Fish from The Yucatan dropping in North Dakota!!!

THE OREGONIAN
courtesy of the Washington Post

Fossils show worldwide catastrophe on the day the dinosaurs died

Mar 29, 9:32 PM

Robert DePalma/University of Kansas

A tangled mass of fish from the deposit in North Dakota's Hell Creek formation.

Sixty-six million years ago, a massive asteroid crashed into a shallow sea near Mexico. The impact carved out a 90-mile-wide crater and flung mountains of earth into space. Earthbound debris fell to the planet in droplets of molten rock and glass. Ancient fish caught glass blobs in their gills as they swam, gape-mouthed, beneath the strange rain. Large, sloshing waves threw animals onto dry land, then more waves buried them in silt.

Scientists working in North Dakota recently dug up fossils of these fish: They died within the first minutes or hours after the asteroid hit, according to a paper published Friday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a discovery that has sparked tremendous excitement among paleontologists.

"You're going back to the day that the dinosaurs died," said Timothy Bralower, a Pennsylvania State University paleoceanographer who is studying the impact crater and was not involved with this work. "That's what this is. This is the day the dinosaurs died."

Roughly three in four species perished in what's called the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, also known as the K-Pg event or K-T extinction. The killer asteroid most famously claimed the dinosaurs. But T. rex and Triceratops were joined by hordes of other living things. Freshwater and marine creatures were victims, as were plants and microorganisms, including 93 percent of plankton. (A lone branch of dinosaurs, the birds, lives on.)

Four decades of research buttresses the asteroid extinction theory, widely embraced as the most plausible explanation for disappearing dinosaurs. In the late 1970s, Luis and Walter Alvarez, a father-son scientist duo at the University of California, Berkeley, examined an unusual geologic layer between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods. The boundary was full of the element iridium, which is rare in Earth's crust, but not in asteroids. Walter Alvarez is one of the authors of the new study.

The Hell Creek fossils represent "the first mass death assemblage of large organisms anyone has found" that sits at the K-Pg boundary, study author Robert DePalma said in a statement. DePalma, a doctoral student at the University of Kansas, began excavating the site at North Dakota's Hell Creek formation in 2013. Since then, DePalma and other paleontologists have found heaps of fossilized sturgeon and paddlefish with glass spheres still in their gills. 

They found squid-like animals called ammonites, shark teeth and the remains of predatory aquatic lizards called mosasaurs. They found dead mammals, insects, trees and a Triceratops. They found foot-long fossil feathers, dinosaur tracks and prehistoric mammal burrows. They found fossilized tree gunk called amber that had captured the glass spheres, too.

The site has "all the trademark signals from the Chicxulub impact," Bralower said, including the glass beads and lots of iridium. In the geologic layer just above the fossil deposit, ferns dominate, the signs of a recovering ecosystem. "It's spellbinding," he said. In the early 1990s, researchers located the scar left by the asteroid - a crater in the Yucatán Peninsula. The impact was named after the nearby Mexican town of Chicxulub.

Suggested "kill mechanisms" for the Chicxulub impact abound: It may have poisoned the planet with heavy metals, turned the ocean to acid, shrouded Earth in darkness or ignited global firestorms. Its punch may have triggered volcanoes that spewed like shaken soda cans. 

Hell Creek is more than 2,000 miles from the Chicxulub crater. But a hail of glass beads, called tektites, rained there within 15 minutes of the impact, said study author Jan Smit, a paleontologist at Vrije University in Amsterdam who also was an early discoverer of iridium at the K-Pg boundary. The fish, pressed in the mud like flowers in a diary, are remarkably well-preserved. "It's the equivalent of finding people in life positions buried by ash after Pompeii," Bralower said.

At the time of the dinosaurs, the Hell Creek site was a river valley. The river fed into an inland sea that connected the Arctic Ocean to a prehistoric Gulf of Mexico. After the asteroid struck, seismic waves from a magnitude 10 to 11 earthquake rippled through this sea, according to the study authors. This caused not a tsunami but what's known as seiche waves, the back-and-forth sloshes sometimes seen in miniature in a bathtub. These can be symptoms of very distant tremors - such as the seiche waves that churned in Norwegian fjords in 2011 after the giant Tohoku earthquake near Japan.

 Seiche waves from the inland sea reached 30 feet, drowning the river valley in a pulse of water, gravel and sand. The rain of rocks and glass followed. The tektites dug “small funnels in the sediment laid down by the seiche,” Smit said, “so you know for sure they are coming down when the waves are still running upriver.” This is preservation, in other words, of a fresh hell.

 -- The Washington Post 

The end of Mexico

So I never got around to posting about leaving Mexico after our trip to the Yucatan. It was a flight home and all the boring things that go with that, including hours spent in Customs lines.

But one thing that sticks with me is our magical sheep.

Our maid at the Alea Tulum left us a tiny sheep effigy on our last day. It has bells for feet and a tiny tag in Spanish, that referenced Montana. I was intrigued and confused.

Turns out, it's a good luck charm for us and, my sneaking suspicion is, it's a charm used to ensure we tip the maid!

But I looked it up and found an article all about our little sheep:

"The effigies of borreguitos, with their bulky and white wool, pink nose and flirty eyes are present every December in the markets, tianguis, craft stores and those dedicated to the esoteric. It is a tradition to hang them behind the door of the homes at the beginning of the New Year, because they are said to be a magnet for good luck, prosperity and that they attract money to those who own it. The origin of this tradition is not clear, because while some attribute it to a legend of the Swiss Alps, others claim that it comes from Andalusia, however, both are based on the fact that in Europe the sheep are known as a great mystical symbol of abundance and prosperity. The funny thing is that each version has its prayer to accompany this little lamb. So, if you opt for the Swiss version, you should put the following caption: "Borreguito de la montaña, make your money together every morning". According to the vendors of the various stores, this spell is very effective to achieve the goal. The Spaniards assure that since ancient times the sheep are considered as biblical animals and that they are related to abundance and prosperity due to the monetary value that they have always had, since they were currency and an element of calculation in the sale and purchase of goods That is why they accompany their lamb with the following refrain: "As the legend of Andalusia tells us, whoever possesses one of them will fill his house with love and harmony". Therefore it is very important to have a sheep inside the house at the first moments of the new year, to ensure that during the following 12 months that place is filled with wealth. Another very important point is that these little sheeps are given away, because it does not take effect if the figure is bought by oneself. In Mexico, these animals have had a lot of acceptance, because sheep wool is associated with the colloquial term given to money. And they are sold in all materials, from ceramics, plastic, bread dough and fomi. The esoteric Mexicans have added elements that make them, they say, much more effective for the problem they want to attack. In this way, the neck of the animal is decorated with a coin that means abundance. If what is required is love, with putting a heart to it the problem is solved. A four-leaf clover will attract luck and the jingle bells will bring joy. "They are very effective that's why every year we sell many of all the models, it depends on the client, what they want," said Mauricio Gutiérrez, tenant of the Sonora market in the Mexican capital."

