Last sunday I spent at Chitzen Itza, one of the "New Wonders of the World". And it is, indeed, pretty wonderful! I took an early bus out there (left Merida at 6:30am) and was in the site by 8:30am which was perfect. Way before most tour buses arrived so it was quiet and peaceful, perfect! The ruins are spectacular. It is sprawled over quite a large area with the big famous Castillo pyramid in the middle. I was able to wander around and enjoy them and contemplate these people who lived here more than 1500 years ago. I wish I could jump back in time and be a fly on the wall to see what it was really like.
Around 10:30 the tour buses start arriving from Cancun and Merida so it got really crowded and the hawkers were pretty intrusive so that wasn't as enjoyable but since I was there all day I could wander away from the main area for a while then I retreated to the restaurant for a mid-day break from the heat. Around 3 it started clearing out again and the sun started setting so the light was beautiful! It was in and out because it was kind of cloudy (and happily not as hot) but the effect was still beautiful. At sunset on the spring and autumn equinox the shadow of the main pyramid creates a serpent effect, connecting the serpent head at the bottom to the tail at the top. Very hard to explain, google it and you'll see what I mean, but I was there just a week after the equinox so the effect was still there. Cool!
One other very cool thing is that if you stand in a certain place on the plaza and clap your hands the echo off the Castillo comes back as an eagle cawing. Very bizarre but also very cool. It also meant that all day people were wandering through and randomly clapping their hands. Very entertaining.
I'm doing a little bit of volunteer work this week for Ninos y Crias, a local non-profit that do environmental education for children. They have presentations this week at a particular school and a puppet show on friday and I am their staff photographer for the week!
Other than that, I am planning for the next leg of my journey! I head south on Sunday to Campeche for a night then to Palenque, another huge mayan ruin, this time in the jungle!! Yay!! Then onward into Chiapas and eventually up to Oaxaca and then north back to San Miguel de Allende to visit some friends there.
I have mixed feelings about leaving Merida. I've made friends here and have gotten comfortable in a way, but it's been a struggle and I'm ready to move on as well! It's always sad to leave a place after settling in. Looking back I wished I'd spent more time doing spanish classes and not done the volunteer work since it ended up being way more hassle then helpful but, hindsight is always 20/20 and life is an adventure and always a learning experience!
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Monday, 23 March 2009
Falling into a Routine
It's amazing how fast one falls into a day-to-day existence routine. Here I am 'vacationing' in Mexico and I find myself getting off work and thinking how I need to go the grocery store and do laundry then make sure I find an internet cafe soon so I can pay my bills back home. Then I need to study study study. It turns out my brain has developed a few holes where information goes in then falls out if I don't keep pushing it back in. I wished I'd done this new language thing 20 years ago! But I'm getting the hang of it. Sentences are coming easier but half the time I realize later that I said the sentence totally wrong. Well, at least I got my point across (hopefully!)
I'm doing volunteer work in a day care center. Not too romantic but it's fun to be with the kids. They find my accent hilarious. Whenever I speak (English or Spanish) they fall over in stitches. I makes it kind of hard to teach them anything but at least I am entertaining them. There's a possibility of doing other work with a local environmental non-profit later this week which would be cool but I still haven't heard back from them. They are on Mexico time like everyone else. It will happen when it happens if it happens.
Since I last wrote we've had a couple of other "field trips". One was to Dzibilchaltun (a Mayan ruin nearby with an above-ground cenote) then to Uxmal, a much bigger ruin which was amazing! We had a guide too then a lecture about the Mayan cosmology and how they were able to track seasons and sunrise and sunsets and built their pyramids and other buildings according to the movements of the sun and moon. Pretty amazing for 2000 years ago. I've also seen some local culture, a dance performance in the main square and the sunday market in the same square. Plus a couple of trips out to the local beach (Progresso) where they have an excellent bar where you get free snacks if you buy beers. Yay! Free snacks! There is a drink called a Chelada which is basically limeade in the bottom of a salt-rimmed glass and a beer that you pour into is. Delicioso! Perfect on a hot day of which there are MANY down here. Typically the air temperature is around the same as your body temperature which is painfully hot, at least for me! Shade is very important, if I cant find shade while I'm waiting for the bus I'm usually melting by the time one comes.
Overall it is all going well, better than it was going a couple of weeks ago! I'm starting to plan the end of the trip. I leave Merida in about 2 weeks and have 2 weeks left to explore other parts of Mexico, probably Oaxaca then back up to San Miguel de Allende (to stay with some friends) then back to Mexico City and home on April 22! I am looking forward to being home where I'm not always on the watch for cockroaches and needing 3 showers a day. Water pressure here is very bad as well so showers are a bit of an overstatment. It's all part of the experience though!
Okay - I'm off to the bus station to check out the schedule for Chitzen Itza, the big fat grandaddy of Mayan ruins. It's only about an hour and a half from here so it would be silly not to go at some point. The equinox was this weekend where the shadows of the pyramid turn into a serpent which sounded cool but apparently there were 10000 (yes, ten thousand) people there so I passed. I'll go on a weekday afternoon where it is a bit more quiet.
Until next time!
