Abel Selaocoe

Up at 3:30 a.m. for a trip to the airport and an on-time flight to Mexico City. Then we got to cool our heels for a couple hours waiting for another AeroMexico flight to Dallas-Ft. Worth. There we breezed through immigration with our Global Entry, and Customs didn't even have anyone at the desk. And they wonder how drugs cross the border?

Through security once again -- Pre-Check does absolutely nothing for you when connecting after immigration and customs -- and then onto the Delta flight to MSP. According to the display on my seat back, we had a 90+ mph tailwind the whole way! That's why we landed almost 40 minutes early.

From the airport, it's a 20-minute straight shot into downtown St. Paul on the 54 bus, which we Senior Citizens ride for a buck apiece. It let us off at Rice Park, just across the street from the Ordway Theater, where we had tickets for tonight's performance by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and African cellist and vocalist, Abel Selaocoe.

The coatcheck girls were a little perplexed, as they haven't had a lot of people checking suitcases. But they rose to the occasion. Since we were early, we treated ourselves to glasses of wine and settled in to watch the lobby fill up. Selaocoe is a sellout whenever he's in town, so it was a crowd.

The concert was well worthwhile, and we had little trouble getting an Uber to take us home. It was a long and exhausting day, and we crashed into bed. But a good night's sleep and a restful Sunday got us back to normal. Too bad the temperatures are below zero here in Minnesota after mid-90s in Yucatan!

Cenote

The final day of our tour got off to a late start, so we had the morning free. Mary needed the time for some rest, so I set out to visit the Museum of Archaeology here in Merida.

The museum is located in one of the big old mansions on Montejo Street that we walked past yesterday. This one was taken over after the Mexican Revolution and for a time became the home of the governors of Yucatan.

Later it was used as a school, and finally it was turned into a museum. The architecture of the house is part of the attraction.

The museum is not very large, so it didn't take long to see it. But many pieces of the collection are quite spectacular.

I decided to walk back on a side street, just one block off Montejo Street. It's clear that all of the mansions were concentrated along the one street. One doesn't have to get far off for things to be not so elegant.

I stopped at a couple of neighborhood churches on the way back. All are well-kept and pretty in their way.

Passing the hotel and continuing on to the main plaza, I headed for the Montejo House, which is the restored mansion of the Montejo family. It's free, but it didn't open until 10 a.m., so I killed a little time sitting in the plaza, people-watching.

The Montejo House is exquisite -- what there is of it. The restoration is very complete, with period furnishings and artifacts. But only four of the many rooms have actually been restored.

The Library is fairly small, but probably very well-stocked for its day. The sitting rooms and bedroom look as if they would be comfortable even by today's standards.

However, it is the formal dining room that really steals the show. This must have been the primary place where the Montejo's entertained guests, as it clearly was designed to impress.

At noon, we set out to the countryside to visit an old hacienda. The same families that had their mansions on Montejo Street received their wealth from the land -- sometimes thousands of acres of it.

These ranches also had magnificent residences, as well as working buildings. These were the haciendas. The one we visited had once raised thousands of cattle, but the main source of wealth was in growing and processing the sisal agave which produces sisal fiber. Sisal was and is used for rugs, ropes, mats, etc.

By the mid-20th century, sisal had largely been replaced by synthetic fibers, so the hacienda had been abandoned for nearly 50 years and fell into ruin.

However, a new owner discovered that the water supply for this hacienda was one of the thousands of cenotes (sen-OH-tays) that are scattered across the Yucatan. Because of the limestone that supports the peninsula, the rivers of Yucatan are underground. And thousands of caves and sink-holes serve as water sources.

Mayans considered these to be entrances to the underworld. But moderns consider them fascinating places to go for a swim -- which we did.

The fresh, clear water remains a constant 74 degrees year round, so it makes for a very refreshing dip. We walked down long steps to the cenote pool, then swam through a short cave passage into a sort of ravine.

Finally, we wound up in a very large cavern with huge stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The roof was at least 30 feet above our heads, and the water was more than 30 feet deep below us. It was quite stunning.

After our swim, we enjoyed a farewell dinner at the on-site restaurant, then returned to say our goodbyes. We have an early flight back home tomorrow morning.

Chichen Itza

We drove two hours east on the bus for what was supposed to be the highlight of the trip, the Mayan and Totec archaeological site of Chichen Itza.

The primary pyramid here, known as "The Castle," has been called "one of the seven wonders of the modern world."

