Yucatan Cenotes

It is nearly time for a year in review post. But before I begin that project, I have a little leftover posting to do from earlier this year. I want to post this image that I meant to write about before the fall semester spun completely out of control.



This is seriously the best vacation picture I have ever taken. (You have to click on it to enlarge and then you can see the bottom of the pool as well as the reflection of the ceiling in the water.) This is a cenote in the Yucatan, part of our vacation to the Mexican Mayan region in August. To get to these cenotes, we had to climb down steep and damp stairs, in one case we climbed down a ladder into near complete darkness, to arrive at cool and marvelous underground mineral lakes. The water is crystal clear, the air is cool but heavy with minerals, though the scent is pleasant and there is sunlight streaming in through holes in the limestone ceiling of the caves. There were few people at this site, as the cenotes are difficult to find and require a guide with a horse drawn cart in order to traverse the landscape. These cenotes are on a former sisal plantation about 50 kilometers outside of Merida. Swimming in that soft, cool water, I felt some sense of why the Mayans believed that paradise was under the earth. We were alone in this particular pool, floating in the refreshing water with the sunlight filtering down through the roots of massive trees. Snorkeling here was incredible -- small fishes and amazing rock formations. Climbing out of the water, I was able to take this picture before the next group climbed down the ladder to take their swim.

Suddenly the End of Summer

Cue dramatic music. This means it's time to turn my thoughts away from research and back to teaching and writing syllabi. But, as a reward for a little work, I thought I would post a bit about Mexico.

We went to a ruins site, Ek-Balam, about 45 minutes from Valladolid. It's only 30km but there are lots of topes, which are giant Mexican speed bumps, and those can slow down a trip quite a bit. The landscape is wild and lovely, punctuated by some villages, subsistence farming, and federale stations.



We had to hire a Taxi ($300 pesos plus tip at 12 pesos to the dollar, so it was pretty darned inexpensive). Ek-Balam is off the tour bus path, so the site was amazingly empty -- just a few archeologists and some other adventurous travelers.







We thought we could see Chichen Itza from the top of the tallest temple, but only if it's a clear day and you squint.



There's some terrific restoration going on there, with lots of work on the main structure and one of the living spaces. The base of this gallery half way up the main pyramid is a giant Jaguar mouth, with many large teeth and some fantastic figures.







There were some dogs, lounging around in an effort to stay cool and some workers moving huge amounts of dirt and rocks to uncover more of the site. Ek Balam is worth the effort to visit because of the rich restoration and opportunity to explore the various structures.

I put some more pictures of Ek Balam http://picasaweb.google.com/lauraammon/EkBalam via Picasa.

Mexico

Ah, so much to share about Mexico and yet I am so exhausted (Randy likes to say that he needs a vacation after his vacation).

It was beautiful. Here's a sample.



More when I wake up.

Mid-Summer

It's nearly August and this summer has been quite the topsy-turvy challenge. Lots of ups and downs, in a way this summer has reminded me of Space Mountain. Very fast, all in the dark and unpredictable. Fun, in a scary, adrenaline charged way.

Last summer, Ran and I went to Cuernavaca and Taxco Mexico to plan a trip for this summer with students. Because of some minor annoyances, such as the global economic meltdown and swine-flu, not enough students signed up for the class. So, no study abroad for me this summer. That's ok, though, I got lots of writing done and faced some financial demons that might have continued to have been ignored.

We are returning to Mexico this summer with Jas in tow. And we are going back to the Yucatan to explore Mayan ruins and cenotes and the fine snorkeling that is promised on the coast at Tulum. Since we are cheap and anti-resort kind of travelers we are staying off the beaten path (though I could not convince Ran that he wanted to stay in a cabana with a hammock for a bed). More about that after it happens. In anticipation, I was pursuing my pictures from last year and thought it was time to post a few of those.

Taxco and Cuernavaca are both inland cities. This is the view of the cathedral (Santa Prisca) in Taxco from a hike we took. I wrote about our best hike and site visit on my other blog here. (Eventually, I'll move those posts to this blog. Probably.)



Taxco is a lovely town, with a quaint zocolo. The Taxco zoloco is smallish and filled with life, street food, collectivos, and all the silver you could ever hope to buy inexpensively. Taxco was once the silver-mine center of Mexico. We also visited a very extensive cave area near Taxco.

