The Letter, Dreaming & Scheming

We always love getting mail at Casa Kahanek, especially when it isn't a pizza coupon. Just a word to the mailers - if you want it to get here quick, you probably should just fly down and hand-deliver it. Just a hint, don't send Valentine's chocolates to us...we won't get them until way after 14 de febrero. Easter chocolates are still a viable possibility though.

We got a letter from Suzi today!

Along with telling us she misses us, she included an update on the HW boat parade. (that was several weeks prior to Christmas) And, the letter contained surprises. She sent Houston Texan earrings for me, and Texan tattoos for Terry. (or maybe she meant Terry to have the earrings and the tattoos are mine) At any rate, we loved getting mail from Suzi but are sad to report we won't be wearing our Houston Texan gear when we watch them in the Super Bowl, as she suggested. The letter was postmarked 12/19 so at that time all of us were hopeful Houston would make it to the Super Bowl. But, it wasn't to be. Thank you very much New England Patriots.

I'm thinking of a scheme. I am sure there is a way we could get Suzi to Merida under the guise of it being job-related. Maybe the Houston Eagle 107.5 would send her down here to report on Carnaval de Merida" live. Or Suzi, Dean, and Rog could come down here and go check out Lizard Joe's Texas Bar B Q in Chelem. I'm sure a barbeque cook-off could be arranged and who better to be judges than Houston's best-known radio personalities. Right? ...live music....Texas....barbeque....Suzi, Dean & Rog...

I'm daydreaming about a scheme. I definitely think the Eagle should fly Suzi down here....let her hang out for awhile. She could do Suzi's Drink of the Week from here, taste-test tequilas, participate in a shuffleboard tournament, (she isn't that good at shuffleboard, though), or take kiteboarding lessons down in Progreso.

Hey, Houston Eagle....are you up to the Challenge? Send Suzi to us in Merida!

We will be wearing our Houston Texans gifts during Carnaval. And Suzi was right, "If we read the letter, the world must not have ended."

Our Vow - Never Take it for Granted

The two of us have often discussed how easy it is to take one's life and allow things that were once new and exciting when you first experienced them, to become routine and mundane. You can overlook the beauty and wonder in redundant experiences so easily over time. I think we first had the conversation when we were living on S/V Cool Change, and we would wake up to the sound of seagulls and water sloshing on the hull of the boat. Saltwater was our backyard. We felt so lucky to wake up each morning to sights, smells and sounds that fed our saltwater souls knowing there were people that lived in landlocked areas who had never seen an ocean. We vowed to never take our good fortune for granted. Of course there were dreary days and work days, and cold days just like anywhere else, but sometimes you just have to look for the beauty and non-routine in the routine. I know a lot of people understand what I am referring to from the things and pictures they post on Facebook. It might be a short sentence about it being a glorious day, or a photo of a bird in a tree, or an extra beautiful sunset...even though the sun sets every evening.
When we first came to Merida, we had a very similar conversation. We didn't want to lose that sense of the extraordinary that bombards you when everything around you is new and different - the smells, the sounds, the language, the food, the architecture....and the list goes on. We never want to become de-sensitized.
Sunday, we took our walk following the bici-ruta through town. It starts (or ends) right out our front door and goes through the middle of Centro and out Paseo. It has become part of our Sunday routine. We pass by the same buildings, same vendors, same storefronts, and see a lot of the same faces along with their same dogs. But, it has never become so routine that we don't see something new. We always come home with some bit of knowledge or a sight we had never seen before.
On Sunday, we spent quite a bit of time looking up. We looked at balconies and second floors we had not noticed before on Calle 64-A houses, we saw a second story outdoor cafe we never knew existed before, and I saw the beautiful statues on the exterior of the Casa de Montejo that I am almost embarassed to say I had never noticed before. How many times have we walked Calle 63 and wandered around Parque Principal? It just reaffirmed that it never has to become routine or mundane.

How Can Anybody Miss the Beauty?

