Next, we're taking our first Rick Steves tour, to Sicily. We will also spend a couple of days on Lake Como with our German friend Marika, and follow the tour with a few days on Malta and a few days in Switzerland. All of this (except Switzerland, of course) will be new to us. We sped along the north shore of Como in passing once, going from Pontresina to Lugano, via the Bernina Pass, but we've never spent any real time on that lake.
Monday, February 13, 2017
Flamingos, a Beach and a Serenade
On Thursday, February 2nd, we were going to eat breakfast at Chaya Maya again, but discovered that they didn't open until 8 a.m., so we went instead to Bistrola 57, and were pleased. The coffee was the best we had on the whole trip.
Then we went on another Turitransmérida tour, this time to Celestun. The group was somewhat smaller, and Mary Joy and I were the only English-language clients. Our guide, whose name we didn't get, was older than Raul, and his English was a little less accented. He picked us up first, and immediately gave us the overall, general information that he later gave everyone else in Spanish.
The van drove about an hour-and-a-half, over roads not as good as on the day before, through many small villages where some of the inhabitants were living in tiny concrete-block (?) buildings with thatched roofs. Mary Joy was shocked at the poverty, but there was no indication of destitution or hunger. I saw much worse in El Salvador and Guatemala in 1989 and 1992.
Celestun is known for the Reserva Biosfera Ría Celestún, a coastal wildlife refuge famous for its flamingos. The group divided into two fast boats, which shot out the shallow estuary to the place where hundreds of flamingos were noisily feeding. Then we went through a mangrove tunnel and visited a freshwater spring.
On our return, we went for lunch to a hotel near the beach. We were sitting next to a young couple from Mexico City, a pediatrician and a pediatric nurse, with whom we had an interesting conversation about health care and politics in Mexico. They were pretty disillusioned with Mexican society in general, and had decided to have one child of their own and adopt another, because of the vast need for adoptive parents. They felt that the best thing they could do for their society was to give it children who were brought up to be good, responsible people.
Then we changed into our swimsuits and walked over to the beach, whereupon it started to rain, on and off, not very heavily. We didn't actually do any swimming, but sat under a tarp, drinking Sol beer.
We got back to Merida in time to go to the restaurant Manjar Blanca, which closed its doors at 6 p.m. A very nice meal, though I don't remember what exactly we had.
That evening we walked the block to Parque Santa Lucia, where every Thursday night they put on an hour-long concert of Yucatecan trova music, called La Serenada. Some sort of festival was going on at Santa Lucia church, but we didn't have time to stop. On the program for the concert was the city band, as on Monday night, and another Ballet Folclorico, this one much younger (Juventil, instead of Adulto Mayor). There was a guitar quintet (called a trio, for some reason--maybe the drummer and vocalist were extras) that was apparently well-known and loved locally--they "had to" do two encores. Then there was a female vocalist, before the show finished up, a little late, with more folk dancing. Very nice. As we walked home past the church, we saw that the parish festival was over, with only a cat present to do some scavenging.
The next morning we caught an early taxi to the airport and flew home through Houston again.
Then we went on another Turitransmérida tour, this time to Celestun. The group was somewhat smaller, and Mary Joy and I were the only English-language clients. Our guide, whose name we didn't get, was older than Raul, and his English was a little less accented. He picked us up first, and immediately gave us the overall, general information that he later gave everyone else in Spanish.
The van drove about an hour-and-a-half, over roads not as good as on the day before, through many small villages where some of the inhabitants were living in tiny concrete-block (?) buildings with thatched roofs. Mary Joy was shocked at the poverty, but there was no indication of destitution or hunger. I saw much worse in El Salvador and Guatemala in 1989 and 1992.
Celestun is known for the Reserva Biosfera Ría Celestún, a coastal wildlife refuge famous for its flamingos. The group divided into two fast boats, which shot out the shallow estuary to the place where hundreds of flamingos were noisily feeding. Then we went through a mangrove tunnel and visited a freshwater spring.
On our return, we went for lunch to a hotel near the beach. We were sitting next to a young couple from Mexico City, a pediatrician and a pediatric nurse, with whom we had an interesting conversation about health care and politics in Mexico. They were pretty disillusioned with Mexican society in general, and had decided to have one child of their own and adopt another, because of the vast need for adoptive parents. They felt that the best thing they could do for their society was to give it children who were brought up to be good, responsible people.
