Don't Call Him Picasso

When Pablo and I go to the ruins together, I always take my notebook. He takes pad, paper and his congo drum (and his whistles sometimes). We sit on top of a ruin and look out in wonderment, trying to imagine the every day life of the people who once inhabited the site. As I sit there writing for hours, Pablo will draw or play music. He drew some fantastic sketches at Tikal in Guatemala. Those works of art are in pencil. He also designed and painted the full-sized palm tree on the wall of 'the office'. He's got talent! He's got rythym! Who could ask for anything more? Where'd that come from? It could be that an ancient musical era was awakened in the depths of my brain today as I sit here writing and waiting and waiting for photos to upload. Today Carmen is cleaning, Pablo is painting, I am writing, and we have the radio tuned in to what seems to be hits of the 50's (in Mexico!). I digress.

We take lots of photos when we go to the ruins. Pablo printed a copy of this temple at Kabah. His vision of it is with the Ceiba tree coming up through the clouds and leading to EL FIRMAMENTO.

Here's the artist at work, who's decided to use his middle name Francisco on his paintings, so that people don't jokingly call him Pablo Picasso. It is the first thing we all want to say. But he doesn't want that for two reasons. One is he doesn't want to insult Pablo Picasso, and the other is, he might think you are making fun of him. So Francisco Chavez it is!

This is Francisco Chavez' first painting. He sold it within a week.


I remember the first month Pablo and I were together he talked about painting Pakal, one of the most famous kings of Palenque. When he finished his Path to the Firmamento...he started working on Pakal.

And here is the finished Pakal in front of a temple at Palenque.

There are a few weak spots that need honing. He is using old canvas. Frame making is the big issue. (This big band music is getting to me. I am waiting for Benji and Heidi to jitterbug on in here.) We don't have the right wood, tools, or the patience to make the frames quite right. It's a live and learn experience. Aren't they all?

This is a massive painting he is working on, taken from a mural at the ruins of Bonampak.

This is the painting in its ALMOST completed form. Perhaps you note the canvas stretching issue I was talking about. We can fix it! It is a great work of art.

He already has a start on his next project, Chac Mool. I hope I can remember to post a picture of it when it is completed.

I respect a person who can draw. My drawing abilities are very limited. I am a creative person, and I am drawn to other creative people. I think Pablo has a lot of talent here and I encourage him to keep on painting.

Oxkintok Ruins

Flamboyan in bloom on the road south of Mérida on Sunday, July 5, 2009.





It’s been a while since we’ve gone exploring on a Sunday. This past weekend we packed up a carload of drinking water, some tunes and headed south of Mérida about 75 kms. to the Ruta Puuc where the hilly landscape is literally dotted with ruins, cenotes and underground caverns (grutas). Our entertainment along the way was watching the thousands of butterflies flitting about the blue sky. Neon green and yellow, orange and blue….they were so plentiful and amazing that we got sidetracked and got carried away photographing them.




I'd brought along the wrong map. All maps are not equal here in México. I am rather particular about mapping, having something of a navigational fixation. Some maps of the Yucatán are too old to show the last ten years' improvements, or worse don’t show which coastal roads have been completely washed out over the same time frame. I had what I call a ‘high hopes’ map. It showed new, beautiful (non-existent) divided asphalted highways. Periféricos and connecting roads that are still blueprints awaiting approval, signatures and lots of official stamps in some government office. It is disappointing when the actual roads don’t coincide with the fantasy map highways. But we keep driving in the direction that feels right and always end up somewhere!



This time we accidentally stumbled upon the massive and surprisingly impressive ruins of Oxkintok. There are thirty groups of buildings which we saw on both sides of the 4 km. gravel road we drove toward the entrance.


This sign will tell you all about it. I was impressed with the great informational signs that explained the buildings throughout the ruins.


Oh, you don't read Mayan? Well, I guess you will have to read about OXKINTOK on the Mayan Ruins Explored site in English if you want to see what an excellent excursion it is.