We were with a huge group of people, most of them Spanish speakers, though a few Europeans (mostly from Germany). The group was too big for us to follow much of the guided tour but the caves were fantastic. Apparently Emilio Zapata used these caves as a refuge.





Gearing up to go again is such fun. Randy really loves the planning stages and as a result our vacations are much more organized that they would be if I were in charge. Last year we stayed at three truly awesome places that he researched and found. I would go back to any of the three of them and had planned to take students to those places. The quaintest was in Taxco, Hotel Mi Casita. Such a lovely space, so many plants, great view, terrific hosts and delightful rooms. We had two different rooms there, one with a roof-top patio (very romantic) and one called The Library.

Sweet Ran at our sweet accommodations.


View from our rooftop patio.



This is image heavy and somewhat disorganized. But filled with fun memories. I can't wait to make more.

Summer activites, vol. 1

I have been swamped with many events here in the "oooh pretty" state and have fallen behind on blogging. There is much to catch up about here in my blog and I will begin with an extremely happy post. On May 9, my adorable, delightful, intelligent, witty, and down-right gorgeous cousin got married to a woman his equal in all things. We drove to Marc and Karen's wedding and got to spend time with St. Louis family that we rarely see. For Jasmine, it was the first time she'd met any of these folks and she had a marvelous time. The weekend was too short. The wedding was a marvel of perfectly executed performances, fantastic accommodations at the Omni Majestic Hotel and Chez Bohack-Mendolia, topped with an exquisite reception at an art gallery.




Marc and Karen have purchased a lovely home, complete with garden and swimming pool. It's got a terrific yard and some lovely volunteer plant life. Marc is tending his own vegetable garden. I'm only slightly jealous, as I watched him water the expanse of his garden plot. He has peppers and tomatoes and herbs. It's like having his own farmer's market just outside the kitchen!



I couldn't be happier for my delightful cousins and look forward to many wonderful things from that newly blossoming branch of the St L family.

The journey north

It's not such a horrible long drive from Jax to Boone but after about 6 hours, I hate all my music and have sung myself hoarse. The first hour, which is all about escape velocity (difficult to achieve, especially if there are many errands to be run on the way out of town) and the last 2 hours (all uphill) are the hardest of the 7-8 hour journey north. I have driven that route (95N to 26W to 77N t0 321 W) enough times now that I have particular places I like to stop -- places where restrooms are exceptionally clean, the access both on and off the freeway are easy, there's shade and a place to stretch my legs, and there are sometimes there are really cool birds to observe. These birds landed on my car in GA. They're very aggressive and/or curious (I can't really read birdie body language so I'm not sure which) and they were determined to be on my car while I sat in the shade to mix my tea and nibble on my lunch. This particular bird got tired of slipping on my car hood and used the windshield wiper as a branch. Her chirp was pretty loud and if I moved too much she'd fly away.

Gearing up for summer...

I have a former blog that I used to update sporadically. It's here: http://lauraammon.vox.com/. I used that blog for friends and Ran's family mostly and will probably cross-post for a while, just to see how this goes and whether the fam migrates or not.

This coming week is finals week, which means all grading for me. I have a bunch of bureaucratic stuff to do for the state of FL before I can leave for a summer in Boone. I am excited about this summer -- my sweet sweet cousin Marc is getting married, there's new places to hike, Jasmine's graduation and prep for her first year at college, and of course my writing, which I hope will go well. Or just go. I'm not particular about that.

My plan is to update weekly with something -- pictures, hiking tales, general changes in our lives. Let's hope that goes better than most of my plans. Jasmine was just here for her spring break, which goes to show how crazy the calendar can get when HS spring breaks are connected to easter (argghh!). We did have a lot of fun around all the work I had to do (and she had to do). We went to the mall, St. Augustine and the Cummer Museum in Jax.

Here's Jaz on the art at the Cummer Museum lawn, recovering from some museum fatigue.

What? All the cool kids are doing it....

So, here I am a lemming! I am inspired by my cousin who just started a blog and I wanted to be able to share with him, too. My partner, also has a great blog. Ran actually has several blogs but I'm too far behind to be competitive at this point. I used to post on vox but it's time to give the rest of my life over to google. Between googledocs, googlecalendar, googletasks and gmail, I can hardly think without google. Might as well blog with google, too!

Look for me to have something more substantive to say, soon.