Then we changed into our swimsuits and walked over to the beach, whereupon it started to rain, on and off, not very heavily. We didn't actually do any swimming, but sat under a tarp, drinking Sol beer.
We got back to Merida in time to go to the restaurant Manjar Blanca, which closed its doors at 6 p.m. A very nice meal, though I don't remember what exactly we had.
That evening we walked the block to Parque Santa Lucia, where every Thursday night they put on an hour-long concert of Yucatecan trova music, called La Serenada. Some sort of festival was going on at Santa Lucia church, but we didn't have time to stop. On the program for the concert was the city band, as on Monday night, and another Ballet Folclorico, this one much younger (Juventil, instead of Adulto Mayor). There was a guitar quintet (called a trio, for some reason--maybe the drummer and vocalist were extras) that was apparently well-known and loved locally--they "had to" do two encores. Then there was a female vocalist, before the show finished up, a little late, with more folk dancing. Very nice. As we walked home past the church, we saw that the parish festival was over, with only a cat present to do some scavenging.
The next morning we caught an early taxi to the airport and flew home through Houston again.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Uxmal and Kabah
On Wednesday, February 1st, we went to breakfast at Cafetería Pop, simple but decent, then waited nearly half an hour at our hotel to be picked up by our Turitransmérida guide, Raul, and led around the corner to where an almost-full 14-passenger van was parked. Then we drove off to another hotel and filled it up. The tour, to the important Mayan ruins at Uxmal and Kabah, was in both Spanish and English, but we and two young Chinese women (teachers from Hangzhou--"We've been there!" we said) were the only people to need the English version--though Mary Joy and I did pretty well with the Spanish, and the Chinese had so much trouble with Raul's accented English that they eventually gave up listening and just went around with us, taking pictures. Raul's explanations were very good, and the sites themselves, especially Uxmal, were magnificent.
Finally, we stopped for a late lunch at the Hotel Hacienda Uxmal (not bad, not great), and then headed back to Merida, where, after looking for crafts at the government-backed Casa de las Artesanías (a little disappointing) we had a decent (not great) dinner at Amaro, while listening to a very good singer-guitarist.
As to crafts, Mary Joy was addressed a couple of times on the street, completely out of the blue, by guys (one claiming to be a professor of Mayan languages at the University), who both, separately told us about the same wonderful place to shop for genuine Mayan crafts--but we had to hurry, since they would close soon and wouldn't be open the next day, because of a festival. I smelled a rat and steered Mary Joy away from these very nice, helpful men. Later, we asked the desk guy at our hotel and he ratified my suspicions, telling about a French couple who had, after buying a hammock, had asked him what they should have paid for it. No more than two or three hundred dollars, he said. They had paid a thousand, so he got them in touch with the Tourist Police, and they got their money back. He recommended the Artesanías shop across the street, where the hotel had bought a lot of their things, and we ended up getting a number of nice craftworks there (mostly from Chiapas, where Mexicans on this trip kept telling us we had to go).
Finally, we stopped for a late lunch at the Hotel Hacienda Uxmal (not bad, not great), and then headed back to Merida, where, after looking for crafts at the government-backed Casa de las Artesanías (a little disappointing) we had a decent (not great) dinner at Amaro, while listening to a very good singer-guitarist.
As to crafts, Mary Joy was addressed a couple of times on the street, completely out of the blue, by guys (one claiming to be a professor of Mayan languages at the University), who both, separately told us about the same wonderful place to shop for genuine Mayan crafts--but we had to hurry, since they would close soon and wouldn't be open the next day, because of a festival. I smelled a rat and steered Mary Joy away from these very nice, helpful men. Later, we asked the desk guy at our hotel and he ratified my suspicions, telling about a French couple who had, after buying a hammock, had asked him what they should have paid for it. No more than two or three hundred dollars, he said. They had paid a thousand, so he got them in touch with the Tourist Police, and they got their money back. He recommended the Artesanías shop across the street, where the hotel had bought a lot of their things, and we ended up getting a number of nice craftworks there (mostly from Chiapas, where Mexicans on this trip kept telling us we had to go).
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