Unfortunately, fame has its price. The location is two hours from Merida, and a similar distance from tourist locations such as Cancun and Playa del Carmen. It's an easy day trip from any of those spots, including those who only arrive by cruise ship to those ports. A single cruise ship can carry thousands.

The place was packed, and our tour leader said that this was "a slow day!"

Our local guide was full of information, but most of it was either information we had heard previously at other sites, or trivia that was unimportant and that we already don't recall.

To make it worse, he seemed not to be able to walk and talk at the same time, so the tour was painfully slow.

All in all, while Chichen Itza is certainly a fascinating site, Uxmal, which we visited yesterday, and Monte Alban, which we visited on Sunday, were at least equally spectacular -- if not more so.

We were supposed to have lunch at a local restaurant. But Balam, our tour leader, arranged for us to dine with a Mayan family in their home. The home-cooked food was spectacular and it was a true cultural experience.

Upon returning to Merida, the bus brought us to Montejo Street. This is an area that flourished in the late 1800s and early 1900s, prior to the Mexican Revolution, when a small number of elite families dominated the local economy by operating huge plantations still operated with slave labor.

Although the plantations were scattered across the Yucatan, the families tried to out-do one another by building mansions in European style along this street to use when in the city. Most of these are now converted to museums, restaurants, or other businesses.

Also in this area is the "Monument to the Motherland," which tells the story of Mexico's history in Mayan style, even though it was constructed in the late 20th century.

While some remained on the bus, a number of us walked from here back to the hotel, just to get a feel for the city.

In the evening, our tour leader offered to show us some of the night life of Merida. We walked to a bar La Negrita Cantina where a live salsa band would be playing.

The place was packed, and we were lucky to get a table, even though there were only four of us. Although we only ordered beer, they kept delivering snacks to the table.

The band was just warming up when we arrived, but as soon as they began playing, people were up and dancing in the narrow spaces between the tables.

There was a group near us of one man and four women -- one of whom was apparently his wife -- all about our age. They were out-dancing the younger folks by a mile!

Night life people that we are, we were out of there and back in our room before 8 p.m.

Uxmal

After a morning walk along the promenade before breakfast, we packed our bags and set off for a four hour bus ride from Campeche to Merida. But the halfway stop was a nearly three hour tour of the Mayan site at Uxmal.

Uxmal is located in an area with no natural water sources during the dry season. There are no rivers, creeks, streams, lakes, ponds, or wells. But the Mayans constructed hundreds of underground cisterns to capture water during the rainy season.

The storage system was sufficient to see them through the dry season. That, in itself, was a remarkable achievement.

Similarly remarkable is the temple complex. The land here is very flat. But the Mayans, over a period of centuries beginning around 500 C.E. or before, raised two huge platforms more than 20 feet above the mean ground level.

On top of the platforms they constructed amazing buildings. The first one that catches the eye on entering the site is the pyramid to the rain god.

The first temple on this site is quite small, and raised only a few feet above the platform. But at least four other temples were constructed on top of the original. The fifth temple stands about 90 feet above the platform.

Another unique feature of this pyramid is that it really isn't a pyramid at all. It is elliptical in shape, with rounded corners.

Nearby the pyramid is the "Nunnery Quadrangle." This is a name given by the Spaniards, because it reminded them of the cloister of a convent. But there were no nuns here.

Indications are that the four buildings in this quad were a sort of university for elite young people who would become the priests and ruler of the surrounding area.

Our local guide stressed the numerology and the intricate references to the complex Mayan calendar that are everywhere in the carvings and depictions of the structures.

Near the quadrangle is the ball court, which is similar to others we've seen except that one of the goal rings remains intact. The ball court is not on a platform, but at ground level.

Finally, we climbed another, separate platform on which there were two structures. The smaller was called "the house of the turtles" because of the turtle figures on the exterior.

Much larger is the structure archaeologists call "the governor's palace." It obviously had governmental functions, but whether or not there was a "governor" is in dispute.

The palace is perfectly aligned astronomically to the winter solstice and to the ascendancy of the planet Venus. Found nearby was a throne featuring a two-headed jaguar from Mayan mythology.

We were more or less forced to buy lunch on the site. It was billed as "lunch on your own," but there was only one option. Mary and I split a dish.

After the long bus ride, we checked into our hotel and were ready for a bit of relaxation. We went to the pool, but the water was icy cold, despite an air temperature in the mid-90s. We sat by the pool awhile anyway.

