Goodness, almost a week has gone by since our arrival here in the Ocean Coral & Turquesa, in heavy rain and across a road that now looks more like a bumpy canal. I'm glad I didn't bring a bike the way I usually do, because there wouldn't have been any way to ride it from the hotel to the main road. But as it was, after two days of unseasonably heavy rain the sun came back out, and since then Sabine and I have been eating and drinking too much and doing too little. Thus is life in an all-inclusive paradise that has little to do with Mexican reality.
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| The road from the main highway to the resort |
Thankfully, after two days of more rain than not the skies cleared and we've
been enjoying the various pools and of course the Caribbean, even though the
rains and heavy swells have brought a lot of sea grass and general murkiness to
the usually white beach and crystal-clear water. Still, you can't complain when
lying in a soft chaise lounge, while the waves create that beautiful background
noise of the oceans and the waiter brings yet another piña colada, spiked with
a bit of amaretto. Or a mojito. Or a margarita....
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| The H10 Ocean Coral & Turquesa—still an amazing place to live la dolce vita |
There were two highlights to our trip, and both came on the final two full
days. On Monday, we took a day-long excursion to Chichen Itza, the mystical
Mayan town that is considered one of the Wonders of the World. Years ago, Judy
and I had traveled to Cancun with our then-neighbors, Tom and Trish, and we had
rented a car to visit the ruins, but this time around we opted for a guided
tour in a comfortable tourist bus. With an $85 price tag for a rental car alone
(plus gas, toll fees, entry to Chichen Itza, lunch, etc.) it was a no-brainer
to shell out $196 for the two of us and not to have to do at least six hours of
driving ourselves. We were picked up in the hotel shortly before 8 a.m., and
when we finally made it home it was a little after 9 p.m. (The catastrophic state of the roads
to some of the hotels where passengers had to be offloaded was partly
responsible for this long day.) Our on-board guide and host was extremely
funny, telling us about the history and culture of the area in both Spanish and
beautifully colored Spenglish. Sabine said that she now finally understands
where some of my own sayings and intonations at times come from—she thinks I have listened to too many good folks like Alejandro (or, if you are his friend—which of
course we all were—Alex).
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| This is not a tourist brochure—this is the pee stop halfway to Chichen Itza on the toll road |
Before we got to Chichen Itza, however,
ladies
and yentlemen, we were going to stop at the
cenote Ik Kil, a very big sinkhole where we were going to have a
chance to swim as well as eat lunch. For some unfathomable reason, our tour bus
was the first to arrive on this particular day, and Sabine and I immediately
beelined for the
cenote—and no
kidding, we were the first and had this entire cathedral
of nature to ourselves for the next ten
minutes before the hordes arrived and transformed serenity into frivolity. But
by that time we had already soaked in the immensity of this underground cavern
that has a 90-foot-deep pool and just a small opening at the top where the
sunlight enters. (Visitors enter through a TNT-facilitated tunnel.) Wow, at least for me that was worth the entire trip.
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| Cenote Ik Kil: Entrance ... |
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| ... hole in the ceiling ... |
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| ... and 90-foot-deep water, as pristine as it comes before we entered |
The buffet-style lunch in this out-of-the-way place featured
cochinita pibil, a pork stew that
involves slow cooking in banana leaves and that brought back memories of last
Thanksgiving when Martha, Alan, and I feasted on this Mayan delicacy at their
now-sold residence in Lubbock. Good, very good stuff! Thanks to the on-board
free beer, expertly dispensed by a happy-to-serve helper, we were able to
off-gas a few
cochinita burps before arriving at Chichen Itza. Alejandro,
aka Alex, made clear how much time we would have, that we were to have English
and Spanish-speaking groups with their respective guides, and that the bus
would leave at 4:30 p.m.,
so pleece,
ladies and yentlemen, be rrready! As a true
Yerman, I kept taking mental notes never to pronounce a G again and
rrroll every “r” in sight.
