Yucatan Road Trip Day 4: Uxmal - and an eventful drive

Bright and early, on a beautiful sunny, blue-sky day, we left Merida on the trail south to Uxmal. Until now, we'd been traversing flat country through Quintoa Roo and the Yucatan. Uxmal, however, is set in the hilly Puuc region, for which the Mayan architecture is named.


We arrived promptly at around 8:30am and practically had the site to ourselves. This, together with the greenery, and the complete lack of hawkers, made a refreshing change from Chichen Itza. Uxmal's structures are in great condition and have amazing ornamentation.


Immediately on entering, we were hit by Casa del Adivino, or "Magician's House". It's 39m high and was built in an oval shape. Unfortunately you're not allowed to climb it, but there were some renovations going on while we were there. The workman on the pyramid give a good idea as to scale.

And here's the curvy sides of the structure:

Iguanas seem to be the lizard of choice at Mayan ruins. This was an impressive specimen.

Here, Sean is showing us the Nun's Quadrangle, or Cuadrangulo de las Monjas. It may have been a military academy, a royal school, or a palace complex.

The west temple of the Nun's Quadrangle, which is hugely ornate:

Looking back east from the north temple in the Nun's Quadrangle, towards Casa de Adivino:

Chac, the rain god or sky serpent, features prominently at Uxmal, because of the arid conditions of the area. His image is everywheree in the form of stucco masks protuding from facades and cornices. There are also feathered serpent motives along the top of the west temple's facade:

We headed south to the Juego de Pelota - the ball court. Not quite as big as Rod Laver Arena at Chichen Itza, but I still love the stone hoops in the sloping walls.

Westwards again was the Grupo del Cementerio. Largely unrestored, there were still some cool square blocks carved with skulls and crossbones! I wonder if pirates stole this symbol from the Mayans....

We climbed up to the temple.

Not sure what this holey slab was all about, but it looked groovy.

Casa del Adivino viewed from the south-west.

In the southern part of the site, we headed up the stairs of the Palacio del Gobernador - the Governor's Palace. Aside from the main Palace, there is this cute little Casa de las Tortugas - the House of the Turtles.


Can you see the turtles carved on the cornices?

OK then, here's a closer view. Cute, huh?

The Maya associated turtles with Chac, the rain god. According to myth, when the people sufferred from drought, so did the turtles, and both prayed to Chac to send rain.

The vertical columns or "rolled mats" running below the turtles is typical of the Puuc style.

Now for the Governer's Palace itself. The facade is nearly 100m long! The upper part is full of stylised Chac faces, and lattice or fretted design work.

 

Can you find Sean in the above photo?

Okay, I'll make it easier:

Looking back northeast to Casa del Adivino.

The detail is incredible!

Sean on the west side of the Governor's Palace, touching - gasp - a Mayan rock!

Finally, a pyramid with permission to climb! This is Gran Piramide, southwest of the Governor's Palace. You can hop across from the terrace of the Governor's Palace onto the pyramid, but it's not supposed to be safe, so we firstly climbed back down, and then, in a froth of excitement, climbed the pyramid's stairs.
Sean is ascending - the pyramid is 32m high.

We were so excited to be on top of the north face (incidentally, the only restored face) of Gran Piramide. Our first Mayan Pyramid Climb!!


Looking back to the north-east and Casa del Adivino.

I am touching genuine Mayan carved stones!

This is El Palomar, or the Pigeon House (seen from the top of the Gran Piramide) - the latticed roofcomb is reminiscent of Moorish pigeon houses, but the "belfries" sit on top of an eroded base whose function is unknown.

Pyramid climbing might look easy, but it's STEEP. And it's rather hot weather. You have to drink a lot of water (which means carrying a lot of water) and you have to be careful. The zig-zag walk works much better than bumping down on your butt. I am proud to say I never performed the latter manouvre.

Moving to the south east, there is a little crop of stone phalluses. Quite bizarre.

This is the Casa de la Vieja (Old Woman's House). It's mostly rubble. I've included it here so you can see what these structures look like prior to restoration. It's boggling to imagine the work and vision required.

With that, we had fully explored Uxmal and returned to the visitor's centre. Our efforts were deserving of a mango iceblock!