North! to Alaska!

Hunh.

So apparently I've now become a travel writer.

We just booked a cruise to Alaska for my vacation in August.

Happy 50th Birthday to me!

We booked a Celebrity Solstice.

That means we booked a Solstice on the Equinox!

I wanna see a pizzly bear!

Ek Balam and the jungle fire

Day 3 dawned clear and gorgeous. We weren't sure what to do but we finally agreed that no matter how badly Robert wanted to snorkel, my burned body couldn't handle one more second in the sun unprotected. So we planned a day with lots of sunscreen, two hats, 2 long sleeved shirts, and a wrap to put over my hat!

(No. That's not the Yucatan. It's there to get your attention!)

We decided to drive the rental car to Ek Balam, which was on my bucket list. We knew it could be dicey, and had to hope we could avoid the cartels and taxis on the way. Pepe had told us the police, the taxis, and the cartels were all in cahoots together. He said they were all crooked. Playa del Carmen hadn't paid the cartels their money, so there was a big, ugly shootout. Now the best nightlife was found in Tulum, not PDC. And according to Pepe, we should avoid PDC, Cancun, Tulum at night, and anything where we might run into trouble. So Ek Balam seemed safe. Ho ho ho.

We showered and ate at the hotel, enjoying the staff and the food again. I got to show off what little Mayan I knew, and we joked with the staff and smiled a lot. I had the avacado smoothie bowl with walnuts, chia seeds and some sort of dates. The "sweet" part of the avacado was whipped to a yogurt consistency and swear that dish became my favorite food! I also had the eggs Benedict, which was nowhere near like the American version, but it had the softest "english bread" around, which was just an English muffin they ran through a warm room and smothered in butter. Perfect for me. The eggs were also incredible. The chef also has this habit of slicing the ham really thin and cooking it so it melts in your mouth like good bacon. The sauce was yellow but I have no clue what it was. Robert had a cinnamon roll that looked incredible and an omelette with everything in it, including goat cheese, mushrooms, and that great ham, plus we had the obligatory lattes we love so much.

We then packed up and headed for the Super Aki in Tulum. We stopped there and circled around, trying to find a parking spot. I had read all these reviews about cops having your car towed if you parked wrong, and the resulting circus involving taxis and huge bribes, so we tried to avoid that. But we found a good spot and went in, got our supplies including sunscreen and hats and shirts, and then hit the road. We took 180 towards Valladolid.

The trip was supposed to be 1 and 1/2 hours each way, give or take. We were on the road by ten. Our car is small and zippy and has great air conditioning, so we didn't realize how hot it was getting. We drove for a long time on 180. I swear it was solid jungle, creeping right up onto the highway. It looked a lot like a jungle version of some of the roads in New Hampshire, where you can't see a damn thing for MILES and everything is sort of encroaching on the highway, only more so. An iguana ran into the road at one point and I swore at Robert to miss the goofy critter. There were also jaguar crossing signs.

Periodically, like every 10 miles or so, we would pass a Yucatecan on the road, walking into the jungle or resting in the shade, picking up cans or bicycling with a load of construction materials. It was bizarre, mostly because it was 100 degrees out and there was nothing on the road but "jaguar crossing" signs and garbage. I'm not kidding about the jaguar crossing signs. 3 of them had been hit on the road near Tulum in the last month.

The garbage was insane. It couldn't have blown in. There's just no way for wind to blow through that jungle. Robert says there has to be illegal dumping going on. With the jungle so thick at the edges of the tiny highway, the garbage was solid for 100 kilometers. It was like a line of whipped cream smeared on the plate around the bottom of a cake. It was shocking. I did notice there were ranches here and there, and a pole for electricity parallel to the highway. I asked one of our Alea staff about it the next day. He said the ranches are like family farms. The ranch owner knows the jungle very well on their plot, and trespassers beware. I can't imagine how anything survives out there, ranch or not, especially humans.

We drove and talked and looked at routes and things, and turned west at a crossroads. There was a family sitting in that hot, hot sun with a small sunshade over them, right at the Alto! sign at the crossroads. As soon as we stopped there to turn left towards Valladolid, they swarmed our car. There was a little boy and two little girls. Robert rolled down his window to split up the change we had between those kids. They were selling oranges and some other fruits, but we didn't want to make the rental car all sticky, so Robert told them to keep the oranges. It was a bummer but sweet of him. One girl knocked on my window on my side and nearly scared the bejeezus out of me. I had no change except what I had dumped in the console, so I didn't roll down my window. But we quickly realized these kids were being very vocal and wanted us to buy more, or give them more money at the very least. Robert told them he had no more change, hoping they would move away from the car. But they were actually leaning on it. Then when the other kids started to walk away, one little girl on his side, a slightly older girl, started to whine. She said, "Ohhhh, Gringooooo. Moneeeeeeey." with a totally sad face and I couldn't decide whether to laugh or give her my wallet. She was so cute and so pouty. I burst out laughing, once we were finally out of earshot.

So we drove along highway 295 for a while, periodically being passed by taxis or small cars. Robert knew to stay between 90 and 100 km/hour, to avoid kerfuffles with the police. But locals drove like banshees, flying past us with half a dozen people in the bed of their truck or with little kids with their heads stuck out the sunroofs like weasels on a prairie. I worried about those little kids.