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| One of the so-called Wonders of the World—don't Wonder why |
Chichen Itza has changed since my last visit, about a decade ago. Back then,
one could still clamber atop the big pyramid, and I remember having somebody
take a pic of a twenty-somethingish Jürgen as a sacrifice to Chac Mool, on my
first visit to the Yucatan. Alas, as Dylan crooned, the times they are
a-changin’. Apparently, not so long after our visit with T&T some visitor
stumbled on those steep, uncannily precise and mathematical steps up (or more
likely, down) the pyramid, started to roll, and ended up screwing things up for
everyone to arrive after her: One death (and possibly a lawsuit) is enough, said
the government, and now we can actually see all the ruins because they are
people free. Fine and good—but what about the hundreds and hundreds of hawkers
inside (yes, in-, not outside) this Wonder of the World?
Only one dollarrr, sirrr. Verrry good quality! Last chance! At least
in the past they’d have proudly proclaimed that everything
es hecho a mano, handmade by their blind mother-in-law and their
crippled children. But I guess they can no longer do so since all that kitsch
must have been produced in China. Yikes. So, please, continue to keep us
tourists off the rocks but ask the vendors to vacate the premises.
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| OK, so maybe I looked like this in my days as a gainfully employed lecturer.... |
Our guide, an older gentleman with the aristocratic name of Luis Ortiz Rendon,
was obviously amazingly knowledgeable about the Maya in general and this site
in particular, but unfortunately he suffered from a severe case of PD
(Professor’s Disease). After we had remained in the same spot for 20 minutes (far
away from the ball court) with him pontificating about the hip armor of the
ball players, and gentle nudges did not have any effect on his geographical location whatsoever, Sabine
and I continued our 2-hour tour of this magnificent site on our own. Occasional
heavy showers hit us, and immediately the entire place started to steam; there
was a rainbow; and there were poncho-hawkers, damn them. We managed to look at
most of the exposed and reconstructed ruins (my goodness, how much stuff must
still be hidden under that subtropical vegetation!) and came away with a sense
of how small and short-lived our current “civilization” is—these dudes stuck
around for more than 3,700 years, and that without air conditioning or iPhones.
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| Caracol—one of the few circular structures at Chichen Itza |
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| We weren't sacrificed to the gods, but our legs were chopped off, nevertheless |
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| Late in the afternoon, even rubble looks dramatic |
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| Chac Mool is waiting for your still-pounding heart to be placed on his midrift |
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On the way home, we had a 10-minute stopover in Valladolid’s
zocalo, or main square, just enough to
smell Mexico and see what one misses when one stays in resorts and takes to
organized bus tours. I’m starting to have more and more of an itch for another “real”
trip, like the one to Machu Picchu last year.
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| Sabine, about to board the vessel of choice for her first open-water dive |
The second highlight came yesterday, when Sabine dived for the first time in
open water. Upon my encouragement and, OK, urging, she had started and almost
completed a certified divers course in Yermany last year, but she never quite
completed the whole thing since open-water check-out dives in Yermany’s
notoriously cold lakes in the middle of the winter are quite sucky. But here we
were able to do a two-tank “Discover Scuba” dive that took us about 30 feet
below the surface for about 50 minutes each, and now I think she is HOOKED! To
take a skiff to the outer reef in the Caribbean and descend to the world of
lobsters, rays, and turtles (all of which she got to see on her first two
dives!) is quite different from going to the local swimming pool and pretending
that you are out of air. Better yet: We were the only passengers on the boat,
with a very kind and emphatic French dive master by the name of Ivan, and thus
the entire experience was simply superb. Half-way through the first dive we
looked at each other, and the sparkle of her smiling eyes through the mask was
simply blinding. And no BS here: I don’t think I have ever dived with anybody
with fewer than ten open-water dives who was as adept at buoyancy control and general
etiquette as Sabine was. Very, very
impressive, and superbly promising for the future as there are lots of oceans beckoning
to be dived.
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| Taking the plunge for the first time—dude, this is virgin territory! |
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| SCUBA: Some Come Up Barely Alive! Sabine far left, moi far right |
So, four hours ago (after encountering a flat in our taxi thanks to the huge
potholes in our road and an ensuing transfer into a private taxi that happened to
stop) we arrived at the Cancun airport. About 90 minutes later we bid each
other our farewells. I’m typing these last few words on the approach to DFW and
will go "live," I hope, in the Admiral’s Club once I clear customs, and Sabine is on
the way to Yermany. This was a great trip to our neighbor to the south.
Viva Mexico!
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| — 3 — |
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| La ponchada |
Next trip: Waco and a cyclocross race. And then it's turkey time. As if I could eat anything after all that float and bloat....
Jürgen