After a quick look in the excellent book shop (OK, and maybe some purchases), we left Uxmal around noon.


It was time for some serious driving south. About 500km south, to be exact.


We left Yucatan State and entered Campeche: we were heading down to Palenque in Chiapas. Just south of Campeche, we hit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. This was my first time seeing the Gulf since 1994, when I did a reserach diving cruise to the Dry Tortugas off Florida. It was great to see the Gulf from the Mexican side.

We had heard many hairy stories about driving in Mexico, but apart from a few idiosyncrases, we found it relatively easy. What idiosyncrasies, I hear you ask? Okay, just off the top of my head:

- speeding is the norm (140-160 k/h when 100-110 k/h are the state limits)

- hazard lights are used commonly when a vehicle has stopped for any reason

- overtaking occurs regardless of the lane markings

- truck drivers in front of you indicate when it's safe for you to overtake

- there are no gradual reductions in speed as you enter towns - but you're brought up VERY short by "Topes" - vicious speed humps that can be almost invisible and that deserve serious respect

- vendors will gather at Topes and try to sell you stuff, such as pineapple and mango in zip-lock plastic bags.

- there is only one fuel station type in Mexico - Pemex - which makes petrol stations easy to spot. No-one tried to dupe us with regard to refuelling, although we had heard stories where it's happened.

- military checkpoints are common, particularly in the more southern states that are closer to Guatamela or to the drug-running states of Mexico. Although the officers are heavily armed, they were always friendly to us - they just asked where we'd been and where we were going, and after a visual inspection of our backseat revealed such items as maps, empty water bottles, backpacks, Disneyland hats and/or drying swimsuits, we were cheerfully waved through.

As we headed further south, we encounted more hills and lots of farmland.

I think there were a few too many cows in this truck:

All was going swimmingly until we found that the state of Campeche had apparently decided to improve the state of its roads. All well and good with the increased tourism, you might say.


And I'd agree with you - except that, in Mexico (or at least in Campeche state) they seem to go in for ripping up the road in 35km-long swathes - with perhaps a team of about 10 men working the road every 10km or so.


I kid you not.


And of course, it was Lucky Nat who happened to be at the wheel when the tarmac gave way to very rough dirt. Or should I say, stones and dirt.


Oh, what the heck, let's just cut to the chase. I was detoured into a QUARRY.


Don't believe me?


Here, take a look.

Be glad you were not in that car with us. The air was blue with profanity. When, after almost 2 hours, the 35km of rubble restored itself to sane asphalt, we changed drivers and I had a nice quiet little nervous breakdown.


We thought we were home and dried, but just as we started feeling smug, Sean encountered ANOTHER 35km stretch of ripped-up road!!!!


But I had it tougher - he didn't have to go through a quarry. Hmph.


We forged on doggedly towards Tabasco, racing the light as the sun sank as a bright red ball in the sky. We did get to enjoy some rather charming pastoral scenes, such as this farmer with his goats.

Finally - FINALLY - we crossed the border into Tabasco......

.....and soon after, into Chiapas. You can see we were losing the light. With about 20km to go, darkness fell, which wasn't such a huge deal given we were in striking distance........but then the heavens absolutely opened, and we were treated to a HUGE electric storm, complete with forked lightening and absolute sheets of rain.


It was quite terrifying.


What was worse, was that this was the only night out of the entire tour where we were staying in somewhat obscure, more bohemian-style lodgings in El Panchan, a rather hippie village tucked in the jungle just outside of the town of Palenque, and close to the ruins.


Do you think that "Ed and Margarita's Cabanas" was clearly signposted? Nope, me neither. We ended up driving back and forth between the town and the entrance to the archeological site, straining to find the joint amidst the greenery, the darkness and the slashing rain. We even asked the guys at the military checkpoint, which we passed about 6 times going back and forth (I think we provided them with some amusement for the evening!)


Finally we stopped at a little restaurant, and got soaked just stepping out of the car, but luckily one of the patrons spoke English and was able to give us clear directions - we hadn't realised that we had to take a separate side road to El Panchan. After that, it was easy, but it was after 9pm by the time we finally pulled into the dirt carpark.


And there was no paving anywhere - just cobbled paths, which were slippery as anything in the still-slashing rain.