We knew we were getting close to Valladolid when we started seeing stucco huts by the road that were not abandoned, some with wares in the front area. There were wicker hanging chairs that were huge and had many different shapes, from round to triangular, and gorgeous mosaic tiles, plates, and animals. We weren't positive where to go, but somehow we found the next turn to go north to Ek Balam. It was fairly close to Valladolid and I started getting excited.

Ek Balam is a Yucatec-Maya archaeological site and is literally titled Zona Archeologica Ek Balam on all the signs. It was the seat of the king who actually ruled over Chichen Itza in the 8th century, and houses the tomb of said king, called Ukit Kan Leʼk Tok'. Ek stands for either Black or Bright star, no one knows for sure. And Balam stands for either Jaguar, which was the assumption for many years, or witz monster which is the current thinking. I like Star Jaguar, so that's what I'll think of it as.

When we got to the site, there was a fire in the jungle. You can see it in my pictures. I don't imagine jungle fires burn real well with all that humidity. The fire had jumped the road we were coming in on, and no one seemed to care. Then again, when was the last time you heard about a raging jungle fire in the Yucatan? Plus, who the hell would respond to fight a fire? They can't even get out there to finish excavating the damn site!

We pulled in and found a parking spot, but we were approached right away by a young guy telling us "Buenos tardes. ¿Yo hablo espanol?" And telling us we needed to pay him for parking. One of the scams I'd read about was locals charging for the parking when it should be free. Refuse them at your peril, I had read, because they can have you towed and it becomes a police, taxi, cartel nightmare that ends with you paying a huge bribe slash fine. I told Robert to pay the kid, which is what everyone says is the smart thing to do. But Robert pointed to the free parking sign and ignored the guy, saying he was going to go look at a vendor's booth before we went to the site entrance. We played cat and mouse for like 5 minutes, with me telling him to just pay the kid and him refusing. The people in the car next to us said they paid 20 pesos, so Robert grudgingly gave him 50. He turned to me after and said I was a terrific negotiator. I gave him a raspberry.

We packed water bottles in the bag I'd brought and set out for the site entrance. It was hot. Africa's got nothing on the Yucatan. The humidity got to me pretty quickly but Robert looked unfazed the whole hike. We didn't know there was a fee but when we got to the ticket building we paid it and got our tickets. We declined a guide only because we couldn't afford it without finding an ATM, which wasn't likely. So we started out on the first sacbe' road on our own.

The path winds through a cluster of vendors. We stopped and paid two costumed actors dressed as Mayans to let us take pictures of them with Robert. Their costumes were gorgeous but it was strange to me because the true Mayan descendants we had talked to were like 4 feet tall and these two actors were Robert's size. It dawned on me it might be because their heritage was inclusive, not exclusive.

The first glimpse we got of the ruins was mellow. You could see a tall building in the distance and several small buildings including one to the right and one to the left. There were two teenage girls posing for photos in a giant X shape in an archway and lots of people milling around the medium sized building in the middle. We chose to turn and follow the edge of the walkway to the right. There were huge "soul" trees and spiked trees in the area as well as dozens of birds. Some of the birds were black, some were reddish quail types in groups, and some were vivid lemon yellow. They sang beautiful, soft bird calls that warbled over the hot, humid air like something from a dream. We hiked up the stairs to the right, peeked in doorways, looked out into the jungle beyond the right hand building. Than went back down the stairs and wandered a bit.

We stepped inside small rooms at the base of the central building and walked hand in hand through the ball court area that was covered in grass. The Ball Court was a huge deal in Mayan society. The game was used to decide political maneuvers and determine wars. Victors were honored with beheading! We started walking North again, heading the same way we'd been heading when we first walked up to the site, and suddenly realized there was a huge building on the other side of some tall trees. You could see glimpses of an enormous set of stairs through the trees. My heart skipped a beat, but it might have been from the debilitating heat.

When we got past the trees, we were greeted to an amazing sight. The largest temple I've personally ever seen stood in front of us. The main temple has ten open doorways on each side of the stairway, in a line at the base of the building. There are four plateaus with ornate plaster or stucco carvings, mostly intact. The stairway was massive. There was a large group of tourists of all colors, shapes, and sizes gathered at the edge of the trees, obviously taking in the scope of the temple. There were people taking pictures with huge lenses and couples struggling to take photos of one another with the temple in the background, without being photo-bombed. There were a couple dozen human beings at different places on the stairs, some sitting and resting, some holding the stairs above them whether they were on the way up or down, either way. I walked right over and started climbing.

Halfway up I was pouring sweat off my body as though someone had a water jug upside down above my head. My face felt like it was on fire. I wasn't wheezing, but good gawd it was hot. We stopped halfway up so we could look at the first plateau. We eyeballed the golden yellow statues and carvings and noted the rooms. We started up the stairs again and I swear it felt like I would tumble backwards if I tried to look up, so it felt like it took way too long to get up those stairs. I passed parents and children, teenagers and old people. There was no way to get into the highest platform at the top without wriggling up a skinny little section to the right, stepping on 1 foot long wooden rounds pressed into the tiny walkway space, with no handholds in sight. It occurred to me how surprising it was that there weren't more deaths reported up there. Two young burly guys pushed passed me as I stopped to consider that walkway.

I got to the top and tried to catch my breath. Have I mentioned it was 100 degrees and we were in full sun? The Yucatan is closer to the equator than Oregon so the sunshine is more direct and brutal. I fanned myself with the two sides of the white wrap that was draped over my hat and considered the view. I tried to commit the view to memory. I know from studying that the bumps in the jungle canopy in the distance are as-yet un-excavated temples. I know the jungle beyond where we were standing is home to Jaguars and pit vipers. I know there are undiscovered cenotes in that jungle, sinkholes filled with miraculously clear water filtered by thousands of years of earth processing. Can you imagine what the ancient Mayans thought of the cenotes in this inhospitable jungle?

I considered throwing myself back down the steep stairway to avoid the unrelenting heat.

We finally walked back down the temple stairs, holding onto the stairs above us and walking sideways. My thighs were burning halfway down so we checked out the plateau on the left. (Right, from the down-orientation.) The tomb of the king was on that side. The mouth of the jaguar was on that side. The best carvings and statues were on that side. I listened as a couple of women told their kids to come see the part of the temple that had been used as "el bano". The carved figures were mesmerizing.

