taking flight

Diego shivers. This is the coldest it gets, he tells us. But, I have a friend up in Milwaukee. He tells me I don’t know what cold is!

Indeed.

The clouds are threatening, but I know we’re done with the rains. That was yesterday. Today we have gusty winds – the tail end of a storm system that came down from the north. Up on the Gulf coast of the Yucatan, the wind makes me think it’s a lot colder than the posted 60.

We're in Rio Lagartos – a small fishing village some 100 miles due north from Valladolid (our home these days).




We’re here because of the Reserva de la Biosfera. It’s not the best season for viewing this, but the lagoon is home to numerous species of water fowl. Including the flamingo.

A year ago, the age of the Internet came to Rio Lagartos and the ever enterprising Diego set up a link to his boat trips out on the lagoon. The man knows birds and he knows these waters well (having lived here all his life).

It’s a family operation. His wife runs a small waterfront restaurant in this sleepy hamlet. His brother-in-law takes people out on the lagoon as well. His son is even now wiping down the small motor boat.

I brought my fleecy jacket, but I’m thinking it’s not enough. Do you have an extra wrap? Diego, ever the good person (and knowing that a happy customer is a warm customer), brings a warm jacket for me. Ed looks wistful. Diego runs to his house and comes up with a windbreaker big enough to fit Ed. The man can perform magic.

We set out over the shallow waters.




At times, Diego moves slowly, especially as we approach a bird. They’re timid and quick to fly away.





...and they are, for that reason, difficult to photograph.





But, the hefty winds and muscular gray clouds notwithstanding, the birds are spectacular to behold. Ibis, white pelicans, egrets, cormorants and of course, the flamingo.





The flamingo is orange from the shrimp it harvests in the shallow waters. The plumes, alternating with white ones, are truly magnificent.





Diego works the boat into tight waterways and occasionally, a winged creature takes flight in front of our nose. But mostly it is quiet, interrupted by an occasional screech or whistle.





You see the deadwood? That’s from the hurricane that came through in 2002. The worst one in fifty years.





At other times, we move in more open waters – all the way to the opening of the lagoon.
That’s the Gulf behind us! Diego shouts against the wind.






The birds are unruffled. Wind, no wind, does it matter?









In September, the flamingos come out by the hundreds. Now, you have to follow them far into the heart of the lagoon. That’s for another time. I feel grateful for the chance to come this close to their natural habitat.

Diego turns the boat toward the village.






Under a large awning by the water, Matilde, his wife, serves us hot bowls of shrimp soup. Diego joins us (preferring a Tequilla over my cold beer – to warm the insides!).





Are there a lot of people who come up? We ask.
It’s getting better. Last year was hard. The economy, the flu... Today, the weather is the hard part!

Funny -- to me, the weather is appropriate. The wild lagoon seems more hands off with the clouds hovering over us. Don’t get too close! Take a look, yes, study us, but only for a minute!

A bird taking flight is indeed a beautiful thing, but Ed and I are fully aware that they are fleeing from us. We are the intruders. We should not overstay.






Oh, but it has been such a fine day!

Earlier, in the morning, as we head into the center of Valladolid, we are struck how crowded it is on this cool Sunday. Shops are open, vendors are out. People from surrounding villages have come in to sell, to buy. Some cover themselves protectively against the wind.





But to me, the colors are so warm that the grayness of a cloud or two is hardly perceptible.





We visit another store that sells not only embroidered dresses, but threads for those who practice this craft.





Aida (and her brother? cousin?) sells the threads and patterns, and her family, too, is engaged in sewing. Back in the village -- here it is: She shows us a business card with the family name.

I am struck how much the work of a family stays concentrated around a single craft. There are sewing families, there are water-tour families, there are families engaged in the manufacture of leather goods.

