VINTAGE VENTURES: I write my travel journals to look back and remember our ventures. A secondary reason is to allow me to organize all my trip photos. I have thousands of photos. Organizing them into a cohesive story makes sense.

Mayans sure had a thing about skulls. There was a very nice museum at the Dzbilchaltun Ruins.

DAY 13 – Thursday, February 15, 2018

DZBILCHALTUN RUINS & CENOTE XLAKAH

As a rule, we don't do breakfast. Our Airbnb hosts changed that. We were getting excited about breakfast. This morning, we were delivered a batch of fluffy scrambled eggs with avocado slices and a sesame seed bread pocket. Our fruit plate was papaya, cantaloupe, and watermelon. Along with the espresso cream, we got homemade green energy juice (cucumber, orange, spinach), which sounded horrible but was delicious. It was rounded off with toast, butter, jam, yogurt, and oatmeal.

After breakfast, we flagged down the San Lucia bus to centro (8 pesos each) to get to the colectivo to Chablekal (10 miles north) for 8 pesos each. Chablekal is a small town about 2 miles from the Dzbilchaltun Ruins. There is a cenote at the ruins, so our snorkel and mask were brought along.

We took a motorbike tuk-tuk from Chablekal to the Dzbilchaltun Ruins for 12 pesos. Tuk-tuks are not exactly comfy, but they are a blast and very cheap. It is the only public transportation in many little towns and villages around Merida.

This breakfast drink, made from cucumber, OJ, and spinach, sounds and looks gross. Surprisingly, it was good.

Many small towns and villages surrounding Merida use tuk-tuks as their public transportation.

Dzbilchaltun, one of the oldest Mayan cities dating back to 500 BC, featured a very nice museum with several artifacts in good shape. The ruin's main attraction was the Temple of the Seven Dolls. It also had the requisite climbable pyramid, plus it boasted a building with the broadest set of stairs in the Yucatán, 425 feet wide.

Translated, Dzbilchaltun means "the place where there is writing on the flat stones." At its height, Dzbilchaltun had 40,000 inhabitants. Although well past its prime, it was still inhabited at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

The Temple of the Seven Dolls is a masterpiece at Dzbilchaltun. During the vernal equinox, the sun at sunrise shines directly through the east/west door opening.

This structure is simply called Structure 36.

The view of the jungle from the top of Structure 36.

This structure is labeled Structure 44 Central Plaza. The staircase is 425' wide.

Like the artifacts at the Mayan Archaeological Museum in Merida, the exhibits at the Dzbilchaltun Museum were stunning.

We are starting to recognize that Mayan art has a unique style. It is almost 'cartoonish.' I do not mean that in a derogatory sense. I loved the style.

Above and below: Smaller churches holding Ash Wednesday services.

This is a page from a Mayan 'folding' book called a 'codice'. The Mayans not only had a written language that was very different from our alphabet, they diligently chronicled their history, their culture, and religion. Paper, called 'huun', was made from the inner bark of a fig tree.

Sadly, and one might say criminally, the Spanish priests destroyed all the books they could find in their religious zeal to convert the Mayans to Christianity. Out of thousands of books, only four survive. This page is a rare example of what little survived that book-burning period.

With the temperature over 90º, Cenote Xlakah defaulted as the highlight of the ruins. This cenote was completely open, and the water was nearly at the surface. Lily pads were in the middle of the pond with deep dark caves around the outside circumference. One cave was a cylinder 10 feet in diameter plunging nearly straight down practically to China. The sun caught some blue rocks partway down the cylinder, and they just shimmered like a drug-induced hallucination. The whole experience was topped off with schools of gorgeous colorful fish.

Then it was another tuk-tuk ride back to Chablekal and a colectivo ride back to Merida just in time for supper. We tried Café Pop, a small diner recommended in a blog I had read. We stuffed ourselves with a chicken quesadilla and a beef taco. For the taco, we were given a mountain of tender beef chunks, a wad of guacamole, and ten white corn tortillas. We built our own tacos.

Our side orders included Mexican rice with a fried egg on top (different but excellent), black beans with tortilla chips, and a fantastic salsa. Coffee and a bottle of water rounded out supper. It was way too much food, but it was terrific, and the whole meal set us back about $17 US, including drinks and tips.

Café Pop served up a feast. Check out the fried egg over the rice.

We had heard that Thursday nights are free concert nights at Parque Santa Lucia, a lovely park on Calle 60 with several exclusive outdoor restaurants. These concerts are very popular, and the park was packed with people. Fortunately, we found a nice bleacher seat with a direct view of the stage.

The first band was a big Mexican swing jazz band. While they played, a professional Mexican dance troupe performed. The troupe danced as couples wearing traditional white costumes with lots of added color accents. After the jazz band, a storyteller came up and told three or four amusing stories; that is, the crowd was laughing but being in Spanish, we didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

Next up was an unbelievable traditional Mexican trio. One guitar player strummed intricate rhythms on a nylon string guitar. Another player wowed us with insanely fast and accurate solos, also on a nylon string guitar. The third musician laid down smooth bass lines and chord fills on his electric 6-string bass. All the while, they sang perfect 3-part harmonies with the oddest but tightest harmony chords imaginable. They were as good a band as I have ever seen, and the lead guitar player was world-class.

It was another perfect day.

This swing jazz band was tight.

This dance troupe performed perfectly choreographed dance numbers as the big jazz band knocked out their peppy tunes.

These guys wowed us. I have never heard such intricate notes and rhythms played on nylon string guitars before. And don't get me started on their intricate 3-part harmony.

Dave and Wanda

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