We hiked the rest of the way down and walked to the last side building towards the beginning. There were sacbe' roads leading into the jungle and we walked them a little ways, coming across a huge striped iguana, and turned back when we realized there was an entire family walking reverently down the road the same way we were walking. It felt like we had less right to be there. Robert said "it's a service road, that's all" and turned back. Service road. In the jungle. He cracks me up.

I finally realized I was still pouring sweat and was starting to lose vision. My eyes were seeing black tunnels and it came and went. I was convinced I couldn't go another step, but I just looked at Robert and told him I needed to get back to the car. We went back to the car. We sat in the air conditioning for a while and the nausea and black vision went away. Robert said I looked really overheated for a long time, but that my cheeks were back to being normal color finally. So. We bought a deep blue blanket with the Mayan calendar on it at the vendor near the car and then headed out, back to Valladolid. The fire had jumped the road again.

When we got Valladolid, we decided to park and wander the city park near the Spanish Iglesia de San Servacio, which was built in 1545. We parked a block away and wandered the central square. Unfortunately, the cathedral was closed up and obviously not available for any viewing. But the park was beautiful. The birds were singing like crazy, as though we were in a zoo. There were also these crazy chairs that consisted of two chairs facing each other but sort of side by side, like an S if you looked down on them from above. There were tourists there, to be sure. But many of the people were these tiny, beautiful, brown Mayans with pristine white linen clothes and perfectly coiffed hair. It was wonderful to shyly watch them go about their business and to smile at them with their babies and their grandmothers and their every day lives. One woman with several heavy bags stopped on the street to rest in the shade, restlessly shifting the bags in her hands. She felt the heat like I felt it.

(Photo by Matteo Colombo)

We bought some souvenirs and had a couple cold bottles of Coke, then went back to the car and headed home to Tulum. We made one stop on the way at a fruit stand. I bought a cucumber, two tomatoes, two green lime-looking oranges and something that looked like a pear-mango cross that I ate while standing at the vendor.

When we got back to Tulum, we went back to the hotel and quickly threw on our bathing suits. I put on a shirt and wrap to cover all my sunburn and we asked the hotel staff if we could take kayaks out. They got them in the water at the waterline and off we went. It was about 6pm. We kayaked the ocean from the beach to the breakwater where the reef starts. It was about a mile each way. The ocean kayaks are wider, and thank gawd. They were more stable in the wild water with the afternoon wind. But oh, that kayak back towards the beach was incredible with the setting of the sun. What a vacation.

We quickly showered and changed and told the staff we were heading to town for dinner, in case they were in the habit of holding the restaurant open for MIA guests. We then drove to Tulum and found parking on a side street. We walked around amidst the crazy, vibrant night life for a while. Eventually we made our way to the Municipal building and found two basketball teams playing each other on a tennis court in the middle of a carnival. Locals were everywhere.

We wandered deeper and ended up on a side street at a hole in the wall eatery called Fabuloso. We ordered tacos and sopes and tamarindo sodas and ate the food slathered with whatever that firewater sauce was in the cup on the table. Robert cried, it was so hot. Dinner cost 110 pesos which is around $5. He tipped the waitress another hundred and she stared at him like he had two heads. We both assured her and she took the money. She was so sweet.

We found an ice cream shop two doors down and got little cups of local ice cream. We wandered while we ate them. On the main strip, we bought a couple more souvenirs, including skulls for the boys and a t-shirt for Robert. We bought a supposedly Cuban cigar for me, and we oogled lots of local handcrafted jewelry that was truly amazing. We talked to some locals and turned down a few silly offers for exorbitant wares.

We decided we were beat and went back to our car and drove home. Robert sat with me on the pretty, long hotel dock on the Caribbean behind our hotel while I smoked my cigar, then we went back to our room and hit the hay. It was the world's most perfect day, second only to yesterday.

Pitch black

Today dawned clear and warm and we awoke in our gorgeous bed and hopped right up. Robert started making coffee with the little Nespresso machine, which was amazing by the way, and I took a shower.

One of the issues with the Yucatan is the plumbing. This whole area was underwater 12 million years ago. (The shell fossils we found in the cenotes later, prove this.) When the peninsula became dry land, it left the base of the Yucatan as nothing but limestone. That means the only potable water is found in the thousands of cenotes that are reservoirs of pure, earth-filtered water, dotted all over the area.

There's literally nothing here but limestone and the broken down limestone that creates the gorgeous white sand we see on the sacred sacbe' roads, on the reef in the Caribbean that's up against the Yucatan peninsula on the south-east side, and on the roads and beaches everywhere.  It also means every single hotel or business with a public restroom must insist we do not throw our toilet paper down the toilet. We have to throw it in the garbage can we find in every single restroom. It's weird, but it's a thing.

Our bathroom is amazing. I know that sounds weird but it is so gorgeous. The shower head is one of those great big rainwater affairs but with a lot of pressure. There's two sinks made of marble and amenities like soft white robes and big fat beach towels. So my shower was nice and when I was done, Robert got in.

We went to breakfast in the hotel. We had lattes and fresh pineapple juice. The waiter brought us two small shot glasses with lime in them and said it was Mescal, to start our day. Robert and I were aghast for like 15 seconds. Then the waiter burst out laughing and said it was just hot water to wake us up. Robert and I laughed at that because our faces must have been priceless when he said Mescal. Note to self, Benito has a sense of humor.

I've been studying the Mayan Language, and I swear this helped with our staff at the Alea hotel on the Caribbean coastline. They are all Mayan. So being able to ask ¿Bix A Beel? really caught them off guard. We talked with them about Mayan phrases and pronunciation. And they talked to us about places to go and what to avoid. It was charming. We asked about where each person hailed from, and how they came to be here. The stories were fascinating.

After breakfast, which consisted of bizarre egg/red sauce dishes and amazing juices and lattes, we walked to the meeting place for our tour. I guess the tour buses can't drive down our road, so the meeting spot was back about a half mile on our road, which was easy enough to walk.
  
