Cuidado con la Virgen (Be careful with the Virgin)

well we came down here in part to catch the celebrations for the Virgen of Guadalupe, patron saint of the Americas, and, tonight December 12th is the final night, the last time you can walk in a candlelight parade with the Virgin of Guadalupe, for a whole year. Tonight we got back to Bacalar, after 3 days in the hinterlands seeing great ruins, and were just in time to hear the sirens and fireworks and loud Guadalupe carols that meant we could get in a last final parade. We raced up to join it, and walked about 10 blocks til they reached their guadalupe church destination, a very modern church since this is a rapidly growing little town. Families walked hand in hand, some with candles some with bouquets and some with just folded hands.  The kids in the parade were so cute. the little boys were dressed in white tops and pants with red sashes, like Juan Diego, and the babies and girls were dressed like little virgins with long shiny veils or in Índita costumes. then everyone got to pose with very solemn faces carrying their candles or a bunch of flowers, in front of the virgin and about 1000 little candles.

Although we are back in Bacalar now, 3 mornings ago, we left Lake Bacalar, and after a lot of delays, picked up our rental car from Europcar in Chetumal - a shabby little city with a little bit of caribbean feel - and drove east on the amazingly good fast highway, up a little out of the flats into the jungly lowlands. We have visited a total of 8 ruins, and 3 hotels, in 3 days, and all of the experiences were nice.

At nearly all the ruins we have seen, in this area called Rio Bec, we were the only visitors. you park near spiffy little entrance buildings and then walk in through the trees on little white chalk walkways, always in about a half mile, and always come in through the less sacred buildings, and then through fancier and fancier ruins, til you hit the hugest or scariest buildings last. we have climbed so many excellent pyramids and walked through lots of corridors in what, a thousand years ago, were the dwellings of the rich and famous. the going theory is that the Mayan centers were destroyed because the poor people got sick of maintaining the rich people and killed èm all and left... but those rich people sure had it good for a few years. like 600 years...

the highway across the Yucatan, from Chetumal, is practically all straight. every 20 or 30 miles you wiggle a little up and down through some little hills, that all might actually be pyramids... there is a slow gradual rise. in 3 days we were in so many little climates. The very first day we drove about 2 hours east, up to Xpujil, a crossroads town, and from there went to 2 ruins to the east: Chicanna, which is famous for some doorways that look like giant monsters eating whoever dares go in or out the doorway, and Becan, which is an astonishingly beautiful city inside a kind of moat. The architecture here has some really interesting features. its not complicated or lacy like some of the Puuc route area ruins, or Palenque, its fairly tall and straight with very accurately cut blocks and some interesting rounding of the corners. the result to me is that a lot of the ruins felt like ruined Romanesque churches or abbeys. of course at one time it was all covered with brilliant red or orange plaster, and intricate maske designs, but what´s left now is quite simple in some ways. but they loved to build temples that rise up steeply with stairs too steep to climb, just for show, and have many levels, the lower levels being the oldest with these rounded corners.

Much of this is in a low height jungly sort of guava foresty looking regrowth. But, on the second day, we drove far down off the highway, to Calakmul, what was once a fairly giant city like the size of Tikal the famous ruin in Guatemala, and here the growth was SO dense its amazing that anyone ever found these ruins. two feet away from a building, and it disappears into the jungle. it used to take anywhere from 2 to 4 days, to get to Calakmul, while it was being excavated. so now, the fact that we could get there in two pothole-y hours, is a marvel.

Today was actually the best day. In the morning we went to the ruins at Xpuhil and they were so very pretty, towers glowing in the morning sunlight, and some of the towers have hidden staircases that you can climb up. in the mid day we dropped down into some broad open wide valleys with cornfields and sugar cane and preserves of very tall treed jungle with howler monkeys, and saw two adjacent city states, one of them Dzibalche`had about six giant plazas and huge residential complexes with hidden patios and staircased gardens, just for the rich, and howler monkeys, and one, Kinichka, was just an enormous 3 tiered temple. and in the late afternoon, we went to one of the prettiest I´ve ever seen, Kohunlich, which is in acres and acres of the loveliest palm forest I´ve ever been in. with a great company, a yellow dog who liked Craig to pieces. kept step with us nearly all the 2 hours we were there.

