Finding the Beekeeper

As honey is one of the main export crops of the Yucatan, we were always looking for local honey (miel)and so upon asking a women cooking chicken on the side of the road where was the mielero, she pointed to a man walking down the road in a white hat. We turned the car around and followed him to his house where he very graciously served up the honey in any empty water bottle we could find in our car(makes for excellent souvenirs to take home). It was delicious! He was very proud to show us his cyntrifigal force extractor that he made himself. As fellow beekeepers we were somewhat familiar with the
frame of comb that he had just spun the honey from. He seemed to be happy that we were so interested in his operation.

Caves of Lol Tun

This cave system is amazing! There are some indications of very early human occupation! Along with 10,000 year old Mammoth bones, human made tools were discovered.The cave has been left almost intact, with no pedestrian walkways just the natural bumpy floor of the cave. There were wall carvings, paintings and other artifacts besides the immense natural beauty of the cave. Some of the columns of joining stalactites and stalagmites would produce sounds with different tones when knocked.

Labna

This is the infamous Arch of Labna. Notice the straw thatched hut carved in stone one each side and the trapezoidal doors. Very nice geometric designs here!

Also here at this site we saw these heads with round faces and puffy cheeks resembling people from other continents. They continue to disconcert and confuse the researchers as they try to find out the real origin of the incredible and magnificent Mayas!

Sayil

Sayil another site further down the road, means place of the leaf cutter ants and there is still evidence of those mounds. The main palace has many chambers which could have been administration offices, residences or classrooms?? Who knows?!
Between the eyes of this mask one can see a human figure upside down with legs spread wide open. as a "Descending God".There is some restoration work going on here and it appears that the blocks are organized into layers on the ground and then reconstructed.

Rain Collection

The climate here is tropical, dry from Novermber to April and rainy in the summer, during which rainfall averages 44 inches. There are no lakes, rivers or cenotes in this particular region, creating a total dependence on rainfall. Therefore, they met the challenge of water storage by constructing underground reservoirs called chultunes. Runoff was generally directed to a round area slightly slanted toward the intake. The intake here has been recently covered but is still functional. Hundreds of these cisterns have been discovered at some of these sites....knowing the number of the cisterns and their water storage capacity it is possible to calculate the number of people that lived here during its time of glory.

Kabah

This site is only about 15 miles from Uxmal and built earlier. The most spectacular building to me is the Palace of Masks. All four sides of this building were totally covered with the rain god masks but only the front was restored...the rest is in ruins and many have been smashed or have been taken. We hung here for a while just marveling at ALL the phenomenal work.

Corn - essence of life

On our way through the small village of Cuzama we spotted this Maya woman sitting on the corner selling corn that she baked in the earth for 4 DAYS!! called "elote enterno"...Yummy!....bought 3 ears and then returned to buy more...3 pesos each (30 cents).

Uxmal

Wow! What an amazing place this is! Uxmal was the ultimate destination on this trip. Founded in about 500 AD, Uxmal (pronounced "oosh-mahl") was the most powerful site in western Yucatan. The Pyramid of the Magician, at 100 feet tall was probably my favorite as it was so unusual with the curved lines and eliptical shape. Another really interesting thing about that pyramid is that you could stand in front of it on the back side and clap your hand loudly and it would echo back a bird type chirp from that little door. Very cool. The architecture style known as Puuc is prevalant where the relief decorations start at the level of the doors and flow upwards. until they cover the entire upper sections of buildings. There were lots of masks some say to represent the rain god, Chaac. Some of the buildings line up pointing to the southernmost rise location of Venus, which occurs once every eight years. Also according to some sacred geometry knowledge, beginning at Uxmal there are seven temples laid out in a spiral (Labna, Kabah, Chichen Itza, Tulum, Kohunlich, and Palenque) and we are going to 3 of those. We took a gazillion photos so I have posted them separately at http://picasaweb.google.com/divadelmundo/Uxmal
should you wish to see more. There was so much to see as we stayed here a full day and 2 nights. The light and sound show in the evening was very worthwhile (in Spanish)...we went twice it was so good! I have to come back to this place!

Tropical fruits

I always love buying fresh local fruit from the street vendors. This is a new one for me at it is very seasonal here, named cayomita....delicious, not too sweet,one of those sensous fruits like papaya and mango! There were purple and white ones.

Henequin Crops

This plant called henequin is making a comeback in the Yucatan. It produces sisal fibers that are used in ropes, bags, clothing, lots of things...this major export industry experienced a decline when synthetic fibers hit the market in the 1950's, but now with a renewed interest in organic natural fibers, one can see the plantations come back to life. It takes about 5 years for a plant to be harvestable.

Traveling with Google Earth

We took along the GPS and laptop loaded with Google Earth imagery that allowed us to find our way on roads that were not on a map but that we could see on the imagery. Therefore we could take shortcuts with complete confidence and really see some rural stuff! This is one of those roads!

Hammocks

Went hammock shopping in the little village of EkBalam where the women make the hammocks.....all the women folk participate...notice the handmade loom they are standing in front of. They use a double weave called "abeja" (bee), so of course I had to have one of those.
Here are 3 generations of women in the family that I bought from.
It takes about 2 weeks to make one of these very large "family" hammocks. The cost...$50 US....Compared to the price one pays for a bed, not a bad deal huh? And they really are comfortable to sleep in for one person anyways!

Further down the road about 2 miles south of Valladolid there is a prison that sells hammocks made by the inmates....they are a different style and take a month to make one...cost $95.

EkBalam (Dark Jaguar)

I have blogged about this 2000 year old Mayan Temple Pyramid before, but it is always enchanting to be here. It has some of the best preserved stucco relief of any of the structures I have been to. Those palapa roofs were built to protect the marvalous ornate decorations that you can see in the following photographs. Imagine the entire pyramid covered in the smoothed plaster that was painted in brilliant colors!! And remember all this done without metal tools, beast of burden or the wheel!
We were there for a nice rain that darkened much of the stone and gave us a nice reprieve from the afternoon heat.

Cenote X-canche

First place we headed to out of Puerto was to a cenote near EkBalam. Another beautiful natural resource of the area. The trees roots find the water, and the caves are homes for bats, moths, birds etc. Swam with black catfish in the water...my thermometer gave a reading of 72 degrees Farenheight...the same as the San Marcos River! so the girls felt at home.