The bus was right on time. When it stopped by us, out popped Pepe, our guide for the day. Pepe is from Mexico City but he was a smaller man, like the Maya. He looks like a tiny Brazilian man, all dark brown with a rash guard on and an ankle bracelet. He was wearing a plastic gold crown over his hat. He checked us in and put our wristbands on, then explained he was wearing a crown because it was his birthday. He was 32.

We were second to last on the bus so we ducked and climbed aboard, picking two seats in the very back. We were next to a couple that looked slightly older than us: a strawberry blonde with eighties hair, massive eyeliner, and mascara, and one of those larger men with a heavy-set face and a square haircut.

There was also a mother and father from Germany with their daughter and her girl friend, a young couple, and two more people I can't remember, for the life of me.

Our first stop was the Tulum Ruins. It's part of a Federal park, so it's regulated pretty heavily. Robert and I took a bag with our phones, water, a Kodac sport underwater camera, and a few odds and ends.

The tour guide and the driver, Mike, offered us a large umbrella for the tour, but it was very heavy. We declined it. It is the only mistake we made on this trip.

We also had a professional photographer with us. His name was Diego. He was sweet. He tried very hard to stay in the background and not be in our faces, but to get pictures of each couple or family.

 We hit the restrooms as a group and then started the climb. Pepe said he is a Federal Guide and is educated so well he could give the tour we were taking around the Tulum Ruins. However. He had set us up with a guide on site, and he followed along with us.

The first thing we noticed were the animals. There were very big iguanas everywhere. All I could think about was my oldest child and my grand-lizard. Axel would love the wild iguanas.

There were also beautiful birds everywhere and they made loud but very sweet sounds. Some of the birds were bright yellow or deep blue, but many of them were apparently some sort of Yucatecan Starling that makes 7 distinct sounds but is known for eating the eggs of all the other birds.

The Coati's (Coati Mundi, pronounced "quat-ee moondee") were also present in abundance, looking like raccoons but with ant-eater snouts. We were told they are quite aggressive. They looked like racoons!

We also came across a squirrel eating something in a tree. It looked exactly like the innards of a cattail, but Pepe called it bread. A random female tourist was questioning in another language what it was eating, and I thought she was speaking French. I called to Robert to speak to her, since he knows French, but it turns out she was speaking Italian. That worked out fine since Robert is able to at least eek out a conversation in Italian, enough to explain it to her.

We rounded a corner and came across the first limestone arches that signified the ruins were starting. Because of all the things I've read about the Yucatan, much of the dialogue from the guide was stuff I already knew nearly by heart. The only thing that truly surprised me was his explanation that the Mayans originated in Guatemala. Looking for a better life, he said, and settled here.

The second thing I didn't know is how *tiny* the Mayans were. The archways and tunnels into the site were so small, it caught me off guard. I had no idea the Mwayans were such tiny people, but we saw direct evidence of this all over the Yucatan.

The paths leading into the main city ruins were all pale, dusty limestone sand. The trees actually grew right up in the middle of the pathways, too, and the limestone stairs were worn down to shiny golden stones. The effects of both things together made everything sort of glow. It was awesome.

There's so much about the ruins on the internet, written by those more qualified than I, that I hesitate to describe them in great detail. What I will do is describe the parts I loved.

The site is huge, and it's built on the cliffs at the edge of the sea, but it also borders the jungle in the interior. There's a huge central area the size of two football fields where they housed the central marketplace. It had short green grass and a hundred poodle-sized iguanas. Beyond that are large buildings with carvings and rooms and towers. It's all made from limestone blocks, which were white and now have some black lichen on them.

One of the gods looks like the splayed out frog you see in marine towns, but facing downward. They call him the Diving God or descending God. He looks just like he's diving into the water, but in a square design. It's cool.

There are also doorways into rooms here and there. And they're so *small*. The designs of the buildings are also odd, including the hundreds of stairs up to the main temple. What's the point of that? Maybe short people like to feel tall.

The earth is brown and dusty, and the heat was a shock even though we knew it would be hot.  The humidity was stifling. Nearly everyone had bottles of water, and many people congregated under big trees to take advantage of the shade.

One huge bush near the government house was bright saturated pink and it was huge. I'm sure it's a bougainvillea and it was awesome. There were also orange flowers, purple trumpet type flowers, and red flowers. Not positive on what any of those were but they were gorgeous.

At any rate, we wandered the whole site, which was huge. We had some free time but only about 30 minutes. This was the leg of the journey on which I got sunburned to the color of a lobster. Literally.

Next, we all piled back in the van and drove down the coast a small ways to the bay where we would be snorkeling. We changed and showered on the path to the beach, where an older couple waited to take 10 pesos for those who weren't part of the tour. We were given snorkeling gear and instructions. I wasn't sure I could do it but I was damn well going to try.

So we took photos and let Diego the photographer take photos and then climbed in the boats. Now, by way of explanation, the Tulum side of the Caribbean is part of the Great Mayan Barrier Reef. It also has like a mile of super shallow water until you get out to where the waves break. That makes the water really warm, up close to the beach and makes for gorgeous snorkeling at the breakwater amidst the coral reef.

So the guides anchored the boats (we went in two) and told us to put on our flippers and fall backwards into the water. Robert did this like a pro. I slid onto the boat edge and slid in facing forward, because I'll be damned if I was going to belly flop on my back! Once I figured out how to snorkel, I was a snorkeling badass! We saw a stingray and a ton of gorgeous, colored fish as well as black sea urchins and live coral. We saw fan coral, brain coral, finger coral and labyrinth coral, alive and floating on the currents with their bodies attached to the reef. It was incredible. Robert and I held hands during some of it.

Our time was up way too fast, but hours go by like minutes here. We swam over to the boats and pulled off the flippers, climbed the ladder, and said goodbye to the snorkeling. All of us noted the salt in our hair from the Caribbean. We piled back in the van and chewed down on the snacks we were given, which included real cheetos (you have no idea how hard it was to find real cheetos for Robert) and granola bars and sodas and an empanada thing with spinach and corn mash that was insanely good.