We didn't stop truckin' after exploring the first ruins, we continued along the Ruta Puuc to Kabah and Sayil. Those posts will appear later this week. First I try to make sense of what I saw, do some extra research, and sift through the zillion photos we always take before posting. Uxmal is the most popular site along this route, but we decided to save it for another day. Another day later in the afternoon when we can tolerate the heat, then cool down with a cold drink awaiting the evening sound and light show. When we passed Uxmal it was high noon, and as you probably know, only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun. We opted to enjoy the air conditioned comfort of crusing the butterfly road around the Ruta Puuc loop until we found some lesser known ruins with more shade.



What is wrong with this picture? Improper footwear for ruins climbing, no hat for sun protection, and no bottle of water to prevent dehydration. Who is this, some stupid tourist?



Nope, it's me. Truth is, I did have a bag I carried with waters and books. I could have used my ankle high tennies and a cap though. It was brutally hot.

Copán Ruins, Honduras

As I prepare a post for the Mayan Ruins blog page, I look through my photos and take myself back there so I can point out what was most interesting. I like to visit ruins so I can understand Mayan history better, but it is too big for me to grasp. So I have to re-read the guidebooks, research more of the ruins' history online, and lastly drag out every book I have about the Mayans and re-read that information. Obsessive? I suppose. I am trying to improve the ruins site to be more than just a personal photo blog.

When researching Copán, I ran across a traveler blogging his way around the world. When he posted about Copán, he simply said, "It is not all it was cracked up to be." I disagreed. And that inspired me to try to write a comprehensive story about Copán. I uploaded the photos weeks ago, and finally, yesterday, I was ready to post. The bummer is, it posted itself according to the date I added the photos, and it is not the first post you find if you open the page.

Here are some of the Copán figurines we bought. We loved them! They cost 50 cents US each. They are cheap imitations, and if you look closely, you can see most of them have been broken and glued back together. What was funny was we bought a few the first day, and on our second day at the ruins we sought out the two young boys who sold us the first ones, and bought almost all they had. We bought 18 of these. Practically everything at Copán is about King 18 Rabbit...........I prefer Uaxaklajún Ubaah K'awil......he is represented by many of the stelae at the site....and I guess we felt we needed 18 of them.

Left to right, King 18 Rabbit, King 18 Rabbit, King Smoke Shell, King 18 Rabbit, unknown subject, and unknown subject.

Ok, I don't know if the third one is King Smoke Shell, I made that up. He just looks like he should be called King Smoke Shell.


The heiroglyphics on all sides of the stelae at Copán are intriguing. I can recognize numbers and certain characters and glyphs, but it seems so complicated. I know Chak when I see him, and of course now Uaxaklajún (18) Ubaah K'awil (Rabbit)..........but I have a long way to go.

These are views of the back sides of the little cheap replicas from my mayan god collection. Copán is a spectacular place, you just have to know what it is you are looking for when you get there. Foresight is more difficult than hindsight, but well worth the effort.

Mayan Ruins

I am not sure if you are into Mayan ruins, or interested in my photo logs and tidbits of information about them, but I am trying to post more often on the Mayan Ruins Explored site. Today I posted Labná and last week Tikal, Guatemala. We try to visit the ruins on Sundays whenever possible. I changed the site from Lesser Known Maya Ruins to its new name and now have visitors from 13 countries. I was shocked. I think I am learning a lot about this blogging game, finally.

Springrise Mayan Style

Sunrise at the Temple of the Seven Dolls at Dzibilchaltún, Yucatán, México, March 21, 2009.


Yesterday, March 21st, was the day of the Spring Equinox. In Mayan culture, there are two famous phenomena taking place every spring and autumn at two ruin sites, Dzibilchaltún and Chichén Itzá. At Dzibilchaltún, the sun rises directly in the door opening of the Temple of the Seven Dolls. At Chichén, the shadow of the snake god Kukulcán descends the Great Pyramid at sunset.

Last March we went to Chichén Itzá to see Kukulcán, but after I saw what I think may have been 5,000 tour buses, and a queue for purchasing tickets a mile long, I looked at Pablo and said, "No f****** way!!" We had seen Kukulcán ascend the pyramid at Palenque on the day of the Winter Solstice and I figured I got the jist of it. "Let´s just go right to the Reggae Concert!" And so we did.