We were not given a particularly warm welcome. A young bloke in a smelly reception room basically tossed us our key, said "In this building, around the back and 2 doors along". And then, "You're late". Never mind that I'd explained on the phone we might be getting in late, and that we'd still arrived within office hours.


I gave him one increduluous look, and, mirroring his rough brevity, replied "Roadworks. Huge storm. No sign - we got LOST".


Then we had to struggle to find our room and work out how to open the door, and Sean had to walk half a mile back to the car in the pouring rain and return with our two huge bags. We got absolutely saturated, but no-one sprained an ankle, and as soon as we were safely inside, we laughed about the whole thing - albeit a tad shakily.


By this point, we were expecting a fleapit, but just wanted somewhere to crash that wasn't the interior of the car.

Fortunately, we were pleasantly surprised (peacocks!)

Sean reckoned he had the best night's sleep since Australia. Must have been all the roadworks, and the jungle air.

We had made it to Palenque! Tomorrow, some of the most anticipated ruins of the trip!

Yucatan Road Trip Day 3: Merida

Originally, we had intended to use Merida primarily as a base to get to Uxmal (pronounciation guide: "Ush-maal"). We'd heard that Merida was a beautiful city, and we'd planned to give it a quick look-see, but then Sean had the excellent suggestion of visiting Uxmal en route to Palenque. Given that it was kind of on the way, this would save us a few driving miles, but more importantly, it would give us a full day in which to explore Merida.


Hats off to Sean (so long as they're not Panama hats - see below).


Merida is the cultural capital of the Yucatan. There are free cultural events all over the place, and tourists are made very welcome.


Well, almost too welcome.


We lost count of the number of times we were approached by men on the Plaza Grande, who were all friendly-chatty-practising-my-English.....and then,


"Oh, where are you going? To government cooperative artisan shop? Oh, I think it is closed because of the fiesta. Wait, I will even call them for you and make sure"


*phone call*


"Yes, they are closing. Is a pity, this is good store. But you can go to this store instead, just as good"


*takes our map, writes down address of alternative store*


Sean, bless him, is very trusting, but I was sceptical, and so I insisted we continue on to the original, supposedly closed, store. And guess what? It was open!!!!


It's a shame that people use the guise of friendliness to try to pimp their own cooperative. It was later explained to us that Mexican folks don't tend to view business from a long-term perspective. They just want to make an instant buck, ethics be damned.


But we did strike one or two genuine folks, one of whom gave us the best restaurant recommendation (perhaps on commission), and another who took one look at me and asked if I was Mayan.


"No, soy de Australiano".


"But you are Mayan-size!" (the Mayans were notoriously short).


Sean has called me "Mayan-size" ever since. But that's okay. The locals fell over laughing calling him "Blanco" ("white") and saying he had "red nose - like tomato!"


Another bloke, upon hearing that we didn't have children, recommended a marital hammock and a certain position in the "Maya-Sutra". We weren't sure whether he was drawing a long bow at our expense, until we found said publication in the bookstore at Uxmal.


And we lost count of the number of times people attempted to sell us a sisal hammock, or Sean a Panama hat.


Egad.


Anyway, Merida is a very beautiful city. On our first night, we had a wander around the Plaza Grande. On the way, we passed the Jesuit Church:

Then on the Plaza itself, we have the Cathedral

Horse drawn carriage rides are very popular in Merida. All the colonial buildings make for a lovely backdrop.

More views around the Plaza Grande:

Wandering around the Plaza, we were transfixed by the illuminated interior of the Palacio de Gobierno (housing the Executive Government Offices of the Yucatan). The armed guards on the doors assured us we were welcome to enter (gulp), so we went in and admired the murals painted by local artist Fernando Castro Pacheco. They were 25 years in the making and portray a symbolic history of the Maya and their interaction with the Spaniards. I love history lessons learned via art.

This panel of the jaguar represents night and darkness:

Sean in one of the galleries:

Back at our hotel, Casa del Balam, we had time for an evening swim.