The vendors in the Centro area always acknowledge us, and occasionally approach us with their wares. If they don't try to sell me something, I almost get my feelings hurt because I wonder if I have lost that "in awe" look I know I had on my face when seeing all things beautiful in Centro for the first time. I don't want to lose that look, nor that feeling.
It happened again when we were on our way back home south of the park. A couple from across the street was trying to get our attention. They asked us if we spoke English. They were not familiar with Merida, and had questions about the bus system (not that we are experts by any means), but maybe we had that "walk with a purpose look" about us.
All were subtle reminders of our vow to never take it for granted, and always see the "new" and "exciting" in our day to day.

Blame it on Terry

We have this ongoing feud about clothes washing around here. It is no joke. Every time it is Terry's day to wash his clothes he has perfect weather...sunshine, warmth and little or no humidity. But when it is my day to wash clothes the weather is humid with little or no sunshine, or worse. Terry blames it on the fact that I don't wash his clothes but expect him to do it himself. Hey, this is an equal rights/share and share alike household. Several times now after I have hung my clothes to dry I've had to take them off the clothes line and drape them over chairs to finish drying them. Last Monday, it was a beautiful day and we had previously established that it was Terry's day to wash clothes. I had taken Tuesday.....just like anything else involving work, I tend to put off until tomorrow where Terry will grab the bull by its horns. Tuesday rolls around and it wasn't a gorgeous day, but it was good enough to make me feel cocky about having a nice clothes washing day. I washed early and hung the clothes. About an hour later I get a knock at the front gate, and the city office neighbor was at the door trying to explain to me that they were going to be chiseling the concrete tinaca on the back second floor of the building. Pieces of concrete would be flying into our back patio so I needed to get my clothes in so they woudn't get messed up. So much for the nice wash day. I thanked my neighbor for letting me know, got my clothes in, and once again hung them over the chairs to dry. Terry was smirking.
Tuesday evening late it started raining and it rained all through the night. Wednesday was much cooler, cloudy and drab. Thursday was not much better. I had to walk to the store alone because I couldn't get the other groundhog who hates cold weather to even leave the house. Friday was really cold and nasty and we spent the day inside reading, guitar playing, painting, and playing computer games. No clothes washing for either of us since my attempt on Tuesday. Friday night Terry started getting a little antsy about washing his clothes. I think he has a reminder set on his computer that actually "reminds" him when he needs to wash clothes. I know he has one for trash days and water boy days.

Early this morning it was still overcast outside, but Terry announced he was going to wash clothes. I'll be damned. He put those clothes out on the line and within minutes, the clouds dissapated and it is an absolutely beautiful, sunny and perfectly wonderful wash day.
I can blame it on Terry.
And just to set the record straight - I wash all of the linens!

Pakal's Revenge and Evidence It's a Small World

Palenque - Part III

We had originally thought our next move would be catching a bus or combi and going to the waterfalls near Palenque. Then, eventually continuing on through the mountains on the 2nd class bus to Ocosingo...sounds kinda like Ocho Cinco...then to the beautiful colonial city of San Cristobal de las Casas. I kept thinking I wanted to come home with a beautiful hand-crafted wall hanging to hang over the guest bed since we have no headboard. You know, the bed that is only a matrimonial....sorry, future guests!

But, plans change. We ended up feeling a little washed out...you always blame it on the food, but personally, I think it is something airborne we aren't used to. To cover all the bases...maybe it's something airborne that is on the food. We used the day as a rest day and ended up taking a combi into Palenque and checked bus schedules for Merida, San Cristobal, Villahermosa. It's hard to get somewhere when you don't know where you're going. The funny thing is - it's pretty easy to buy a bus ticket and get to Palenque within a 24 hour period. But, it isn't so easy getting out of Palenque. Buses fill up fast leaving out. Walked the 4-5 blocks from the bus station to the Chedraui in Palanque and bought bananas, bread, crackers and nutella butter.