Last September we attempted to see the light at Dzibilchaltún. I was aware of the fact that you can see this phenomenon the day before, the day of, and the day after the 21st of these months. So when I read in Lonely Planet Guide that the best viewing date was Sept. 22nd, off we went in the middle of the night to see the spectacle. Unfortunately they only opened it to the public for viewing on the 21st. We were disappointed, to put it mildly, to know it was happening yet we couldn't see it. At that time I decided that we would wait six months and make sure to have all our facts straight and get there on the right day at the right time.

Friday night, the 20th we went out for dinner and I had a few tequilas. When we came home, I set the alarm for 4am to make sure we'd be up in time. In what seemed like twenty minutes, the alarm buzzed us awake. Pablo jumped up, started the car, did his bathroom stuff, and said, "Let's go!" Meanwhile, I was still tequila high and I did my bathroom stuff, fed the cats, made coffee, had to rescue Busmo who accidentally got himself locked up in the upstairs room all day and night, and filled the water bottles.

"Ok, I' ready." I hate to be rushed in the middle of the night. We were a little grumpy, and on the road, and Pablo looks at me and says, "¡Linda! Son las 3:15 de la mañana." In my slightly inebriated state I failed to notice that the clock was saying 4am when it was actually 3am. Oops! As it turned out it was a wise time to depart. When we arrived we were the 8th car in line to enter into the ruins where the parking and all the action is. There are police and security guards posted outside the main gate managing the influx of visitors in the middle of the night. We only waited half an hour and they opened up the gate. We found excellent parking spots and were one of the first people to enter the ruins.

Walking down the sacbé (raised causeway the Mayans used as walways within a city as well as to and from cities located as far as 100 kms away) in the dark of night I felt like I was in a time warp. I felt the Mayan spirits' presence more during the time we spent there that night, waiting, in the dark, than I felt exploring the ruins during the day time. Listening to the owls, watching the moon slowly drift over the star studded sky. Watching puffy clouds passing over, changing the giant sky scenery every few moments. It was inspiring.


There were over 2,500 sleepy people from all parts of the world wanting to see the sunrise, and apparently plenty of aliens arriving in bubbles preparing to land for the occasion.


Pablo maintains his cool while the woman behind him shoots us hate daggers. Just thought I would point out something we constantly deal with.

The temple at about 4:30 am from our first vantage point, about 100 meters from the temple. Note that you can only see the spirits or aliens in the night sky. (It certainly cannot be the photographer not knowing how to operate the camera.)


Here comes the sun. We are standing one football field back. The sun is rising in the doorway. From this angle you can also see the sun through the windows.

This temple is one of the best examples of the understanding of astronomy possessed by the early Maya. Dzibilchaltún has a structure unique in the Mayan world. The top platform of the temple has an unobstructed view of all points east to west. When the sun rises in the center of the portal twice a year we see how they incorporated this understanding into their architecture.

Once we saw the phenomenon from a 100 yards away, we moved up and stood in front of an unrestored platform with a clear view of the portal of the Temple of the 7 Dolls. We were about 20 ft. away. The sun rises a few minutes later from this angle, and the full effect of the sun in the middle of the portal envelops you (and blinds you). The doorway from this angle appears to be the size of a window. We are actually looking through four doorways, two of them inside the temple. Because of that, our viewpoint of the opening appeared much smaller than it did when we were looking at the temple from farther away. I like this shot because you can see the size of the opening, likely caused by my standing slightly right of center. The effect of the preciseness and the brilliance of the sun shining through is priceless.

Looking at the temple platform behind us, the light shining through the portal glows against the ruins. It was amazing to watch this large beam of light moving toward us. It gave me that feeling of being at the end of the rainbow.

The brilliant glow of the phenomenon. The experience was reminiscent of seeing a total eclipse of the sun. In our haste to leave the house we forgot our sunglasses...and we saw lots of green. There seemed to be a lot of people there that were similar to eclipsophiles, would they then be ruinaphiles? It was quite the international group of spectators.

That was it for this equinox. This is what the temple usually looks like.

I took video, and I think the direct sun in the middle of my subject was overwhelming for my digital camera. There is a horribly annoying vertical stripe in the center of the event, but you can see the sun rise in the door and you can hear lots of chatter from the spectators. My favorite is the vertically-challenged Italian woman behind me who harrassed all the tall people standing in front of her. "Take off your hat, Sir." "Please put the camera down, Ma'am." "We short people cannot see. Please step off that rock, Sir." And on it went. You can hear her whining. Then you hear me respond, "It's not gonna happen. It's just not gonna happen. Everyone's trying to see it," as people pushed me into the rocks and then into the little Italian lady.

