Ticul market

We really wanted to see the market in Ticul because, according to all available info, this is the hub of hipil construction in the whole of Yucatán. Hipiles are the dresses that the Maya women wear. So we wanted to buy us some hipiles, of course. We found the market and stopped to buy me some medicine for my digestive tract from a teenager manning a pharmacy nearby. When we got to the market, the diarrhea hit Ginger. Fortunately there were bathrooms for a modest 2 pesos. Mexican markets are another of my favorite places in the world. Ginger shares my enthusiasm. So we took about another godzillion pictures. Enjoy!
In a bizarre turn of events, we never found a butt-load of hipiles anywhere. And the only ones we ended up buying on the whole trip were from an old woman in downtown Mérida. They weren't the beautiful ones with all the ornate stitchwork that I wanted, but still they are pretty.

More HPJ

The Hotel Posada Jardín charges $30 (US) per night for two people in a room with 2 beds. They have a parking area and the place is gated. Ginger talked to the owner the next morning while I was confined to the toilet, and found out that he and his wife moved in with his parents who had started the place but gotten too old to take care of it. He said that he and wife had been there a couple of years and were trying to steadily build it up. As of right now, it only has 4 rooms. But they are very very cute rooms and the gardens and landscaping are fantastic. Again, a big two thumbs up for this place. The only drawback is the lack of a bar/restaurant. We had to go into town and buy our own beer to bring back and drink in the room.

Hotel Posada Jardin

I might have mentioned that the diarrhea hit me the morning we got to Uxmal. I made it through the ruins there without further incident, and then carefully explored Kabah. But I was so ready to find a hotel. So we drove to Ticul, where we hoped to find a good place to stay where we could park the car safely. For all of you who have never been to Mexico, the idea of a whole country full of NO Motel 6's might be unthinkable, but believe me, it's true. As if to compensate for this lack, Mexico is, instead, full of magical places that you almost have to stumble across. One such place is the Hotel Posada Jardín. We did see it mentioned in a brochure, but weren't looking for it and were actually trying to find our way out of Ticul and back to the main road to try one of the big hotels near Uxmal, when I spotted the sign for the HPJ. We investigated and found a small paradise and we recommend it wholeheartedly to anybody who ever finds herself in Ticul. Here are some pictures. Enjoy!

Break from ruins for Enrique

Hi there Enrique (and all my other friends and enemies who love la nueva trova)! Ginger and I went to a restaurant in Mérida where this guy plays live trova on the weekends. We thought of you. Well, I thought of you. Ginger doesn't know about your passion for trova and música protesta. Well, she didn't know, she does now. And so does anybody else who bothers to read this. I wish we'd taped more, I'm not sure there's even enough to recognize the song. I think he said this was by a Mexican musician and I can't remember the name.

Final pictures from Kabah

Obviously, we have like a god-zillion more pictures from this and every other place I'm blogging about. I'm just choosing the best ones for here so that all of my friends and enemies can see what a great time we had on the trip. I'm including several (probably too many) wide-angle pictures so as to include as much of the layout as possible because it's so darn pretty. It would be cool to have aerial photos of these ruins. I don't know where to get any, or even if they are available. There weren't many people there when we were there so it was hard to lasso in a stranger to take our picture together. We finally got one of the staff to take the picture. All of the ruins around here, no matter how humble the front gate and bathroom facilities, have at least a couple of people who run the place. Probably they have more people who come out and cut the grass and all.

More Kabah

There were some human figures at this site. On the back side of the Palace of Chac Masks, we saw these (possibly) warrior figures. I don't know enough about the archaeology. I can't tell you who they are or even if they are warriors. But it amazes me that they were still there, looking steely-eyed. I LOVE the picture of Ginger with her little feet dangling. I think it looks kind of like she's floating there. And the wink picture is very cool because a) it's a very cute picture of my little sister, and b) we think that the hills in the background (maybe) are more unexcavated pyramids. I know, I know, the specific landscape, you say, is called the Puuc hills. Therefore, they are probably just hills. I disagree. We saw way too many obvious pyramids that looked like hills, so we believe that there aren't really any hills there- they all MUST be pyramids.

Jenny's alter-ego

Here I am, Mayan Epigrapher Wannabe, pretending that I can read the glyphs. Maybe in an alternate universe I am David Stuart. Or at least some much cooler version of Indiana Jones.