from www.amazon.com

Waiting for a combi we struck up a conversation with a lady. She was waiting on a combi and, ironically, was going to El Panchan as well. On the ride out, she took a couple of copies of a book out of her bag and showed us-----she had just received copies of her recently published book "The Drum Wars - A Modern Maya Story". Carol preceded to tell us that she had lived at El Panchan for the past 8 years. I can't imagine hanging around the place for more than a week or so....wow, much less 8 years!!! She explained that the book was part fiction/part non-fiction about all the craziness and crazy people of El Panchan. But, what really sparked my interest was when she laughingly said that now that the book was published and the "true story" was out, she would most likely be forced to leave El Panchan.
But wait, that's not all. When she found out we were from Merida, she asked if we were aware that Alfonso Morales of Catherwood Travels was the son of Palenque's Don Moises Morales Marquez...Don Muchos....Chato.....all very well-known in the world of Palenque and Maya archeological circles. It's all in the book. I am ordering the book from Amazon, having it shipped to Lorraine and Ken's address, and when they come down this way in March, I will ask them to bring it to me. I was to realize later that Carol Karasik, Author and Alfonso Morales of Merida are both affiliated/connected to the Maya Exploration Center out of Austin, Tx.....what a small world!

 Can't wait to read it. Here's the link for the book - http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+drum+wars

The Next Day -

The next day we ended up deciding to save the remainder of the trip for another walkabout, and work our way back to Merida the best we could. That ended up meaning we caught a bus (really ended up just being a van) to Villahermosa (2 1/2 hrs.) where we caught a bus back to Merida...another 9 hour trip. The only funny thing was that the bus took the same route we traveled in the van, within a few km. of Palenque and actually went through/stopped in the town of Emeliano Zapata - neighboring Palenque. We could have spent a lot less time traveling if we would have taken a short 2nd class ride to EZ and caught first class from there. Oh well, live and learn.

We had not planned on traveling to Villahermosa and regretted that we didn't have the contact information for Baldemar's sister that lives right there in Villahermosa. We would have loved to have met her, visited with her, and taken some pictures to pass on to Baldemar. So, Baldemar back in Texas and Terry and I so close to his sister in Villahermosa...yes, indeed, it can seem like a small world!

It's All Boolchit

Palenque - Part II

When we got on the combi an elderly Mexican man immediately started talking to us...he asked us where we were from and when we answered: "Texas" he immediately went into a history lesson on how Texas used to be a part of Mexico until we fought for our independence. Yes, he is correct but it didn't keep us from getting a little nervous about where this conversation was headed. But, we were to learn that Victor knows history...lots about it. And, he also thinks most of what we all are taught in the history books is "Bool-chit". I will go into more detail on this, but Terry and I will never know for sure if Victor realized saying "bullshit" isn't a generally accepted English vocabulary word. And, he said it alot!

Victor won us over and we hired him as our guide as we toured the ruins of Palenque. We were part of a group that included 5-6 Mexicans and a couple from the UK. Victor spoke to all of us in Spanish and then would repeat it in English. We later learned he knows Korean, Dutch, and several other languages...I think 8 in all. He had been guiding in Palenque for 45 years. Hiring Victor was totally at our discretion, but after NOT having a guide in Chichen Itza we had decided we wanted a guide.

So glad we made this decision!

Victor...it's all bool chit

 

  I don't really know how to go about describing what one feels upon entering the Palenque ruins site. The ancient, but perfectly constructed buildings are so majestic set amongst the lush, green mountains. I can only speak for myself but I got emotional and teary-eyed when I first entered the site. The whole idea of a city of several hundred thousand people living in this area B.C. is hard for me to put my arms around. Although the height of the civilization was not until later on around 700 A.D.

 

This was at the time Pakal and Pakal II were in power....both of their tombs have been discovered with the tomb of Pakal and its contents moved to Mexico City, but Pakal II's tomb is on display at the museum along with the jade mask and other contents within it.

History myth #1 from Victor was Columbus and 1492...that's all boolchit. Remember the New Age backpackers I talked about previously? Well, I started feeling the whole thing --- if I was a tad younger I would want to spend a lifetime in Palenque too. Tall balsa trees are growing on the site grounds, and occasionally you hear water babbling from the waterfalls and streams that run along the edge of the site. Victor said the settlement measures 6 km. x 4km, but only a fraction of it has been excavated.