Valladolid is crowded on this day and between the cars, bicycles, motorbikes and the steady stream of pedestrian traffic, the few minutes that I have for taking photos becomes a mere grain of time needed to capture the movement, the family life, the culture of food, of spices, of color: it spills out on the curb, or remains quite hidden in a doorway.




Our last evening here. I feel the pang of having to leave. We aren’t really hungry, but we want one more Yucatan meal. I have the soup with chicken, rice, chick peas, avocado and cilantro. It’s warm and comforting and I make a note to occasionally throw in chunks of avocado into a chicken soup, to bring out the flavor of Valladolid.

Even though it wont really bring out its flavor. We come, we leave and we take just little bits of memories. If we’re lucky, they'll have made a mark.

thoughts on roosters, rain and the Yucatan

Do you sometimes read Ocean and think I gloss over the unattractive parts of travel? I don’t, really. In truth, those just do not stand out for me. The delightful details rush to the surface, most everything else stays to the periphery.

But I decided that today I’ll give equal time to the other side. The day was drizzly, for one thing – a natural setting in which to sprinkle in a frown or two.

Let me start with the rooster. I have to note here that I don’t know much about American roosters since not many people I know own one. But I know Polish roosters very very well. They have a marvelous sounding cockadoodledoo. It warbles in the high notes and continues, like an aria, in a prolonged treble, fading into the distance with a pathos that could only be described as beautiful.

There are a number of roosters in close proximity to my b&b and so I have a range to listen to here. And they don’t wait til dawn to start their chant. I have to say that their cockadoodledoo is stifled – cut off in mid-flight, if you will. Not nearly melodic enough. As if they’re saying – hey, I’m magnificent enough without the noise (for they are magnificent looking). Take me for what I am.

They crow from 3 to 7 and then they grow mostly silent. Why? I can only imagine what pleasures befell them after the hours spent marking their turf and telling others to stay away from their cackling hens.


On to my next theme: coffee. Mexico has some of the finest coffees in the world. I do admit to liking good coffee. With a bit of milk in the morning. Mostly, I’ve had decent to very good coffee here. But the great stuff remains hidden.

It could be that we eat in simple places. Still, if a nation has a taste for good coffee, then it typically trickles down to even the humblest eating venue. But here’s my experience with coffee, just this last morning: we go to a simple eatery on the square. I order huevos mexicana and café con leche. My cup of coffee appears. Very milky, I’m thinking. Very very milky. I ask if there’s a possibility that he could add more coffee to the very very very milky cup. Sure, he answers. He brings a jar of Instant Nesca with a spoon and encourages me to add a few morsels.

Ed, understanding my love of good coffee (he has heard me reflect on just about every cup I have ever had in life) offers to take me to the one swanky café in town. I drink a cappuccino. Still very milky, but the taste is right. But the price for the cup is more than all of dinner last night.





Now onto the weather.

As I said, it drizzled on and off all day Saturday. The temperatures stayed close to 60 and people were cold. I put on clothes I had worn from Wisconsin and felt comfortable, if somewhat grungy. (Apologies to all the beautiful women around me who, in spite of the temperatures, in spite of a busy shopping day, still managed to look beautiful in their embroidered dresses and skirts.)





Okay – nothing else negative stands out. And that’s good, because I feel I've already burdened the reader with trivial observations. You deserve to know about what really mattered. Let me roll out the day for you backwards, starting with dinner around a lovely courtyard. A wonderful meal where the waiter made guacamole at the table and the Mayan chicken was smothered in a gravy touched by tomatoes, raisins and capers.





The waitress was concerned, as we were eating outdoors and Ed was in his short sleeved t-shirt (everyone else was bundled). I assured her Ed never gets cold. She looked at him with something between awe and fear.


Just before that, I looked at the embroidered frocks at the markets again. After all, many of the stalls change vendors daily. Perhaps I missed something.

We came to a stall where, due to some adjustments that were being made to one frock, we stayed around for quite a while.





