February 13, 14 and 15

February 13
This past Sunday, we enjoyed Sunday in Merida, which is a weekly festival. The central part of town closes to traffic and each square has music and dancing and markets. We started at Santa Ana square which had a more alternative markets of handmade crafts (such as lovely soaps), and fundraisers (Keira got a couple of keepsakes from an organization that helps abused animals). We also popped into the Anthropology Museum and were very impressed by the collection of Mayan artifacts, including some very detailed carvings and hieroglyphics. The kids were impressed by all the skulls, illustrating both the Mayan tradition of altering babies skull while they are still young to achieve either a flattened look or an oblique one, and also skulls that had been dredged from the Chichen Itza cenote thus being from sacrificial "participants". Keira's notebook from the museum has two words: "mouse" and "skull".
We then went down towards Santa Lucia square. It was there that I spotted bike rentals for participation in the cycling loop that was set up through town for the morning. Heather and Jason headed off to explore on bike, while Keira and I went for some lunch. We shared some cheese empanadas from a vendor in the square and then the music started up on stage - basically traditional standards such as the rumba and the mambo, and couples quickly filled the front of the stage, in their Sunday best and often coordinated. We enjoyed this and then somehow (as in how did we get talked into this?) went in search of a stuffed animal for Keira. The day before, on every corner in the market, people had been selling Valentine's gifts, including stuffed animals done up in packages with balloons etc. . Once I saw up close what was actually in these packages and how shoddy and potentially dangerous (chemicals etc) their contents were, I made a deal with the devil and took Keira to a department store and got her quite a fancy little stuffed puppy. Despite the fact that she has a lot of stuffies and dolls, you could never say that she doesn't play with them and so that new puppy then got a collar (actually a bracelet) at the other market and has already been to visit three Mayan ruins. He is currently on guard at our front door.
We met back up with Heather and Jason and headed to the main square which was packed with people, vendors (including impressive balloon sellers with a couple of hundred balloons each). We also took a horse and carriage ride through the central part of the city (a good and relatively inexpensive way to rest feet). We had lunch by the plaza and enjoyed the music which changed on a hourly basis. The last performance we enjoyed was a traditional dance troop. Keira was quite impressed by the Mexican dancing. Jason was impressed by the large lime popsicle we got him to keep him occupied (something for everyone right??!!).
February 14
We headed north of Merida to Progresso on the Gulf Coast. This is Merida’s beach area. Progresso was very busy with a cruise ship in. The atmosphere was rather sordid and we were both offended by the tourist behavior towards Mexican women. It was particularly disturbing that as men downed Coronas at 10 a.m. they felt they could make these comments in front of our children as well. We moved on along the Gulf Coast, where there is a thin line of small fishing villages with mammoth holiday homes along the coast. We were on the look out for flamencos but it was out of season. We visited a Mayan ruin at Dzambo where the Mayan produced salt on salt flats and the town next door was a major trading center. Very interesting. Then we looped back and visited Dzibilchaltun, a Major site know for how its major temple aligns with the sunrise on Spring Equinox. It also had a beautiful sacred cenote. After this we went home and enjoyed our beautiful house for one more night.
February 15
We started the day off early. We had mixed feelings about going to Chichen Itza but it a great half way point between Merida and the Coast. We got there early enough to avoid most of the crowds. We were amazed at the numbers coming in at 11 a.m. but the waiter at the restaurant said that while there would be about 2000 people there yesterday, on a busy day there is 20 000!! It is one of the wonders of the world and so much larger than anything we had seen in terms of individual ruins and the entire site. Jason was very keen to go but had mixed feelings upon arrival - crowds (relatively speaking); prohibition on climbing (with so many visitors very understandable); and difficulty in appreciating the entire site at once. However in the end we enjoyed our visit. We actually ate at the restaurant on site (so concerned about tourist restaurants and getting sick but we all seem well 24 hours after).
We are now happily back at Playa Caribe in Akumal. We had planned on spending one week in Merida but early on recognized that we would actually like to squeeze more beach time out of our vacation, given that we are in fact beach bums. We checked back in, Jason got in to the pool for an hour and then we headed to Akumal playa and I went our snorkeling to say hi again to the turtles, fish and rays.