I'm doing volunteer work in a day care center. Not too romantic but it's fun to be with the kids. They find my accent hilarious. Whenever I speak (English or Spanish) they fall over in stitches. I makes it kind of hard to teach them anything but at least I am entertaining them. There's a possibility of doing other work with a local environmental non-profit later this week which would be cool but I still haven't heard back from them. They are on Mexico time like everyone else. It will happen when it happens if it happens.
Since I last wrote we've had a couple of other "field trips". One was to Dzibilchaltun (a Mayan ruin nearby with an above-ground cenote) then to Uxmal, a much bigger ruin which was amazing! We had a guide too then a lecture about the Mayan cosmology and how they were able to track seasons and sunrise and sunsets and built their pyramids and other buildings according to the movements of the sun and moon. Pretty amazing for 2000 years ago. I've also seen some local culture, a dance performance in the main square and the sunday market in the same square. Plus a couple of trips out to the local beach (Progresso) where they have an excellent bar where you get free snacks if you buy beers. Yay! Free snacks! There is a drink called a Chelada which is basically limeade in the bottom of a salt-rimmed glass and a beer that you pour into is. Delicioso! Perfect on a hot day of which there are MANY down here. Typically the air temperature is around the same as your body temperature which is painfully hot, at least for me! Shade is very important, if I cant find shade while I'm waiting for the bus I'm usually melting by the time one comes.
Overall it is all going well, better than it was going a couple of weeks ago! I'm starting to plan the end of the trip. I leave Merida in about 2 weeks and have 2 weeks left to explore other parts of Mexico, probably Oaxaca then back up to San Miguel de Allende (to stay with some friends) then back to Mexico City and home on April 22! I am looking forward to being home where I'm not always on the watch for cockroaches and needing 3 showers a day. Water pressure here is very bad as well so showers are a bit of an overstatment. It's all part of the experience though!
Okay - I'm off to the bus station to check out the schedule for Chitzen Itza, the big fat grandaddy of Mayan ruins. It's only about an hour and a half from here so it would be silly not to go at some point. The equinox was this weekend where the shadows of the pyramid turn into a serpent which sounded cool but apparently there were 10000 (yes, ten thousand) people there so I passed. I'll go on a weekday afternoon where it is a bit more quiet.
Until next time!
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Still Here
Well my white blood cells are still all present and accounted for and I am feeling much better now!
Technically I finished up school last week but my volunteer work has gone through a few bumps so I'm continuing classes until it gets sorted out. Initially I was supposed to work with an organization doing work with the Mayan communities and villages but that turned out to be way disorganized and a bit dodgy so at the last minute we decided to switch to a bio reserve (Kiuic) in the southern part of the Yucatan but they haven't been able to get a hold of the guy so now it looks like I might be working with children here in Merida. It won't get me out into the Mayan community like I'd originally hoped but it seems like that wasn't meant to be. I also think I had a pretty romanticised (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) view of the Maya villages and now that I'm here and see a bit more about what their life is like I doubt I'd get the type of cultural exposure that I was expecting. I am learning a lot about the culture through the classes and being here so I'll take it all in in smaller steps instead of jumping in head first and possibly hitting my head on a rock (with my luck this trip I'm sure that's exactly what would happen).
Since I last wrote I've basically been going to classes and hanging out with some of the other students. There are only about 6 or 7 of us, mostly American. There is one Japanese guy who doesn't speak any english so it forces us all to speak spanish around him which is good for us to practice. My spanish isn't quite as good as I'd hoped it would be by now, mainly because when I'm with the American students we speak english. Duh, we know better but we're at the cusp where we can kind of converse in Spanish but not quite fast enough when you want to get a thought out.
We did take a trip to the Cenotes last week. AWESOME. They are underground caverns filled with water where you can swim. Mayan legend is that they were/are entrances to the underworld. You climb down either on steps or a ladder and inside there are all sorts of stalagtites hanging from the ceiling and tree roots growing down and perfectly clear water. Very very cool. I have some pictures but it's pretty dark down there and impossible to capture the whole environment and experience. I will post lots of pics to flickr when I get back to my beloved little laptop.
I also learned how the Mayans counted. It might sound boring but the math geek in me was fascinated. We use 10 digits and count by 10s. They count by 20s but only use 3 symbols. If I could draw here I would but if you're intrigued then you should google it. Very cool.
I've moved from my cozy homestay into the "student residence" which I thought would be a hostel kind of place but turns out it's my own apartment. By Mexican standards it's pretty nice but it's not as nice as my homestay. But it is my own little 2-bedroom. It's a bit more lonely since I don't have roomates or a house mom to feed me but it is nice to be a bit more independent. When I got there I noticed a can of bug spray in the bathroom. Hmmm... that's not a good sign so I proactively sprayed it around the bathroom in kitchen just in case. Next morning I had a large dead cockroach in the bathroom. GGEEAAGH yuck yuck yuck ew blech gross. Luckily it was dead thanks to my insecticide forethought. I got rid of it and haven't seen any since, but I will keep spraying diligently!!
Okay, classes are about to start so I will sign off.
Adios!!