While we have been in the Yucatan, several troubles have broken out elsewhere, which we are only dimly aware of. Many mexicans are in mourning, because there have been some horrendous displays of power by the drug lords who are warring for control in the state of Michoacan (very far from here, but everyone is staying tuned).  Meanwhile because we are very close to both the Belize and Guatemalan borders, there is a lot of attempts here at controlling the drug trade. frequently, you have to stop at checkpoints, usually if you are a foreigner or look harmless you are waved through. but today probably because of the Michoacan thing, they took a little more care with us. The six soldiers running the check, who probably get a little bored, were really not at all sure why 2 gringos would want to take a vacation going to remote ruins around here, so they decided to spend some time with us. so we had to open our trunk and have all our luggage checked. but, on top of our luggage, was our latest purchase, another of the blinking electric Virgin of Guadalupes that we keep bringing back. so as they are checking us, and Craig is lifting her up, I said loudly ´be careful of the Virgen´! instant respect and smiles from the army guys.  Oh, if they are traveling with the Virgen, on this her holiday, well, they must be ok!  smile, smile. `'okay you can go now, have a great day, how do you say in English éxcuse us for the inconvenience, by the way?´'

Our hotel accomodations have been so varied. I just read Craig´´s description of our cabin at Cabanas de Mercedes in Zoh-laguna.  This was the neatest town. it was set up in the 1930s or 1940s by an American logging company and it was a true company town. Kind of like Chester, California.  wooden company buildings, on big tree filled lots, in giant grids of streets.  a great place to walk at night and look up at the brilliant stars and see the kids riding their bikes and everyone walking down to the square to see what´s going on. it really was too bad that there was such a loud festival with giant loudspeakers scheduled, or we would have liked to stay 3 nights. the cabins that you can rent around here, with screens instead of windows, are very comfortable most of the time, actually a little chilly since there is unseasonably cold weather here but only chilly at night, warms up right away in the days.  the food that Don Antonio gave us, a tasty fried chicken and smoked pork, was very yucatecan savory rather than spicy. 

the next night just because of the noise, we decided to splurge a little on a place called Rio Bec Dreams, which is way away from any town, also has great stars.  theey have spiffy little cabins and then jungalows which are nice screen walled cabins, roomy, solid walls half way up then screen all the way around, with little white curtains which shield you when needed from the breeze. luckily we were the only ones there.  the place is an ecolodge, very close contact with the jungle which here is drier and not tall, kind of like guava forests in hawaii (did I say that already). The only misconception, is that these jungalows, are in the jungle. well, not really. they are just about 40 feet off the highway and although at times there is hardly any traffic, at night, the big semis and long distance buses come whooshing by.  not so loud you can´t deal, but you sure do not hear a lot of jungly noises.

Actually, there is a lot of deception around here in what websites indicate a place will be like, and what it actually is.  for example today we stopped at another ecolodge on Lake Bacalar, which its true does have lots of acres of jungle but all in the long skinny drive in from the highway... the next door properties which are also long and thin, are developed out with fancy houses and huge boats on the lake! My advice is, do NOT book ahead on the web, come with good guidebooks and have alternatives, but really unless its high high season there is always room at the inn! some inn, anyway. 

tonight we are back at the pleasant but very quirky, Casita de Carolina, an eccentric collection of houses and cabins right at the lakeside, with green lawns going right into reeds on this very pretty lake, with nice lake birds and fish.  Another place to have earplugs, because if you are in one of the houses you will hear the other guests and if not you will probably hear the frequent chorus of howling dogs at some time in the night.

well, now that virgin of guadalupe day is drawing to a close, its time to turn attention to christmas. tonight as we were sitting at a local taco place - everything here is basically open air, a roof over a patio open on 3 sides with the house where the hidden cook is, on the one side - I was peeking into a neighbor´s yard and seeing they were dressing up their huge, star shaped pinata with streamers and loading it with candy.  although there were a lot of christmas decorations out for the last week, suddenly there are more. some are huge blow up scenes. one is a giant blowup of santa with a helicopter, the air blowing out makes several propellers spin, and in the yard below it is a giant blow up nativity seen with a giant brown haired joseph, a tiny mary, a little white baby and the cheesiest cow and sheep I have ever seen.  There are many snowmen on roofs, seems quite incongruous here since it has never ever snowed.  all the lights do things, pulse red then green, chase little white lights around. it´s a great show.

Bacalar is a great little town and not very big. we feel we know the main streets well, one is christened BarkingDogStreet, one is InternetandCathedral street, one is taxis-to-chetumal street. and we know the main restaurants: breakfast tacos which is run by the mayor, evening tacos, chicken tacos, and a few others.  in the small towns each of the smaller restaurants may specialize in one kind of meat, for instance, often, cold shredded chicken. you can have it served under 4 or 5 different names, tacos tostadas salbutes gringas panuchos, but they are all the same thing a variant of a tortilla, lettuce, tomato, chicken, and maybe some cream and a slice of avocado. tasty but oh, so similar! same choices at the place that specializes in carnitas (roast pig) or in pastor (sort of like gyros, sliced off a rotating collection of pieces of whatever).  lots of displays, all the same thing.  whatever its all good stuff.

So tomorrow morning, we´ll drive our car back to Chetumal, possibly see a little fishing village and another little ruin-let, and then, take our first class bus 6 hours across the peninsula, to the gulf of mexico side, to Campeche, which is a colonial city, another pirate center and a world heritage site. should be fun!

Craig, I love your pictures...