At 5 p.m., Balam, our tour leader, took us on an orientation walk around the neighborhood. We are in the heart of the old city, with churches, museums, plazas, restaurants, and shops all around.

The city hall (or Palace Municipal) is an old colonial building that houses the mayor's and other city offices. But it also houses almost two dozen murals by Fernando Castro Pacheco, an artist from Merida who became famous throughout Mexico in the late 20th century.

The murals are stunning. They describe the oppression of the Mayan people by the Spaniards and document various uprisings and rebellions. At first, many of them appear to simply be jumbled colors, but as one looks closely, the figures appear.

The murals also celebrate heroes who helped indigenous people in Mexico to gain equality in the wars for independence and in the Mexican Revolution.

We made a quick stop at the cathedral, then walked across the street to a restaurant called Chaya Maya where we had a very good meal of Mayan dishes.

In the evening, we returned to the main plaza for a show that was supposed to feature Mexican dancing, but it turned out to be a recital of the founding of the city of Merida and the struggles of the Mayans to resist the Spanish.

The program was entirely in Spanish, but English was projected on the wall of a nearby building. Still, it was difficult to read the English and still watch the actors, so we gave up and called it a night.

Campeche

Morning began with an after breakfast walk on our own along the seaside promenade. It was good to get out and walk at pace, and the weather was gorgeous.

We set out with our tour leader toward the main plaza of old Campeche, but stopped briefly at a coffee shop that sells a drink made from Chaya. Sometimes billed as "Mayan spinach," the plant, which grows wild in this region, is supposed to be full of vitamins and antioxidants.

Unfortunately, it's rather tasteless, and is usually mixed with a fruit juice of some kind. Ours was mixed with pineapple, and it wasn't bad. But we only had a small taste, not a full order.

At the plaza we began a trolly tour of Campeche. We rode an open air bus, made up to look like an old trolly car, and listened to a pre-taped narration in both Spanish and English. It wasn't as bad as it sounds.

We saw several neighborhoods or "barrios" of the old walled city, and learned something about how they got their names. Campeche has been adding sculptures and monuments at a fast pace over the past decades.

We made only one stop, and a church that houses a "black Jesus" above its altar. Supposedly the ship that brought the sculpture from Spain survived a storm at sea, and it was chalked up as a miracle attributed to this piece.

Returning to the plaza, we paid a visit to the museum of Mayan antiquities. We had a local guide at the museum who did an OK job, but it was too much information to process.

The most important piece in their collection is a jade death mask that was quite extraordinary.

The local guide also took us to the top of the old city wall in a portion only accessible from within the museum. We were actually able to stand on top of the Gate of the Sea where the waterline used to be, just outside the wall. The water shore is now at least 100 yards farther out.

The included lunch today was at a seafood restaurant, and it was quite good!

After lunch, the group was released to free time. On our own, we visited a free cultural museum which was a house along the central plaza that had been restored and refurnished as it was in the 17th century.

It really would be a pleasant place to live, even today. We were surprised at how comfortably cool it was, even in the heat of the day and without air conditioning. The Spaniards knew how to build for the climate.

Briefly, we stuck our heads into the cathedral. Of all the cathedrals in the world, this is one of them. Nothing terribly distinctive.

Finally, we visited an arts and crafts cooperative that markets products created by local artisans. Some of the items were very interesting, but also very pricey. Other items were reasonably priced, but too awkward to bring home -- such as furniture.

By this time, the day was becoming hot, and we needed a siesta. We spent some time lounging beside the hotel pool.

We have noted as military presence at our hotel. Army trucks, some with machine guns mounted, have been manned and parked in both the front and back parking lots. Other soldiers walked the perimeter. Inside, officers in fatigues were everywhere, most with general's stars. Apparently, a conference between generals of the Mexican and the Guatemalan armies was taking place in our hotel. The Guatemalan border is less than 100 miles from here.

At 5 p.m. we met our tour leader for an optional walk to a free museum about pirates of the Caribbean -- not the movie ones, but the real ones.

The reason that Campeche was a walled city was because it was constantly attacked by pirates. Piracy was a military tool of European governments opposed to Spanish and Portuguese domination of the new world.

Governments such as France, England, and the Netherlands actually "licensed" pirates to harass Spanish shipping. They were mercenaries of the seas.

We watched a very nice sunset from the promenade, then we returned to the old city for a beer and a snack before returning to the hotel for the night.