I decided to post some more information about the temple's unique qualities on the http://mayalesserknownruins.blogspot.com/ site with some of the other photos we took. I want to fulfill a promise I made in September. If this subject interests you, check it out.

Opera at Chichén Itzá: Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo arrives in the Yucatán Thursday Oct 2, 2008. To his right is the governor of the Yucatán, Yvonne Ortega.

Showtime! The biggest show going on in the Yucatán tonight is a once in a lifetime concert on the site of the ruins of Chichén Itzá. Plácido Domingo is going to realize one of his dreams. I read he visited the area fifty years ago and always wanted to come back and perform here. Tickets sold from 1500 pesos to 10,000 pesos. That would be $150 US up to $1000 US. I plan to see his performance on television for free. The powers that be have agreed to televise it on two local channels because it has been inaccessible to the local folks here since the idea of the concert was conceived. Among the 8,000 lucky attendees will be the president of México Felipe Calderon, probably all the government officials of the entire country, and Brad Pitt, who was spotted in Izamal yesterday. I was under the impression Plácido was going to perform for the surrounding Mayan villagers. Were they allowed to attend the dress rehearsal? Or did the powerful people decide they could watch it on television? I am not sure since it was to be a private free concert only for the local folks, so they are probably keeping a tight lid on that information.

Don Plácido arrived in private plane at the Kaua Airport, a small strip located near the ruins that was used once in the past until this occasion. This week it is full of private jets, 1500 of them if I read the paper right. (That is always a concern of mine.) Ten million pesos were spent on its upgrade for this specific event. A special inauguration was held. The funny thing is that after this one time usage for the concert, the Kaua Airport will again sit idle because there is not one airline interested in adding Chichén Itzá to its route. When I saw the photo in the Diario del Yucatán of Don Plácido in a heavy gray suit, I thought, "Get that man a guayabera shirt and some shorts. He is a real person, isn't he? He knows where he is, doesn't he?" But to my surprise this photo also appeared in the Diario. Yeah! He is human after all!

I wish that was a beer in his hand, but at least he is with the fashion program.

Chichén getting ready for the big event.

Plácido Domingo rehearses with local Symphony of the Yucatán and Monumental Chorus.

La Ruta Photos

It is understandable that not all readers understood my last post, since I wrote it in Spanish. It was a tribute to Pablo for his birthday. It was not private, it was just presented in Yucatecan-thought. Besides that, it was the only way I felt I could retell the story of La Ruta Pacheco-Adams. It sounds idiotic in English, our getting stoned at 6am and giving ourselves silly names which we used all during the trip, laughing like we were in a Cheech and Chong movie. So I thought I could come back in here and put up some of the photos that show some highlights of the trip. I will likely put too many photos up here. I apologize in advance but do not plan to change my mind. We took some great photos during those three weeks. I plan to put most of the Palenque photos on my other blog, http://mayalesserknownruins.blogspot.com/. Palenque is not a LESSER known ruin, but if anyone finds that blog interesting, they might as well see all the ruins. I am trying to.

Campeche reeks of oil money, it is sterile, well guarded, colonial and modern.

Pablo takes photo of detailed church and armed guards in Campeche.

It was an old ornate cathedral with detailed tile work.

This is the photo that most reminds me of the smells of Campeche. Pablo said, "It's too bad you cannot capture odors." Campeche smelled of low tide, wet salty air, shrimp on the grill, and of course, diesel fumes from tons of fishing boats and Pemex trucks.

The serenity at the ruins of Palenque.

Agua Clara Cascades from the road. Agua Azul Cascades are not visible until you drive down the mountain...

There are over 200 cascades here. There is a stunning nature trail leading back to the majority of the waterfalls and a rocky/sandy beach. This shot is nearest the parking lot, thus the most visited area. Empanadas there were ridiculously cheap, fresh and delicious at five pesos each.