Maria, the seamstress and vendor explained something to me that I hadn’t quite appreciated. I knew that the dresses and shirts were handmade or machine-made, and that the handmade ones were out of my price range.

But what I hadn’t realized is that the so called machine-made were not a simple act of a peasant girl deftly sewing on a band of factory produced flowers. Machine-made meant that her mother drew the design on paper, transferred it onto the fabric and that Maria then took out a little machine and flower by flower, machine stitched it onto the fabric. A “machine-made” dress that you might bargain for at the market – to feel good about the buck you may have saved – will have taken her five days to complete.





Maria works in a village not too far from Valladolid. Her whole family sews, including her brother (who hung out at the shop with us). He does the hand stitching and it takes him close to 15 days to finish a garment.

And such beautiful garments they are.






Still earlier, we made an excursion to the Mayan ruins. I deliberated for a long time which ruins to explore. We are reasonably close to the spectacular, world-renowned Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza. Everyone goes there. Busloads of Cancun visitors make the trip. Moreover, this is a week-end. Surely there will be crowds.

I chose, instead, to visit the recently unearthed ruins at Ek Balam.





Nearly empty in the late afternoon, set against a moody, gray day, the stone walls, arches and steps pulled you into the little understood Mayan world.

The restored figure heads left you guessing. Because even if you hired a guide, there is too little that he could tell you. What meaning does it have, the gesture, the positioning of the hand? Why the facial expression? Of what importance are the wings on some, the head dress on another?





We climbed the steps to the highest of the Mayan pyramids (or at least higher than the largest at Chichen Itza) and looked out on the flat Yucatan landscape.









On a clear day, you can see the pyramids of the sites forty miles away. On this day, you can only admire the densely green land that hides everything in its foliage.






On the drive back, we came across a farm of... something. Yucca? Ed wonders. No, actually it’s the Blue Agave – a plant used for the production of tecquilla.





Much of the farmlands are hidden from the road. I read that this is cattle and ranch country, but the ranches are hidden from view. Signs tells us that we are passing the bougainvillea ranch or the mariposa ranch, but I can’t tell what’s down the dirt road behind the sign.



So passed a lovely Saturday. Of course, it goes without saying that some of the finest moments were spent merely people watching, in and around town.










...or buying a day’s supply of bakery sweet rools.





Or listening to the birds – from our b&b courtyard (at some point, the roosters grow silent and the birds begin), from the paths weaving around the pyramids, or just passing by a densely foliaged tree, or someone’s garden.

the heart of the Yucatan

In planning our nine days in the Mexican Yucatan, I gave us one day for the beach. Much as I can see myself spending endless time reading in a reclining position at the water’s edge, I am even more drawn by what lies in the heart of the peninsula.

Time to set out.

And yet, as I drag Ed out for a sunrise walk along the wet sand...







(most ran away; this one took the wave head on)






...and look out at the ripples of wave some distance from the shore, I think that I have avoided doing the one thing that really should not be avoided here, in the waters of the Mayan Caribbean: I have avoided getting close to the reef.

They say it’s the second largest in the world and with it, of course, one can find an abundance of fish – the colorful, achingly beautiful life under the sea.

There were two reasons to avoid it – first, the time commitment that I wrote of, and the second has to do with my own sensitivities to bobbing in water. I had snorkeled once before, in Kauai. It didn’t take long for me to want, more than anything, to get out of the water and stand on terra firma.

Friday was our check out day, our head inland day.

And still, there is that reef, just a short boat ride away from shore, just there, beyond where the fishing boats pull in their catch.




Fate intervenes. Check out time is noon. Manuel, who knows the reef and will guide one through the best places for seeing fish is available. The waters are reasonably calm. The gods are telling me – go see the fish already.

We set out.

The reef is part of the National Park System and there are rules on how to view it these days. One rule is that you must wear a life vest to keep you from diving into the depths of the reef. The last thing anyone wants is for you to step on the fragile structures.