Next morning, we joined a free walking tour. Our guide was great - he questioned a lot of the cliched beliefs about the Mayans, such as human sacrifices, saying that it may be that this was an attempt by the Spanish to defame the Mayans and their beliefs. He also pointed out that the indigenous people were made to build the Catholic cathedral, but on either side of the Christian motif over the front door, they sculpted a sun and a moon. The Catholic Spaniards thought the indigenous people were worshipping Christ, but they were secretly worshipping the sun and moon instead.

Our guide also pointed out Mayan carving in the bricks making up many of the Colonial churches and buildings. The Mayan buildings were razed and the Colonial structures built by recycling the Mayan materials.

These days, our guide said that Merida's folks did not perceive themselves as Spanish or Mayan. They were simply Yucatan.

Here is the Jesuit Church by day:

Our tour took us to the beautiful interior:

We returned to the Executive Government Offices, which is a pretty building both by night and by day:

I especially like this panel of the eagle and the serpent, reminiscent of the Mexican flag, which is red, gold and green, and featuring the eagle, representing good and justice, defeating the evil serpent. But there is also something of a double meaning: the serpent is revered in the Mayan religion and is not a figure of evil. Thus this panel could also hark to the Spanish defeat of the Mayans.

Our walking tour finishing in this building, where the wall frescoes and cartoons were done by a previous mayor of Merida, obviously a man of many talents!

Please find in this photo: hammocks in the windows, a Burger King sign (can't escape fast food).....and, next to the "Calle 59" sign ("calle" means "street") a little sign with a dog on it. In years gone by, Merida's streets were named using pictures, because many people couldn't read. I thought that was a lovely idea.

 

We returned briefly to our hotel room to find that our tip for the maid had apparently been favourably received. When we arrived yesterday, our towels were folded in the shape of a little doll. Today the ante had been upped: there was an alligator on the bed!

Back to the Plaza Grande, we toured Casa de Montejo. Francisco de Montejo (the younger - his Dad and cousin also did some major conquering) conquered Merida in 1542. The Montejo mansion was filled with beautiful period furniture and art.

Next we headed to the Museum of Contemporary Art. There was almost noone else there, and the curators jumped to open the doors to each successive gallery for us. Ironically, we saw an old series of photographs of the Australian coastline.

There was also a lot of abstract pieces. I loved this ceramic "flower" garden.

And I really enjoyed these pieces - the fat arms and legs reminded me of Sumo wrestlers!

We headed north up Merida's answer to the Champs Elysees: Paseo de Montejo: an attempt by Merida's 19th Century city planners to create a wide boulevard.

One of the stunning mansions:

Finally, we arrived at the Regional Anthropology Museum.

This museum was a fabulous treasure trove of the Yucatan Peninsula's history and houses many Mayan artefacts.

Did you know that the Mayans favoured the cosmetic practice of forehead-flattening, done to beautify babies. The results are somewhat confronting:

After gorging ourselves on Mayan culture, it was time to gorge on some traditional Yucatan fare. We got caught in a rainstorm returning from the Regional Museum of Anthropology, but headed undeterred to La Chaya, where I sampled a Mayan delicacy: Conchinta Pibal. The chicken (it can also be pork) is wrapped in banana leaves and cooked underground for a long time, until it is super-tender and the meat just dissolves in your mouth. YUM!!!!

This was our friendly waitress, who appreciated our efforts to speak bad Spanish. We loved La Chaya: there was even a lady on a little stool rolling tortillas.

To round off our day of culture, we headed to Santa Lucia Park, where there was a free evening show of music and traditional Mayan dancing. We ran into an American couple with whom we had done the walking tour that morning, and clambered into a seat in the stands in front of them.

The traditional dancing with the women wearing their beautiful embroidered dresses, or huipiles, was visually spectacular.

After the singing and dancing, a group of young ladies, who we can only assume were the finalists for "Miss Yucatan 2011" or similar, were presented to the audience. Beauty pageants are beauty pageants everywhere. The compere asking each of them one or two questions, to which they giggled, and, it can be safely assumed, gave the Yucatan equivalent of "I love my city".

The evening was wrapped up with yet another display of spinning and dancing while balancing a beer tray, beer and four tumblers on one's head. No tumblers were broken in this display.

The show ended at 9:30pm and we had another quick swim before turning in - we had a big day of driving and Mayan sights ahead of us!