Today is Sunday, so following an old Meridan tradition I headed for the Parque de Santa Ana to have cochinita pibil for breakfast. This tasty dish consists of slow cooked pork marinated in orange juice and achiote (a paste of ground and mixed annatto, cumin, oregano, clove, and who knows what else), eaten with red onions marinated in vinegar, salt, and oregano and a good dose of habanero chiles. Heavenly!
My adventure today is to try to revisit some of the places we visited 25 years ago, when my sister Norma was living in Mérida. “We” on that occasion was the family, plus our British friends Cherrie and Chris Lakey, plus my girlfriend Charleen. We had rented a house on the beach, 40 km northeast of Mérida, and from there we traveled everywhere on two VW bugs. The details have become a bit blurred with time, but I remember visiting an archaeologic site halfway between Mérida and the Port of Progreso (25 km to the north), so I decided to give it a try (it was not a large site, but it was on the main Mayan road between Chichen Itzá and Uxmal, and you got to see a good example of Mayan road engineering and a ceremonial gate. I was flying blind because when I asked the friendly man at the front desk he had no idea what I was talking about.
Going out of downtown I reached the Paseo Montejo, only to find out that on Sunday mornings it is closed, so families can use it as a long biking path, as training ground for learning how to skate, or just for the kids to zip up and down in their scooters. Lots of people jogging under the thick tree canopies on the east side of the street, and once again the excuse was perfect for old folks to meet their friends and have a coffee together. I forgot to mention that last night, as I strolled among the lights and the music I also saw many families enjoying a ride in open horse-drawn carts. Clearly the Meridans own this beautiful promenade in more ways than one.
The old road to Progreso is lined by jacarandas in full bloom, and along it I got to see the campuses of two of the state universities and any number of small shops. Eventually, however, I was in the open country, which in this case is flat and covered by a thin and thirsty-looking scrub brush. Interestingly, here and there, and in the middle of nowhere, there are new residential developments with alluring names such as Balám Estates or Mayan Paradise, which mostly consist of a monumental gate of supermodern architecture that gives access, for all I could see, to a model home and countless hectares of scrub bush. A little later in the day I came upon a sign to the Hacienda San Jorge, and I thought it would be interesting to visit an old henequen plantation (Normita has reminded me that henequen is called sisal in English). Yes, the hacienda had been one of many that prospered during the Green Gold Rush, but had been fallow for a good 75 years and the ground had been reclaimed by the scrub bush. Everything became clear in a moment: The old haciendas may be but a ghost of themselves, but they still own hundreds or even thousands of acres, so their owners are trying to capitalize on the land by opening it to residential development. They can be generous and offer quintas, so called because they have an area of a fifth of a hectare, or 2,000 square meters, which makes for a perfect vacation home. In the Hacienda San Jorge you can build your house using your own architect and construction crew, or they can build the house for you using their own crews. Sounds like a dream, right? Yes and no. Nearby Mérida is as great a Mexican City as you could hope for, and the beaches of Puerto Progreso are truly first class, but they are both still 25 km away, so if you forgot to buy milk while you were in town you are really screwed. This is also limestone country, and I am pretty sure there has not been a detailed geological/geophysical investigation of the plots to detect underlying cavities, so like in Florida I suspect that the danger of sinkholes forming under your swimming pool or living room is very real indeed!
I was following the signs to the town of Chicxulub, where from the corner of my eye I saw a small sign for the turn to Dzibilchaltún. That was it! The Lost City of Dzibilchaltún, which is very much alive in my mind because the American archaeologist that excavated absolutely raped it of all its magnificent stellae, which are now in the vaults of the Chicago Museum, waiting for Mexico to demand their repatriation. Grrr! So I took the turn and five kilometers later I stopped abruptly at an encampment, backed by a solidly locked gate. There was a lonely old timer there, and upon inquiry I learned that the retirees of the community had decided to block the entrance to the site months ago because they had not received their pension payments in over a year. Clearly the civil disobedience was not applying a lot of pressure on the government (after all, this is a Lost City), but I had to sympathize with the old partisan and after listening to his woes for a bit longer I took my leave and headed back to Chicxulub.
The name Chicxulub may not mean much to you non-geologists, but for us Literati it evokes the impact of a meteorite 65 million years ago that would cause the demise of the dinosaurs. The folks of the town are not worried, however, and happily go about their business without worrying about the next apocalypse. In fact, they would not know anything about it, because the giant scar left by the impact is now buried under thousands of meters of Cenozoic limestones, and it can only be detected by geophysical surveys, or million-dollar drillholes. A few kilometers to the north is the Chicxulub Port, where some enterprising local build Sendero Jurásico by cutting a trail through the scrub bush and salting along it plaster dinosaurs, which I imagine are the delight of children who take the path. I didn’t, so I cannot give you a firsthand account. Instead, I found a hole in the wall and had a tasty ceviche for lunch.
I did stop briefly at the Puerto Progreso beach, and I can confirm that it is lovely, but it was very hot and very soon I was back in my air-conditioned vehicle heading back to Mérida, looking forward to a dip in the pool and the traditional siesta.
I woke up to the pitter patter of rain. Hurrah! Maybe this
will cool things down a bit (or then again it may stir the heat up to higher
levels). When I went out I realized it was a very gentle rain, but hard enough
to discourage the merchants in the tianguis, who promptly started to
pack up their wares. I was sad I had missed the peak hustle and bustle, but I
had no intention of buying anything so I satisfied my curiosity and that was
good enough to call it a day.
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