We saw hard evidence of a civilization built from a mixture of peoples....Victor talked a lot about the indications that Palenque was a melting pot of many cultures from India, Eqypt, Israel, China, and the South Pacific. He talked about the crossing of the Bering Strait to eventually make it to what is now Mexico and Central America. He went on to say the more they uncover at Palenque the more they learn...some of it contradicts earlier beliefs and hypothesis about the civilization, but nobody has the guts to rewrite history and set the record straight...and he said "that is boolchit".

We spent the biggest part of the day at the ruins then caught a combi back to El Panchan. Was a leisurely evening followed by cocktails and dinner at Don Mucho's. Pizza, pasta and fairly standard Mexican fare is the lunch/dinner menu. Live music at 8 that lasted for a while....then drums beating later in the night. Did it keep us awake? NO!
TO BE CONTINUED -
 





 

 



Tripping to Palenque, Chiapas

We left out of Merida at 8:30 in the morning on a First Class bus and 9 hours later we were in Palenque, Chiapas just on the edge of the mountain range. I can never sleep on the bus because I'm always scared I'll miss something....so I can tell you we made short stops in Campeche, Escarcega, Emeliano Zapata, then Palenque. We were boarded once and some of the passengers that appeared to be foreign were required to show their passports, but Terry and I didn't have to show ours. I could almost touch the Bay of Campeche as we went through Champoton (west of Campeche), and then we headed more south and were in the rolling hills and cattle country. I saw caballeros riding in the patures and lots of cattle - for Dad, Gary and Baldemar - they were mostly Brahma and Brahma cross-bred cattle. They had plenty to eat and looked very healthy and happy. We would have been in the State of Tabasco at that time, I think. Then we saw this ranchero sign I thought you may find interesting, ie, Beefmasters.

Sign at Entrance to Ranchero Don Guillermo

 

The town of Emiliano Zapata carries no real significance as far as our trip went, but it was named after the man that was instrumental in leading forces during the Mexican Revolution back in 1910. The revolutionary group was called the Zapatistas. Fast forward to 2004, and there was the uprising of the Zapatistas in Chiapas against the govt. upon the signing of NAFTA. There was blood shed in the state of Chiapas but it was short-lived. Although there are still places now in Chiapas that the Zapatistas are said to retain control.

Upon arrival in Palenque we hailed a taxi and went out to El Panchan about 5 km. out of Palenque. Let me see how to describe Palenque and El Panchan. Palenque is right on the edge of the jungle and the foothills. It is not particularly picturesque, but it does have some parts of town that are full of vegetation with some nice hotels. Did we stay there? Of course not.

Now, let me describe El Panchan....which is where we did stay. It is somewhat of a compound with a collection of 4-5 places to pitch tents or hang out in a cabana. Ed and Margarita's is by far the nicest with clean rooms and private baths...and ceiling fans! The grounds are nicely-kept and the paths leading out into the jungle to the rooms are all cement/rock and very nice. And, the price for our room was 320 pesos/night! And Margarita is a jewel who knows more about the political picture in the US than most Americans.

Arrival at Ed and Margarita's...El Panchan...Palenque, Chiapas

La oficina at Ed & Margarita's

Walkway to our room....2-story bldg. w/ 8 rooms in this section

A real deal at $320 Mxn./nt.

There is one open-air restaurant called Don Mucho's that is in the middle of it all and it is the social hub. Although we observed very little interaction amongst the dazed and confused younger folks at El Panchan. You are smack in the middle of the jungle, just outside the entrance to the ruins, and everybody is walking around with their backpacks. You hear languages from all over the world, and it's New Age clashing with 100 B.C. if you get the drift. Would we stay there again? Absolutely!

We saw a whole family of Howlers!!!!

We woke up the first morning to the sound of howler monkeys in the trees. It started out rather soft, then the noise got louder and eerier, then tapered off when the monkeys traveled farther away in the treetops. Went for coffee and breakfast at Don Mucho's after we had eaten dinner there the night before. On our way back to our room is when we spotted a whole family of howlers in the trees....probably 5-6 monkeys in all with two tiny babies playing around with each other.