Heading south we decided to see the Pacific Ocean in Chiapas. This is the bridge to Brisas del Mar, a long, black sand beach with giant waves. There were palapas on the beach but only one group was on the beach that day. There were no services on the ocean side of the bridge. We did have beer and chips for breakfast where we parked the car though, the fishermen would be in with fresh catch after we returned from our trek to the beach.

This is the beach at Brisas del Mar, approx. 50 miles southeast of Tapachula, Chiapas, México and 20 miles west of the Guatemalan border. Take only pictures, leave only footprints. It was one of those places. I feel guilty posting these photos.

We had to go to Guatemala. Neither of us had been there. They had bizarre buses with crazy drivers. We crossed at Tecun Uman, and ended up in a truck stop called Esquintla where we discovered Pablo did not get his ID back at the border. That put the breaks on the trip. We drove to and through Antigua, which is a pretty colonial town with too many tourists, and lots of rude European ones at that, up around Lake Atitlan (below) and its surrounding live volcanoes. Guatemala has 33 live volcanoes, I learned at the Police Station in Antigua while we worked through the police report of the lost identification. Imagine a Mexican guy trying to cross the border from Guatemala to Mexico without an identification. We couldn't get past that thought so we breezed through the mountains and headed back to the same border. It took us three days.

Ok, so you can't really see the lake, but it is really striking, no? We were zooming through.

These were the biggest vegetables we had ever seen. The carrots were massive. The orange things hanging near the Quiché woman are habanero chiles. If you have not seen one, they are the size of grape in most places. These looked like giant sweet bell peppers...cuidado, they are hot!!!!

We spent New Year's Eve with a Tzeltal family. This is the mom who makes empanadas at thewaterfall and her darling little girl. How about my new tennis shoes? Very zapatista.slanifThere are more photos but this is already a long post. I have to rest, watch the semi-finals of Latin American Idol and my brain is tired. Pablo is still teaching class and it is nearly 8pm. Time to eat and get into the hammock.

La Ruta in Photos

Wanderlust

Driving through Guatemalan Western Higlands.



Relaxing in our El Salvador Palapa.



Pablo playing with Garífuna. My camera suffered terminal failure..

What a fabulous trip! We made it home on Friday. Here is the update:

I wrote the first report of our adventure from San Pedro Sula, Honduras. It was just an overnight stop for us, but an important one. I needed to check the internet. We had to have our clothes washed. I had to reorganize my "stuff" so I could find things I was looking for. We needed a real good sleep. It had been hot hot hot in Livingston. Our room there was air conditioned but not very well. The electricity and water were cut off a few times while there, and usually during the hottest part of the day or during the evening in an electrical storm when there was no air circulating at all.

San Pedro Sula is one of Honduras' dangerous cities. Each time we mentioned that we were heading to Copán via San Pedro Sula we were advised to be careful, not go out after dark, etc. The biggest problem in the cities of Central America is gang war. Apparently most of the time tourists are not involved, but if a blue eyed blonde and a Latino are seen together on the street, there could be trouble. We found a hotel in a nice residential area of the city and were able to walk to a karaoke bar and restaurant two blocks away where we celebrated with grilled steak, a few cocktails, and a couple of botched karaoke songs.

Stelae at Copán Ruinas, Honduras.

Copán is situated in western Honduras near the Guatemalan border. The streets are cobblestone in the hilly quaint little town. The ruins are a UNESCO project, and although I do not understand what exactly that moniker represents, to me it meant there were a lot more foreign tourists than I expected. Day trips are run from Antigua, Guatemala to Copán. The prices were higher than they should be....on hotels, food and souvenirs. When I asked about something I was quoted prices in US Dollars, in English. We managed to find a nice family hotel that did not raise its rates when they saw me, and spent two lovely nights up the hill from the centro with a beautiful view of the valley. We ate at one of the market stalls after one expensive experience with a rude Uruguayan restauranteur. Let's just say we might not have been hip enough for Copán's crowd.

