished with classes.  This past week I had 3 papers and a presentation to do! It was crazy but I'm finally done.  As our last class, we went to El Centro with our professor, José, to eat and learn more about the culture hands on.  José is the professor of the class I was worried about at the beginning.  The hard one with all the return missionaries.  I really did learn a lot in the class.  My eyes have been opened about both the history of México but also about the history of the USA seen from a non USA perspective. Anyway, I've been wanting to visit museums the whole time I've been here in Mérida and FINALLY I was able to go to one.  It was worth the wait because José explained all of the paintings to us within the context of our class.  It was great.  These are from the governor's palace.

Representation of the continuing struggle in Me'xico.  The good eagle is overcoming the evil serpent.

He also explained some of the significance of the architecture. It was amazing and I was just so happy to be there and be in México and understand whats going on and why the citizens here do what they do.

At the market where the locals go.  Taylor is actually sitting in the kitchen area with them.  This was cool because its just a string of little places like this in a row and you just go up and sit at the bar in front of them and have them make your food. 

Our class. José really is so knowledgeable.  He was great.   

House Party.  sweet backyard, no?

And for our last excursion ever, we went to a hacienda where they work with henequen.  Henequen is a plant that they call the "green gold".  We've been learning about it all semester in our classes and we got to see the process of extracting the fibers from the plant.  Pretty cool, actually.

Ok so here is all the henequen.  The cactus looking plants.

Squeezing the fibers out of the leaves.

Separating the fibers.

to make rope.  I didn't get a picture of how they twist the rope together :(

Henequen sandals of awesomess.  Henequen is kind of like hemp so I bet they're itchy.

This guy told us about his experiences working on the hacienda.  He is the one who has been working there the longest and told us about how it was working there for the original owner's son when he was younger.

 Our friend in his henequen hammock.  Definitely not as comfortable as one made of nylon or cotton.

So I had been feeling weird about this henequen hacienda because we'd go to the factory part and just take pictures of the workers.  I would hate for people to come take pictures of me while I was working.  I know this is just for tourists and they are making money of us coming but still, I think it sucks.  However, this guy said he loves receiving visitors and he would never have imagined that his picture would be seen all around the world, but now it is.  We'll add Texas and Utah to the list of places that his picture has been seen now:)

And then we took a horse drawn cart ride to another cenote.

My favorite vendor at the beach.  Not only is he super funny but he says that I'm the prettiest with the prettiest eyes  but that he likes me because of my personality, because I'm hilarious, lets face it.  I got us a super good deal on blankets.  He said his boss would probably kill him and sleep with his sister for selling them to us for so cheap haha but that it was all good.  We go to visit him every time we go back by his shop (which has only been once so far, but we're going back to the beach today).



Finally caught up! Now off to the beach one final time to say goodbye!  I can't believe I leave the day after tomorrow.  I was sad a few weeks ago watching my time ticking down, then I was resigned to the fact that I was leaving, but now everyone is making me sad again about leaving!  I'm going to miss Mérida and everyone in it.

Day 39: Food

Blogging again and not writing my essay.  What am I doing?

So the food here is amazing.  The other night we went to a little street cafe—one of the hundreds all around here—and ate a late night meal.  The boys got tacos al pastor for only 6 pesos.  That's about 50 cents.  I always let Daniel order for me because he knows what is the best so he suggested to get a torta.  Those were 23 pesos and my first thought was that it was so expensive!  23 pesos is less than 2 American dollars.  What?  The most expensive and delicious thing on the menu is less than 2 bucks?  Awesome.  They also brought out our food within 3 minutes of ordering.  The food here is super rich and super cheap.

Mamá Pilar and Tía Amira feed us 3 square meals a day.  Mamá Pilar's oatmeal is to die for, the best oatmeal I've had in my entire life.  Her empanadas are great, too.  Tía Amira makes mean flautas.  There is also always some type of juice to drink always freshly made like jamaica, pineapple juice, orange juice or limade.  We also always have fresh fruit and chile peppers available.  Mamá stopped putting chile in everything because she realized I couldn't handle the spice like the other girls can.  She also separates a little guacamole for me before she chiles it up.  However, Lyndy said after eating chile everyday that she doesn't even taste it anymore, so I've started to eat more chile so that when I get back to the States, I will be able to eat the Spicy McChicken sandwiches from McDonalds.  Those are too spicy for me:( I'm pathetic.

There is a stereotype outside of México that Mexicans are lazy because taking a siesta or nap is a big part of the culture.  First, may I say, having a time set aside for napping everyday is awesome.  It's super hot outside anyway during those hours, but I recently learned that the reason for the siesta is because of the food.  Most of the food here requires rest to be digested properly.  Not all of it, carne asada doesn't require it,, for example.  And it doesn't have to be a nap, but at least a rest.  Totally opposite of how I think about food and how it needs to digest.   Anyway, México is being strongly influenced by the United States so through its americanization, its losing this part of the culture.  More people are working the standard 8–5 during the day now and aren't able to rest during the day as they need to.  (Oh, and they are losing other parts of their culture too which worries many people here.)  Well, basically I'm saying that Méxicans are not lazy.  I think they actually work more hours in the day than we do on average.  There are too many stereotypes that are just not correct.

Here are some pics of our cooking lesson with Mamá and Tía:

Tía tasting the guac

Luchi (Lyndy) really tasting the guac

Mamá

Oh and here is proof to my parents that I got recipes.

¡buen provecho!

(bon appetit)

Days 32–who knows: Ghosts

I really don't have time to be blogging, but it beats the essay that I REALLY need to be writing right now.

Updates:
Wednesday, we went on a midnight bike ride through the city with 350 Mexican hipsters.  That's right.  Every Wednesday night, they go on a different bike route for 3 hours.  I didn't want to do it but I'm glad I did.  Pics.  (Most of these I stole from Laura.)

All of us pro bicyclists. 

Saturday, we went to another cenote.  I was trying out some of my old diving skills but then I tried a one and a half summersault and, well . . . I didn't make it.  Apparently it looked way worse than it actually felt.  It barely even hurt.  Next cenote, I plan to try again.

We also were able to visit a lot of artisan shops that weekend.  We've been refraining from buying things from lots of vendors at the sites because a lot of human trafficking is going on.  I'll probably talk about that later, but anyway, we didn't have to worry about whether or not we were supporting human trafficking when buying from these guys.  It was also fun to talk to the craftsmen about what they do.

Herb shop.

This man showed us how he makes his jewelry.  Cool stuff.  He speaks a Mayan language and so was teaching us some words.  We've been learning a lot about the Mayan culture in our classes and its cool to be learning a few things in a Mayan language, because we're learning them through Spanish.  It's like Inception, I'm two levels away from my native language now.   Here he is singing us a song in Mayan.  He sang the song again for us in Spanish so we could understand what it was about.

And more ruins of course.

That big one was only just excavated in 2003.  We actually got to see some painted glyphs on the walls. There are a TON of pyramids around here yet to be excavated because of lack of funds.  They just look like big tree covered hills but we know they're not because hills aren't a part of the Yucatán's geography

Taken from the other side from on top of that tall pyramid.

Oh this week a few of us also went to visit a ghost town, Misnebalam.  I'm not sure if there were any ghosts, but if not, the mosquitoes there sure would have made me abandon the place.  Dang.  My favorite part was exploring the abandoned hacienda.  I could picture how beautiful it must have once been.  We played on the swing sets and see-saws, found the secret garden, and heard some ghost noises, which of course turned out to be rocks thrown by some of our boys.  (Bradley still doesn't know it was them and thinks he actually did hear a ghost.)

abandoned house

secret garden!

'Til later.