Headed out to walk to the ruins. It's about a a 3 km. walk to the entrance to the ruins once you have entered the park. There are other places to stay that are actually inside the park. You see hibiscus and heliconias growing wild everywhere.

We were enjoying the walk so much we finally decided to hop on a combi when one came by or otherwise we were scared we'd never make it to the ruins. It was on the combi that we met Victor.
TO BE CONTINUED - It's all boolchit

Feliz Ano Nuevo

NOTE: After posting this blog I had a gracious reader correct my use of the word Ano without the tilde over the n...it seems I was wishing everybody a Happy New Anus. I wanted to respond that it was exactly what I meant, but I knew I couldn't get away with it. So until I figure out how to change my keyboard to the Spanish keyboard....You just have to realize Happy New Anus! means Happy New Year!....thank you J. for pointing this out to me.

2013 is going to be such a great year...at least the first few hours have started out better than 2012 ended.

Remember the continuing saga with the gas tanques? We just don't seem to get along well with propane. Our propane tank ran out Sunday evening in the middle of preparing dinner. No worries - we finished grilling (oh! that's another story) and moved the potatoes to finish cooking in the electric skillet. Anyway, we couldn't get a propane delivery on NYE and for sure won't get one today --- it is as quiet as a churchmouse in Centro this morning! Cold showers again. But really? What are the odds that we would run out of propane on a Sunday, the day before NYE? Damn the bad luck. Guess I will just have to let you know how this one turns out because it isn't over and done with yet.

As far as the grilling goes - let's just say the charcoal here is different than what we are used to. It doesn't light! And, using vodka for starter fluid is a bad idea, damp leaves don't make good kindling, and pages ripped from an old Yucatan Today DON'T burn...at all. Four hours later we were eating hamburgers that were partially grilled and partially cooked in the electric skillet. To end this on a positive note - beef down here must be grass-fed real stuff. This country girl LOVEs IT and I don't know if I can ever eat ground meat from HEB again. Dad and Gary - can you put a good sized calf out to pasture for us now? Don't give it any grain, please.

Another exciting thing happened. We heard a whistle then a guy on a motorcycle sped off from in front of the house. It was the mailman! He left us not one but two pieces of mail. Christmas cards from Hermana Joanne and Bernice from Victoria! They had been mailed in the early part of December. These were our first two pieces of official mail....besides the water bill. Muchas gracias to both of you!


Yesterday we went to the Chedraui and bought champagne, came home and regrouped...then waited until about 3 to head to the Mercado for bombitos. I guess we waited to make sure the mercado would be at it's height of busy-ness and utter craziness. I love that place! We knew that bombitos were a big part of NYE but had not a clue as to where to find them. We didn't see anybody selling them anywhere, so we started asking younger males each time we saw one thinking that they would be the most likely to be in the know. Finding stuff is kinda like going on a treasure hunt where you are "cold" then get "warm" and then finally "hot". We were told to go to the mercado. When we got to the mercado on Calle 62 we asked again. We were told to go to the big mercado. There we asked again. We were told to go to the esquina entonces a la derecha. Sure enough! All along one of the streets were storefronts filled with pinatas and bombitos...and throngs of people. Now I have to come clean....all I really wanted were Sparklers. We loaded up on them, came home and sat on the patio --- listened to not one, but three masses held in the botanical gardens next to the church. Sitting on the patio we could clearly hear the priest, the singing, and the parishioners during all three masses. We turned our music off and listened to mass....3 times....7, 8 and 9pm. It is probably good it ended at 10...otherwise, we would've fallen asleep before midnight. But, we used up our supply of sparklers  and brought out the champagne. Both bottles were empty before midnight.

At the stroke of 2013, we went up on the mirador that we will have completed someday and watched and listened. The fireworks were so plentiful throughout Centro they created a dense smoke that looked like fog rolling through Centro. One of our neighbors had a dummy all dressed up and filled with firecrackers that he set afire in the middle of the street...the busy intersection that goes around La Ermita Parque no less. It is a symbol of destroying all that is bad and put behind...I think, or something like that.

And now....it is 2013!