The ruins of Copán were impressive, not so much for the size of the site, but the detailed work in design. Much of the site has not been restored, and some was lost over time as Mother Nature reclaimed territory and many Mayan buildings near the river running along the area. The ruins are located in a well manicured site and guarded by soldiers with guns. The heiroglyphics and inscriptions are amazing. One temple that was found under layers of more temple still had its color. They have reconstructed the Rosalila temple in the museum there. After seeing the detail work at Copán I felt I could better picture Mayan life in its day. The language spoken around the area is Chorti. I learned that there are at least 15 different Mayan languages; not dialects, separate languages. I also found out that all I can grasp right now is the Yucatecan Mayan we study, the new vocabulary in Chorti went through one ear and out the other. I was interested enough to ask "how do you say..." but not sharp enough to remember any of it.

Rosalila temple restored in Copán museum.

Plan A was to drive back to Guatemala after visiting Copán. But we were not ready to leave Honduras, as we felt we had not seen any of the country but the road to Copán. And we had permission to be there until the end of October, why leave so soon? So we went to Plan B. We drove out the way we came in and decided to head south to investigate more of the country. The first pleasant surprise was in La Entrada, a dusty busy little town about 45 kms. east of (at the turnoff for) Copán. We were looking for an ATM and breakfast, and we found a parade of high school marching bands. Pablo is a freak for marching bands, so he hopped out of the car and went running with the camera. There were many participants, lots of drums, percussion, and the complicated songs they played were most impressive. I heard "Sounds of Silence" when I had finally parked the car and gone looking for Pablo in the crowd. Other songs were recognizable to Pablo but not to me; there are a lot of Latin songs! These kids were dressed in colorful uniforms with long capes which they effectively swayed as they played and slowly marched forward. It was already a great day.

Sunday morning in La Entrada, Honduras.

We drove to Santa Rosa (or is it Rita) del Copán, about two hours south of La Entrada. Coffee and tobacco are the attractions there. What a pretty colonial mountain town. We found food and money, and by then I had found someplace more interesting and outback for us to seek on the day's adventure. We drove to Gracias, and took a turnoff toward La Calma. Seventeen slow kilometers and four river crossings (no bridges) later we eased into a little village nestled in a valley next to a huge canyon. The guidebook said they had great pottery there. There was a small town square, but no tourists, no market, just calm. We stopped to ask about the pottery. We were in luck. The woman Pablo chose to ask for information was a potter. She was a Lenca woman named Mercedes. She was polishing a piece as we drove up. Besides the usual pottery fare, she made mobiles and sold the parts individually. How fun it was to find the intricately carved beads and miniature pitchers, pots, etc. so I could make my own mobiles. Pablo fell into a Honduran cigar hunt and came back all smiles with 100 hand rolled cigars. The sky rapidly clouded up and we were in for a storm. We took a room in one of two hotels and settled in to watch the excitement of lightning and sideways rain from the patio. Had snacks for dinner and got a good night's rest for the bone shattering journey back to the main paved road. At Gracias, we took another side trip to some hot springs. We were the first of two couples to enjoy the 97°F mineral baths that day. A beautiful neon blue butterfly took a liking to me. We enjoyed a few hours there and decided to head yet farther down the Ruta Lenca toward La Esperanza. We were supposedly going to see these interesting indigena who speak Nahuatl (Aztec?) in the little villages all decked out in traditional gear. But they no longer dress that way except on special occasions. The people in Honduras seem to live on second hand clothing, period. I would like to add some info about the Lenca Indians but at this writing I have not had time to research that. Later.

Mercedes the potter in La Calma, Honduras.

My little blue butterfly at the Hot Springs near Gracias, Honduras.

The rejuvenating mineral pools.

La Esperanza was an interesting and scary little place. We did have an excellent meal and found a decent room with safe parking. We even went to a little bar and had conversation and a few drinks with some locals. We did not feel threatened there, but we did not feel extremely welcomed by all its inhabitants either. It was colorful and definitely had its own personality.

Lots of derrumbes.

The fountain at La Esperanza, Honduras.

Bright and early the next morning I was ready to leave town, hangover and all. We drove south a few hours past Tegucigalpa heading straight for the Pacific Coast. We found an old volcanic island called Isla del Tigre in the Gulf of Fonseca. The town of Amapala used to be a port and now is trying desperately to learn to capitalize on ecotourism. It is a slow process, as there are only three places to stay there and one of them is rather uninhabitable. From points on the island, you can see Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. It was a beautiful harbor where I could picture tall ships hiding out centuries ago. Two days later we moved on.

