Thought-provoking ...

Apologies – internet access has been sketchy and persnickety, so the ensuing posts are the past week’s events J

3Feb08

This has been such a great weekend! It started off with visiting Chichén Itzá, which was really interesting. I don’t really know what I was expecting to see/feel, but the Castillo was simply incredible. Of course since it was named a Wonder of the World, we were not able to climb it, or really anything else for that matter. It was also by far the largest site that we have visited as of yet. What was really cool was that we were able to actually have some sort of grasp on what we were seeing and apply what we have been learning in our Maya class. As we were looking at glyphs and architecture in general, we were able to see the differences in styles and what each part signified. At the Temple of the Jaguar, we saw two columns – one had a man and symbols of life, such as live animals, and the other had a woman with skulls and crossbones. I found it really interesting that the pillar with the woman had symbols of death and the man had symbols of life. While I am by no means making a generalization that women were always portrayed with signs of death, it was thought-provoking to see that because usually women are signs of fertility and life. A great deal of the site was roped off for consolidation and upkeep, so we only grazed the surface. A common theme across everything we saw was the feathered serpent. It was on everything from the Castillo to the ball court. In fact, the way the sun shines on the Castillo during the equinox looks like a serpent slithering down the side of it, ending with the serpent head at the bottom. Our guide, Hugo, is also incredibly knowledgeable about everything in the site, including all the birds flying around :-P While everything at Chichén was really amazing, I think the reason I wasn’t in complete awe was the amount of people. There were SO many tourists there from Cancún that it felt almost sacrilegious.. These sites were very revered in their day, and commoners were not allowed in the majority of them – it was quite an honor to even be allowed to see the site. That was something that Hugo mentioned on our way in – that we should considered ourselves very privileged to walk on the grounds.

After leaving Chichén, we drove about an hour and a half to the city of Valladolid. Since all the cities are set up the exact same way, with a central plaza and the rest of the city set up in a grid formation, at first glance it looked like a smaller version of Mérida, with less people claro que si. We checked into the gorgeous Meson de Marques, with water pressure and hot water almost immediately after turning it on! We were all in heaven – the first thing we told each other as we met up for dinner was about how amazing it was to take a shower with water pressure and not have to wait 5 min for the water to heat up! The simple pleasures that so many of you over there in the States take for granted – water pressure being a much underappreciated commodity ;-P We then decided to take a stroll around the plaza to both explore and find a good place for dinner. As we were walking to the governor’s building, picked up a little friend – Fidó (yes, there is an accent on the ó) He followed us into the building and up the stairs as we were looking at some of the artwork, and even to the Lonchería where we ate dinner. Each of us was able to buy dinner for fewer than 20 pesos, aka 2 USD. Afterwards, we all went back to the hotel to watch some TV and veg. I think by this point we are all getting a little homesick, so anything that is in English is a welcome diversion. We ended up watching The Fugitive IN ENGLISH with Spanish subtitles. The irony :-P

Call time the next morning was 6:30 AM, so we were all given box lunches – my vegan self got 2 bananas, an apple and some boxed apple juiceJ, and we were off to Río Lagartos to do some bird watching. We went out, 6 to a boat, into this gorgeous lagoon. The drivers were extremely knowledgeable about birds and pointed different species out to us. We all got very good at identifying Great Blue Herons, Little Blue Herons, Ibis, Sandpipers, Brown Pelicans, Frigate birds, Wood Storks and Double Crested Cormorants. We also got to see and feed a crocodile that was literally a foot away from our boat. The guide slowed down and started tapping a fish in the water to get the croc’s attention. At this point we were all in awe of seeing one that close up and a tad afraid that our guide was trying to get it to come closer! After feeding it a barracuda, we went to this area where the water was so salty that one could simply float. The water had a pinkish tint to it from all the tiny shrimp that lived in it, and there were flamingos off in the distance. We were told to go in backwards and to be careful not to get any of the water in our eyes because of the incredibly high salt content. Personally, I was very skeptical and wondered if it would even work, but it did! It was so surreal to be able to “stand up” in the water without my feet touching any bottom and float! The ride home was a good 10 min, and Aakash and I were at the bow of the boat taking in the amazing scenery, and the beauty of the water. It really reminded me of the times when I was a kid and we would go to Lime Lake in upstate New York. My grandparents had a house on the lake, as well as a boat and a dock. I used to be scared to death to sit in the front of the boat when he would go fast because the way it lifted out of the water made me think I was going to fall out :-P Eventually, I grew to love it as we would go in and out of the inlets and into the deeper waters in the farther ends of the lake. It also really reminded me of how much I love the water and want to hopefully live on it one day (Sleepless in Seattle anyone J)

After returning to the shore and eating lunch, it was time to venture out to Ek Balam. This site was completely different from the ones that we have seen before. It looks so much more like an actual town and a place where people could have lived. There were so many trees, and the Acropolis had some AMAZING friezes that were incredibly preserved. The Acropolis was also 1 meter higher than the Castillo at Chichén. We were all joking with Rebecca asking if they sent word to Chichén that their temple was 1 meter higher. From the top of the Acropolis, off in the horizon we could see the vague outlines of Coba, another site that we are going to visit later in the semester.

An overall observation I have made is that the Mexican people really know about their history. Talking with my host mother, she is really knowledgeable about the sites and also Hugo, our tour guide really knows his stuff as well. Granted, he is a tour guide, but I have noticed it in other people as well. They really seem to take an active interest in their history, and even if they do not know all the ins and outs of the sites, they know each one that exists and a general idea of the history of each. I’ve also noticed that they are way more in tune with politics and the happenings in the US than most of us are. This got me thinking about how many people in the States really know our history. While he is by no means a historical reference, I remember watching an episode of Jay Leno when he did one of his “Jay-Walking” things. He would go out on the streets of US cities and ask seemingly elementary questions about our history or politics. I do not remember the exact questions he asked, but I do remember being completely appalled that there are so many people who do not know the Bill of Rights, or even the Pledge of Allegiance after grade school. What does this say about us if the people in a completely different country know more about what is going on in ours than us, the people who actually live there?

Well, there’s my 2 cents. On Tuesday we leave for a day trip to Acanceh, Mayapán and a few other small cities. Thursday it’s off to Campeche for some museum tours and then on Sunday, we depart for the field station of Kiuic and 15 days of total field work.