This is the coolest thing I've ever done!

Two thoughts frequently go through my head periodically when I catch myself spelunking in Yucatan caves, speaking Spanish to get around, and climbing ancient ruins:
1. This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done!
2. This is the real Mexico!

The cool factor, I don’t even have to go into detail with, just telling stories and showing pictures already makes the entire thing a coolest thing ever!

The second one, I can explain just by saying that I’m getting the whole package. I mean, it’s cool to learn about the Yucatan and the Mayans in school, and I always learn about the places I go to when traveling, and I thought I was immersed in new culture during missions trips, but actually living the life of the locals and seeing every aspect of it all shows me the big picture of everything. Like, I see tourist spots on vacations and I see slums on missions trips, but here, I see it all! Mark takes us to all of these ruins and places that are famous, but most of the places we go to have NO ONE there, like they are some secret treasure! And then walking through cities, and villages… I’m just getting the whole picture of the real Mexico, not just the cool tourist attractions or the impoverished needy areas. It’s so cool!

OK. So now let me get on to the daily breakdown.

Thursday we met early in the morning, we went south to a village called Maxcanu to see kitchen gardens. In the DR, we saw things similar to these, but here we for sure got a very in depth lesson of what each medicinal plant does and how the honey bees are kept. How we got to these home gardens was a story in itself: Our bus couldn’t make it through the neighborhoods to get to the house, so we got off downtown and then got on these motorcycles or bikes with seats on the front and a Mexican guy would deliver you to the location, like a bike taxi. So everyone got on one and I was with Laura and we started going and then realized that everyone took off on their motorcycle taxis and we had a 12 year old kid, panting on a bike. We felt so bad, like we looked like these diva gringas making this poor kid pedal us up hills, eventually we got out and walked. Later, we found out that the kid didn’t know where to go so we went around in a circle and then he saw another guy with a motorcycle taxi and we finally made it to this house. It was quite the adventure.

After that we went to a very gross bathroom and I just remember me and Laura and Allison laughing and something about floaters… haha. Anyways.

Next we went to this town called Cochholoch and we got out of the bus and went down into this little cave where these little ladies were making straw hats! The were like the habana jack or whatever it’s called kind and we could get them for just 50 pesos! It was awesome! The craziest part was for sure going into the little cave to find the little ladies making the hats.

After that, it was so random! A bunch of kids who were in the village were bored, so they got on our bus and came with us to these ruins that we went to called Oxkintok. It was kind of cramped having an exra dozen people on the bus, but it just added to the experience. We picnicked at the ruins and it was so crazy that yet again we were the only ones there! There are so many times that the bus is going down some long dirt road and we are just like, whatever Mark, we’ll see where we end up!

After that was the coolest thing we’ve done on the entire trip so far! We went to Calcehtok cave. We had to climb a latter to get in and we were full out spelunking with head lights and flashlights and all! We got so dirty, covered in bat poop. At one point we were admiring the vampire bats flying around and studdenly Mark says, “wait, those are vampire bats! We have to get out of here.” And started going really fast. That was an adventure. When we got out of the cave it was raining and it was cool to see the water falling in from the top. So we waited for a while for the bats to suddenly fly off, but they never really did, so we climbed out and they all swarmed out at us from the top. It was awesome!

By this time it was around 9 at night, so we went to the place where we were going to eat and stay which is another adventure in itself. We got there, and as usual, we were the ONLY ones around. The place didn’t have soap in the bathrooms and there was an empty swimming pool, and a random toilet seat on the ground. So we had dinner and went to our huts. While we were eating, we noticed that they had turned a hose on in the pool, so we felt like we had to swim or else it would be rude, so we all got into this random swimming pool, with only two feet of water in it at the time. It felt so good though after sweating all day!

The huts were… an experience. The anthropology kids stay in nice hotels every night, but Mark lets us ecology kids rough it. The hut had two beds, but there were three of us, so they put in a hammock. I started in the hammock, but it wasn’t as nice as my one at home so I ended up in Laura’s bed with her. We laughed a lot that night about flesh eating moths, other bugs that would land on us while we laid in bed, the sketchy windows and doors of the place. And there was not soap and no towels. We played cards and bonded. But the building it self was really cool! Cement walls and floors and palm roofs!

Friday we established as our “nice day.” We all harass each other a lot, like we’ve been friends since we were born, and come Thursday night, we decided that we needed a nice day, so we didn’t kill each other. It was just really funny to me when someone would make a comment and the other person one turn to them seriously and say, “hey, it’s nice day.” We will probably have to establish a lot of those.

One good thing that came out of this weekend, besides everything, was that we really bonded with the three Mexican boys in our class. We never really knew how much English they spoke and they didn’t know each other, but this weekend they we all talked and they are cool and part of us for sure now. Our traveling troupe is three girls, 6 guys, 2 teachers and a driver. Lots of fun. We got assigned our project groups. Each has one girl, and American guy and a Mexican guy.

Friday we went to a lot of ruins. The more touristy one we went to was called Uxmal. I like to pronounce it Ox-mall even though it is like ush-mul or something ridiculous. We went to a lot of sites that day. All Mayan ruins, all really cool, all hot, all fun.

That afternoon we go to the hotel where the anthro kids were staying as well. They were working hard on presentations. They seem to have a lot of busy work, while we explore things and experience things, like actually staying in those intense huts. I like a lot of the anthro kids though so it was fun to have more interaction besides ourselves.

Another adventure happened there, in the city of Ticul. We had a couple hours before dinner so we just walked around the town, just us eco kids. And so we found out that the only cool thing in the entire city is this tall hill you can climb up and see the whole city. So we followed a million directions to get to this place. The other two girls had to turn around before we got to far for something, so later is was just me and the 6 guys. We walked through really different kinds of areas, like the city with shops, to urban homes that reminded me of the “mountain” of the DR. We saw the hill and on the top of it was a restaurant. We went to the top right as a storm was coming in and it was so cool to see the clouds some and surround the city. Soon it started storming! And palms were falling from the roof and stuff, but later we got a taxi back to the place and had dinner at a pizza place.

That night we just hung out with some anthros and got to know the Mexican kids in our class a lot more. At the hotel these Mayan historians played us real Mayan music. That was interesting, with instruments like turtle shells and wood and stuff!

Today we got up early as usual and had breakfast at the hotel. We went to this private reserve called Kaxil Kiuic. I really liked this place, because usually we just kind of roam around the ruins, but the guy in charge of the place spoke English and described all the buildings to us. It was really interesting. Later we climbed up to this hill with a really high tower on top. It was scary and fun to climb to the top! We had lunch there, kind of picnicking and then we drove and would stop in random towns along the way. In one of the towns, we saw the cathedral where the guy burnt all the papers of the Mayan religion once a long time ago. That was kind of interesting, but when I write about it, it sounds like I know nothing of what I’m talking about.

Much of the day was spent in the car, and when we got home we had no energy to celebrate to celebrate the 4th.

Awesome excursion! Really tired though! Happy independence day USA! Tomorrow is the Mexican election! Here's three links:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c261/jcsmartblonde/IMG_2579-1.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c261/jcsmartblonde/IMG_2624.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c261/jcsmartblonde/IMG_2646.jpg

This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done!