Looking at Honduras & El Salvador from Amapala, Isla del Tigre, Honduras.

We crossed the border into El Salvador with no problem. Within a few hours we were heading to some famous surfing beaches. El Zonte and La Misata were our two Pacific destinations. We had been advised a bridge was out on the route we intended to take, and did not heed the warning; we drove on. When we got to the collapsed bridge, some kids said we could surely drive across the river. Luckily we could not see the river before we set out on the adventure, because we would have chickened out. Pablo drove his amphibious vehicle across a wide river, pretty damn deep too, and we made it to the other side. It worked in our favor when we found rather isolated beautiful beaches to hang our hammocks and hang out for a few days watching the giant waves and walking the black sand beaches. El Salvador was surprisingly beautiful. We had no gang problems there because we avoided congested areas. Beaches and mountains only.

Crossing the river at La Libertad, El Salvador.

Campsite at Río Misata and Pacific Ocean.

Black sand, blue water...all to ourselves. Paradise found.

Once relaxed and saturated with salt air, we headed back to Guatemala. The next mision was to make it to Q'uiché Mayan territory in the western highlands. Chichicastenango was our destination. The Mayan bible, the Popol Vuh was written there. They have a church much like the one we had been in in San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, México....half Catholic and half Mayan. The Catholic saints were present but to the local people represented their Mayan gods of corn, rain, moon, sun, etc. The church at Chichi was also built on top of a Mayan ruin with exactly 20 steps...the number of months in a year according to the Mayan calendar.

A fireplace! It must get cold at night!

The Mayan church at Chichicastenango, Guatemala.

Hotel room view of Chichi valley and pueblo.

We were given a great room with a fireplace. It was cold up there! That was fun to play with, as the moisture in the air made it challenging to light and keep the fire going. We froze in the middle of the night when the fire went out. We went there for Sunday market day. We picked up some very colorful clothing. The things I bought were expensive, and when Pablo went back out alone he came home with tons of shirts, pants, masks for dirt cheap. You have to Latin to get a deal in a market in Latinoamerica. If you are Caucasian, you are automatically deemed a millionaire, and must pay three times the going rate for everything. We tried local tamales: cooked rice with a hunk of chicken and some delicious red sauce wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. Mush, in other words. I liked them. We were nearly three weeks into our journey and ready to be at Palenque relaxing in our hammocks again. So we bought up a fair amount of souvenirs and headed northwest through the most beautiful volcanic mountain road we had seen to date, from Huehuetenango, Guatemala to Ciudad Cuautemoc, México.

The roads were not all in great repair.

The buses were distractingly colorful.

The border crossing was easy, but the military revision was brutal. They first used a little gadget with an antenna and insertable credit sized cards that said cocaine, marijuana and pastillas (pills). They waved the wand around our car and our belongings. Then they brought out the German shepherd. We patiently waited for this long and thorough process, then headed to Comitán del Dominguez to get some food and sleep.

The cabaña at Palenque.

Howler monkey eats, poops and entertains at campsite.

Pablo happy to be with other tamboristas in Palenque.

The next day we drove the long winding road to Palenque. We thought about stopping at the beautiful clear cascades at Agua Azul, but there had been so much rain in recent weeks that the usually pristine pools were as brown as coffee. We opted to skip the cascades and spend the time at Palenque. We found a great cabaña there in the woods. We enjoyed the howler monkeys and birds and lizards. One morning there was a howler in the campsite and it was quite the spectacle for all the campers. After two nights and a major mud splattering downpours all night long, we took the straight road 8 hours back to Mérida, supposedly ready to face reality once again.

We had a super adventure, learned a lot, met interesting people, and I wrote two notebooks of travel story material. Pablo learned new rhythyms on his tambor, and he spent hours drawing scenes from the ruins and the mountains. We are back in realityville here and getting a move on with our ongoing projects. Before we can blink it will seem like the trip is in the distant past. Then it will be time to decide where to go next time after trudging through our tasks in the heat of the tropical summer. If born with wanderlust, it is just a matter of learning how to support the habit. I guess I am still working on that but I was born with this need to see the world and I am sure I will manage.

Sunset at Isla del Tigre, Honduras.