Next, we drove to our cenote', called Cenote' Caracol. We learned a lot about the ecology of the Mexican jungle and the Yucatan and the cenotes in particular. The ride was a bit long and uber bumpy, but Pepe kept us laughing the whole way. When we got to the cenote', it was in the middle of the Yucatecan jungle. We were the last tour there for the day, so we had it all to ourselves.

We sprayed ourselves with bug spray, and then had a very nice buffet lunch at the picnic shelter. Pulled pork, rice, fresh fruit, tortillas, salad, hibiscus tea. It was good considering it was in the middle of the damn jungle. Next, we hiked down to the "dry" caves and walked through a system of pitch black caves full of stalagmites and stalactites that would give Carlsbad Caverns a run for their money. I've been there, so I know.

The water from the rain drains down through the earth and drips through the limestone, carrying with it some of the calcium carbonate. So over an 80 year span, a stalactite forms. When the water drops off the stalactite and starts forming a pillar directly underneath, a stalagmite forms. The two meet in the middle eventually. Most of us know this. What we don't  know is that in the Yucatan, the tree roots spiral downward until they find water. That means many stalagmites and stalactites have long tree roots in and around them. It was amazing to see, and to realize the trees above, and different ones at that, were all reaching into the cenotes for life-giving water. Cool.

The next thing we did was shower. Pepe said the water would be hot, but he was kidding. It was cold cenote' water. Robert squealed when it was his turn. Then we finally walked down the ladder and into the deep, dark cave, bats and all. We climbed nearly vertically down until we were all standing on a 15 foot square dock, in zero natural light. Diego told us each to jump backwards into the cenote' so he could take pictures. When it was Robert's turn, he counted his own 3 and jumped so there's no mid-jump pictures. I did not jump. Because I am afraid to death of pitch black AND of bottomless pit waters AND of bats AND of eels and fishies eating my toes and WHAT IF A MONSTER COMES UP AND EATS ME?

After 5 minutes of saying there was no way I'd go in, and being furious with meself because I really wanted to go in, Robert and Pepe came over and said they'd help me in. So I walked down the stairs, took their hands, and started to swim. We swam for a long time, past caves and through caves and past a couple eerie green lights placed for guidance. Robert was given a flashlight because he's a responsible person, and I was never so glad in my life that he had a light.

We stopped as a group twice. First, we stopped on a white limestone shelf and Pepe told us fun facts about how the fish swim past the heliocline to get into the cenotes and how they survive on bat guano! That first stop is where the German mom realized the fishies were toe nibblers. One fish bit a woman's hip. Some of the catfish looked huge.

The second stop was where Pepe had us all take off our snorkeling gear because the caves ceilings were so low, the tubes would scrape the limestone as we swam through. Pepe also insisted on turning off all the lights and explaining how the ancient Maya (he pronounced it Mahjah!) believed the cenotes were the entrance to the underworld, or Xibalba. He wanted us to experience Xibalba as the Mayans would have. We left our lights off for like 4 hours, but Robert said it was only 5 minutes. Longest 5 minutes of my life.

We swam and wriggled back through a tight space and were right back where we started from. It was awesome. We got to swim for a while in the purest water in the peninsula. What I didn't know was the icy cold water was doing wonders for cooling my FRIED ASS SUNBURN. Oy. So that was the end of the Ocean Tours, tour.

It was a grand experience and I'm so thankful I swam in the cenote'. After we got home to the hotel, Robert drove me into Tulum to the Super Aki grocery store to get aloe. Apparently the Yucatecans don't burn like us Irish so we found nothing but baby lotion. I slathered it on and used nearly half the bottle by the time we got back to the Alea again.

When we got changed and freshened up, we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. Once again we had the filet mignon, but also a lamb dish mixed with gravy and a mashed corn that tasted like mashed potatoes only better. Plus we had crab stuffed chicken. Robert has been a chef and a caterer and he says the Alea Chef could give the Cordon Bleu a run for its money! We ended the night with Mexican television and the chocolates on our pillows.

Borrowing trouble

This day started early. By 2 am, we were up and moving. We had stops to make on the way to the Eugene Airport. It was cold and I just couldn't leave my Patagonia jacket behind no matter how warm I assumed it would be in Mexico.

We had two seats on a small plane and I sat by the window. The pilot said we needed fuel and de-icer on the nose, so I was afraid we would miss our connection. But I later learned Alaska "pads" their flight times, so you always get where you're going.

The flight to Seattle was so fast, I thought we were flying over Salem but we were starting to descend already! We had only 35 minutes between arrival and departure so we ran to our gate. We even heard them calling our name as we were screeching in to the gate itself.

Our seats on the flight to Cancun were together but on the aisle and the middle, with a nice woman sitting at the window on our row. She looked familiar, and I liked her smile right off.

And boy did we talk up a storm for 6 hours! She was headed to Playa Del Carmen, south of Cancun, to stay with friends and attend an equinox ritual at the Temple of the Magician. She showed me photos of locations all over Mexico and the Yucatan from her previous trips. It was wonderful.

The best part of talking to Julie, my Playa Tigre, was that she eased my mind about the situation in Tulum. So, I'd started reading posts over the last two days on the pages of the online Yucatan Times. I was shocked to find a LOT of stories about murders, shootings, crimes, towed rental cars, extortion, police scams and gas station scams, issues with waste and dogs and creatures and bribes and so much more. I was starting to think we shouldn't do this trip.

Then along comes Julie. She made it clear that yes, those things are happening. She said it's like flying into Chicago: don't be stupid and everything will be fine. She told us how to avoid issues. I am so glad she convinced me to not borrow trouble, as my grandmother used to say.

We got into Cancun, and got off the plane. We got through Customs fine, but after changing our cash for pesos at a really good rate, we walked outside. And couldn't get back in to check for our Enterprise rent-a-car! They don't let you go in, once you're out.

So we asked a kind older cabbie and he guided us to National, an affiliate of Enterprise. National called us a shuttle at no charge. We got our car, and spent 10 minutes speaking Spanish to the guys in the shuttle. Turns out I can speak Spanish sort of well and Robert understands it really well when they speak fast. It worked out great!

We got our car and drove to Tulum. The drive was crazy! There's cops stopping people every few miles or so, and these speed bumps every 10 miles or so that are severe. You don't speed over them, that's for sure. There are thousands of people going about their lives while the traffic whizzes by at 100 km/hr. Then the speed limit changes every kilometer or two.