Technically I finished up school last week but my volunteer work has gone through a few bumps so I'm continuing classes until it gets sorted out. Initially I was supposed to work with an organization doing work with the Mayan communities and villages but that turned out to be way disorganized and a bit dodgy so at the last minute we decided to switch to a bio reserve (Kiuic) in the southern part of the Yucatan but they haven't been able to get a hold of the guy so now it looks like I might be working with children here in Merida. It won't get me out into the Mayan community like I'd originally hoped but it seems like that wasn't meant to be. I also think I had a pretty romanticised (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) view of the Maya villages and now that I'm here and see a bit more about what their life is like I doubt I'd get the type of cultural exposure that I was expecting. I am learning a lot about the culture through the classes and being here so I'll take it all in in smaller steps instead of jumping in head first and possibly hitting my head on a rock (with my luck this trip I'm sure that's exactly what would happen).
Since I last wrote I've basically been going to classes and hanging out with some of the other students. There are only about 6 or 7 of us, mostly American. There is one Japanese guy who doesn't speak any english so it forces us all to speak spanish around him which is good for us to practice. My spanish isn't quite as good as I'd hoped it would be by now, mainly because when I'm with the American students we speak english. Duh, we know better but we're at the cusp where we can kind of converse in Spanish but not quite fast enough when you want to get a thought out.
We did take a trip to the Cenotes last week. AWESOME. They are underground caverns filled with water where you can swim. Mayan legend is that they were/are entrances to the underworld. You climb down either on steps or a ladder and inside there are all sorts of stalagtites hanging from the ceiling and tree roots growing down and perfectly clear water. Very very cool. I have some pictures but it's pretty dark down there and impossible to capture the whole environment and experience. I will post lots of pics to flickr when I get back to my beloved little laptop.
I also learned how the Mayans counted. It might sound boring but the math geek in me was fascinated. We use 10 digits and count by 10s. They count by 20s but only use 3 symbols. If I could draw here I would but if you're intrigued then you should google it. Very cool.
I've moved from my cozy homestay into the "student residence" which I thought would be a hostel kind of place but turns out it's my own apartment. By Mexican standards it's pretty nice but it's not as nice as my homestay. But it is my own little 2-bedroom. It's a bit more lonely since I don't have roomates or a house mom to feed me but it is nice to be a bit more independent. When I got there I noticed a can of bug spray in the bathroom. Hmmm... that's not a good sign so I proactively sprayed it around the bathroom in kitchen just in case. Next morning I had a large dead cockroach in the bathroom. GGEEAAGH yuck yuck yuck ew blech gross. Luckily it was dead thanks to my insecticide forethought. I got rid of it and haven't seen any since, but I will keep spraying diligently!!
Okay, classes are about to start so I will sign off.
Adios!!
Sunday, 1 March 2009
In Recovery, Hopefully.
Well, my chest cold blossomed into full-blown flu. I even developed a fever which is pretty rare for me. I figured it was an infection somewhere so my house-mom called the school to find a doctor for me. He came by the house and listened to my lungs and prodded my throat and asked a zillion questions and said I had an infection in the throat, not the chest. Either way he gave me a script for some antibiotics, some cough medicine and an anti-inflammatory fever medication and said I should be feeling better in 24 hours. This was last Thursday which was spent entirely under the covers in my room. By Friday I was indeed feeling better but still completely wiped out. Today is Sunday and I almost feel normal but still tired. I got online today to check out if the fever medication has any weird side-effects and oh dear. I find out that this medication is banned in the USA. Yep. It is an illegal "potentially lethal" drug still commonly used by the latin american community. WTF?!?? After some mad googling it turns out that this medication (Neo Melubrina, or metamizol, for you doctor types out there) can, in "rare cases", cause agranulocytosis which seems to mean your bone marrow is damaged which causes a severe decrease in white blood cells. Fabulous. Potentially Fatal were the big fat words that jumped out of the page at me. I'm assuming that if I haven't reacted yet I'm probably okay but I'm still freaking out a bit. As for trusting a Mexican doctor, not so much anymore. I'm sure the doctor was reputable since he was referred from the school, but if I need a doc again and get a prescription for something I'm not familiar with I will definitely google first, then partake. Lesson learned, hopefully not the hard way.
If anyone medically inclined out there knows anything about this med I'd love to hear from you, whether it's reassurance or get your stupid overly-trusting butt back to the states now to get checked out.
Needless to say I haven't done much in the past few days so not much else to report. I did manage to get out yesterday and meet up with a friend of a friend who lives here in town which was nice but I didn't make it very long before wanting to crawl back into bed.
Back to the business of learning Spanish tomorrow.
I will continue to keep you all posted on the status of my white blood cells!
If anyone medically inclined out there knows anything about this med I'd love to hear from you, whether it's reassurance or get your stupid overly-trusting butt back to the states now to get checked out.
Needless to say I haven't done much in the past few days so not much else to report. I did manage to get out yesterday and meet up with a friend of a friend who lives here in town which was nice but I didn't make it very long before wanting to crawl back into bed.
Back to the business of learning Spanish tomorrow.
I will continue to keep you all posted on the status of my white blood cells!
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