And so we jump in and follow Manuel. I don’t have an underwater camera, so you will have to believe me that it, indeed, is a beautiful thing. The reef itself – fan coral, brain coral, elk horn too, is eerily complicated. Shallow here, you can see where it sits on the sand.

Manuel points to the fast moving barracudas, the hidden lobster, the stingray, the grouper – those are the ones I understood. But what shocks the senses is the school of yellow striped fish, the darting navy blue loners, or the one with a bright yellow eyebrow that suddenly looks at you and swims away.

It is a fantastic swim.

Even if I can only take 45 minutes of it.




It’s a brilliant ending to our short time by the sea.

We pause for huevos mexicana in town...



...and turn inland.

This part of the Yucatan is heartbreakingly poor. We follow a country road that weaves through villages with very few solidly built structures. A number of homes are made of sticks. (I’ll post a photo of one that is actually quite pretty until you catch yourself realizing that this is a family home; in one such house, I saw a nicely sized refrigerator within.)





But there are signs of a contentment among so many of the people. The villagers, for one thing (unlike, say in the poorer provinces of Poland) are quick to smile. Big, inviting, from the heart smiles.

We stop in a larger village – Leona Vicario, to have a closer look.

Life here moves along on bicycle wheels. Boys give “taxi rides,” men pedal behind carts filled with whatever cargo they have to move from one point to the next. Children balance precariously on the bikes of brothers or fathers.









As I walk with my camera and with my light hair and light skin next to a guy who is perhaps twice as tall as the next person here, I ask – do you think we stand out?

People are curious and unabashedly friendly. She shows off her pretty dress (these regional dresses are ubiquitous and always eye catching in their color against a pristine white cotton), he flexes his muscles.








We ask where we can get an helado (ice cream) and are directed to this place, where you can also get a newspaper, chickens and bottled water:





We walk along, happy with the creamy bar (what can I say – Nestle’s), enjoying the more leisurely pace of a late Friday afternoon.









As we rejoin a main road, we pass villages where young girls sell peeled oranges at the speed bumps (rather than speed limits, village roads have bumps -- very very effective in getting you to a grinding halt every few paces). There is little traffic. An occasional car and a bus, which we try hard to shake, as it pollutes to high heaven. This, in addition to the smoke in the air from the burning of wood in village homes.

I am struck by the flair with which women, even in the smallest, most humble villages, dress. The clean white fabric richly embroidered, the scarf, the bracelet, the flower in the hair.





And now we arrive at our destination – home for the next three days – Valladolid.

It’s an old colonial town (population 45,000) and at the center, it is quite pretty. Though it’s not a tourist destination per se, it is close enough to Mayan ruins that some travelers do choose to overnight here. I came across this simple but lovely b&b, (so reasonable at $60 per night for a double), built around a peaceful courtyard, just a ten minute walk from the central square.





I’m anxious to get to the square. Yes, yes, it's a lovely walk, that it is, and we'll get to these sights tomorrow, or the next day...









But tonight, I am on a mission. I know that this is the town where women come in to sell the colorful embroidered dresses that are so common here. They take turns selling them at the market stalls. Today, this group of women drew my attention.





I liked them and their little spokesperson...





... and I especially liked the beautiful colors on their blouses and dresses.





Shopping completed. (I am so happy I have daughters back home as an excuse to indulge in this. Sons would be worthless. Sort of like asking Ed – which one do you like? I don’t know, they all look pretty.)

And now we look for food. We had passed a restaurant walking in. A few tables in a courtyard, a menu boasting Mayan foods. I order a chicken in a gently spiced sauce, tenderly baked in banana leaves (it’s absolutely delicious!) and a beer.





The plate of food costs $3.50. The beer is $1.50.

The walk home is especially pretty now, at night. An occasional shop is still open...





...and we do stop at a bakery for a flan...





The air is warm and slightly humid. They say it will rain tomorrow. No matter. We’ve had good weather days. We can stand a pause.