And my GAWD the humidity! The air is like gravy. But it's so warm and fantastic. I was ecstatic to get off that plane and take off my coat knowing I wouldn't need it for the next four days!

The hotels here, along highway 307, are eerie though. They have these huge edifices but when you look past them, all you see is white sand roads and dense jungle. It's insane.

I don't think I've ever been in the jungle. All you see is a wall of jungle beyond the thin highway. And there are tons of empty playgrounds for the wealthy, covered in Juarez-style tent cities. Those are crazy. And there are 7-11 stores every 5 km. We stopped at one and bought crazy drinks and snacks.

One house we passed on the highway was orange stucco with a stark white and dark blue foyer building attached to the house that had neon blue lights inside the foyer, flashing blue around a huge, life-sized color effigy of the Madonna. There were candles around it and lots of things I couldn't make out, but the effect was crazy. I saw a few of these in the Yucatan.

There are also a gazillion billboards for hotels, monkey reserves, a swim-with-the-dolphin reserve that I pine for but could never support, and a jaguar reserve. Half the billboards tell you to not speed on the highway but everyone does.

When we got to our hotel, we were exhausted. Our desk clerk, Paco, showed us our room. It is TO DIE FOR, with European lines and every amenity and our swim-up room deck. There are kayaks and snorkeling gear we can use, and a dock out to the ocean that has hammocks on each side of the hut at the end.

The moon is half full and ocean waves are singing.

We ate filet mignon with figs and shrimp with quinoa and octopus empanadas with handmade blue tortillas. We washed it down with margaritas. My gawd. That is hands down the best meal over ever had in any country.

Oh. Interesting note. You can't flush toilet paper here. The pipes on this peninsula can't handle it.

But hot damn. Its warm and we are snuggled in bed with Mexican music on the telly to lull us to sleep. It's a good day.

Jaguars and local news

We're down to mere hours before our trip. We have to wake in the middle of the night to catch our flight. I'm barely able to contain myself, at this point.

I'm finding this blog is the only thing keeping me sane. When I get excited or nervous, I read more about the area and write more about what I've learned.

I found the local news, titled The Yucatan Times. In it I've found stories about Jaguars found dead on the highways from Tulum to Valladolid, new underground caves found under Chichen Itza that are just starting to be excavated, and a report about how theres 2 million college kids in Cancun right now. Two. Million. Omg.

I have to hope we're far enough south that it won't be as crowded and crazy. Oh, and it's nice to know ahead of time about the damn toll roads!

Jaguars and spiders and snakes, oh my!

In reading about the Yucatan, I stumble across a site that talks about the dangers. There are venomous pit vipers, huge tarantulas with stinging belly hairs, black Panthers and Jaguars, and scorpions. Now, the chances of us actually seeing most of these are low. They are likely as afraid of us as we are of them, but any chance, honestly, is too much. The general consensus is, shake out your shoes every morning.

Blink. Blink.

At any rate, I plan on enjoying the hidden, wild ruins of Ek Balam. I guess if we die of a pit viper bite in the Yucatan outback, it will at least be a great story for my kids to tell.

The creature most likely to be seen is an iguana. Or twelve. I'm totally down for that. And there's gorgeous neon-blue snakes that aren't poisonous. I'm down with that. There are also black toucans and spider monkeys, which I would love to see but highly doubt we'll get that lucky.

The creatures I find most bizarre are the Axolotl, the cacomistle, and the weird manatee type thing who's name I can't remember. (Googled  it. It's a Tapir!) There's also the Tamandua, kinkajou, coati, ocelot, and so many others. Not sure if we'll see any of them.

What I know we'll see is fish! The Yucatan peninsula is bounded on the northwest side by the gulf of Mexico and the southeast side by the Caribbean. Approaching by air, you can easily make out the barrier reef that runs parallel to the Caribbean coastline. Known variously as the Great Maya or Belize Barrier Reef, it’s the longest of its kind in the northern hemisphere – and the second largest in the world. It stretches from Belize to Tulum.

On the landward side of the reef, the water is usually no more than 5 to 10m deep; on the seaward side it drops to depths of more than 2000m in the Yucatán Channel that runs between the peninsula and Cuba. This means the water we'll be snorkeling in, on the Caribbean side of the bay off Tulum, will be teeming with fish.

Back in my childhood, my father had fish tanks. He had them from the time I was very little, until I was well into adulthood. I remember the transition from oscars to saltwater fish. I recall him traveling all over the world for work, and somehow bringing rare tropical fish home to his tank. He would also find fantastic coral pieces and bring them home, decorating his giant tank with the stuff. In point of fact, I have a piece of his coral from his tank, given to me after he passed away.

The reason I mention this is because I recall him talking about yellow tangs and groupers, butterfly fish, parrotfish, and all kinds of coral from great star coral, to boulder coral and brain coral. He would be so excited to know I'll be snorkeling the Great Mayan Barrier Reef.

I also found this note, online:

"Crocodiles still ply the mangroves in Yucatán state and Quintana Roo. Since 1970 the government has prohibited the hunting of crocodiles and the population has recovered as a result. You can see plenty of the amphibious reptiles in biosphere reserves, while smaller numbers lurk up and down the Caribbean coast, including at Laguna Nichupté, which backs onto Cancún’s Zona Hotelera."

Oh, goodie. Crocodiles.

Still the boring stuff, including God K...

One of the things I'm looking forward to is our hotel in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Yucatan. Our reservation is for 4 days at the Alea Tulum, and our room is a beach side, swim-up affair. Here's the photos:

I've also looked at the actual rooms and they're beautiful.  This is a small hotel that's brand new, with only 20 rooms. The reviews are stellar.

I talked about the first day and what we'll be doing, but the second day is kind of up to us. I've decided I want to visit Valladolid and the hidden ruins near the city. Valladolid is a place where art and architecture are at the forefront, with beautiful pastel buildings and old historic churches, and the cuisine is reportedly incredible. Valladolid has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998.

Valladolid has historical colonial buildings including a 16th-century Convent of San Bernardino of Siena, with an ornate wooden altarpiece, and Casa de los Venados has Mexican folk art and furnishings.

Then there's the baroque-style San Gervasio Cathedral. The towering Iglesia de San Servicio (sometimes called the Cathedral San Gervasio) is located just south of the main square in Valladolid. The Spaniards built this cathedral over a demolished Mayan pyramid, using some of the pyramid's original stones to build the cathedral itself.

And Valladolid is still off the beaten path, so it offers authentic Mexican culture and history that you just can’t find in the touristy beach towns like Cancun and even Tulum. I imagine Valladolid will be a gem.

But the hidden ruins of Ek Balam are the real gem.

Ek Balam is one of the more mysterious ruins in the Yucatan, because most of it still hasn’t been fully excavated. The ruins have been mapped, but only the center has been uncovered, so exploring them is bound to be exciting! Ek Balam is actually considered an archaeological site. In 800 AD it was home to over 20,000 people.

The site is noted for the preservation of the plaster on the tomb of Ukit Kan Lek Tok', a king buried in the side of the largest pyramid. As I said, only the center of Ek’ Balam has been excavated. Large, raised platforms line the interior wall, surrounding internal plazas. Sacbé roads stem off of the center in the four cardinal directions, an architectural allusion to the idea of a “four-part cosmos”. Sacbe' roads were considered to be sacred. They're usually white sand paths that are arranged around a sacred site.

In rooms of the Acropolis, wall paintings consisting of texts have been found, including the 'Mural of the 96 Glyphs', a masterwork of calligraphy comparable to the 'Tablet of the 96 Glyphs' from Palenque. Another wall painting of the Acropolis features a mythological scene with a hunted deer, which has been interpreted as the origin of death.

A series of vault capstones depict the lightning deity, a specific decoration also known from other Yucatec sites, called God K or K'awiil. God K is fascinating to me. I'm learning to appreciate the aesthetic of the designs in the Yucatan, too, including the grimaces and lolling tongues and snakes depicted everywhere including on the God K capstones.

Although I couldn't find a damn thing on the internet about the hardness of Stucco, I did run across some information about how hard stucco was back in the day and how modernization didn't really improve its strength. So when the Yucatec cultures were building and carving things made of stucco, which is just lime and sand, they were working on super hard, sun baked surfaces! And did you know baroque buildings were historically made with interior stucco made of the same recipe as the Mayan and Aztec buildings? This blew my mind.

Ek Balam and Valladolid are two places I can hardly wait to see. I doubt I'll figure out why Ek Balam was deserted so suddenly, but the mystery is bound to intrigue me even more when I'm standing in the middle of those ancient ruins.

Here. Have a couple photos of Ek Balam:

Mayan: "Bix a beel?"

I found this adorable post:

https://www.adventures-mexico.com/12-mayan-words-you-need-to-learn-before-going-to-yucatan/

And this one has phrases in Mayan!!!

https://yucatanliving.com/culture/mayan-language-for-beginners-2



Bix a beel? Beesh-uh-bell
Formal: How are you?

General Reply: Ma’alob. Mah ah-low(b)
I’m good!

General Reply: Ma’alobi. Mah ah-low-bee
I’m Very good!

Bax ka’wali?Bah-sch kah wah-lee
Informal: How are you?

Specific Reply: Mix ba. Meesh bah
I’m good.

Bix anikech? Beesh ahneekehsh
Informal: How are you?

General Reply: Uts. Ooots
I’m good.

General Reply: Utsil. Oootseal
I’m very good!

Na’Nah: Leti’ na’. Leh-tee nah
She is a mother

Teen na’en. Tehn nah ehn
I am a Mother

Teech na’ech. Tehhch nah ech
You are mother

Te’ex na’ex. Teh-esh nah esh
Ya’wl are mothers

Ma’alob, kux tu’un teech? Mah ah-loh, koosh too oohn tehhch?
Formal: Good, and you?

Ma’alob, kux teech? Mah ah-loh, koosh tehch?Less Formal: Good, and you?

Mix ba, kux teech? Meesh bah, koosh tehch?
Less Formal: Good, and you?

Ma’ax a k’ aaba’ **Mah ahsh ah kaah-bah Formal: What’s your name?

Bix a k’ aaba’ **Beesh ah kaah-bah
Informal: What’s your name?

Reply: In k’aaba’e… (Melody)
**Eeen kaah-bah eh…My name is (Melody)

Tu’ux siijech? Too oosh seehech
Where were you born?

Reply: Siija’anen tu kaajil Tho - Seeha anehn too kaah heel America
I’m from America.

Tene' Estados Unidos in taal.
 As for me, I'm from the Unites States.

Continued Reply: Kux teech? Koosh tehch?
And you?

Yaan wa’a a paalal? Yaaahn wah ah ah paahlahl Do you have children?

Reply: Bey, yaan in paalal. Bay, yaaahn eeehn paahlahl
Yes, I have children.

Tu’ux ka meyaj? Too oosh kah may-yah
Where do you work?

Reply: Kin meyaj ti’ Oregon - Keen may-yah ti Oregon.
I work in Oregon.

Hint: "Bey" does not mean yes. It appears that the sometimes enigmatic Maya do not have a word for yes, but they will answer in the affirmative, as in “I heard you”.

Ni’bo’olal. Nee boo ooh lahl.
Thank you.

in kaa tech
"I love you"

Ma’ uts tin taan. Mah! ooots teen taahn.
I don’t like that.

Ma’ ts’u’u’uts’. Mah! ts ooh ooh oohts!
No Smoking or No Kissing!

Dios bootik. Dee-ohs booh teek.
God go with you.

Yu’um bootik. Yoo oohm booh teek.
(Mayan) God go with you.

Ma’alob xi teech yeetel utsil. Mah ah-loh she teehch yehtehl ootseal.
Bye bye!

 A final tip: the Mayan Language is not standardized, and each pueblo has some of it’s own ways of saying things, so if “Bix a beel“ (beesh-uh-bell) draws only blank stares, shift to “Bax ka’wali“ (Bah-sch kah wah-lee ) but be ready for their “Ma’alob, Kux teech?” (Mah ah-loh, Koosh tehhch?)