We have had two friends from the old neighborhood come visit this week -- and not just from Glenview, but they are also both from Swainwood. Linda (to the left of Sandy) and Sally (far left) arrived last Monday night and we've been roaming around ruins, eating and drinking well, and savoring the good life in which there is nothing so important that it cannot wait another day, and talking and talking and talking.
First, we headed to Dzibilchaltun north of the city. This ruin has a charming museum and is a great way to get acquainted with all things Maya. The ruin here captures the rising sun on the equinoxes and has a fabulous cenote where many were swimming the day we went, but only Sally ventured in with her toes.We also saw Uxmal, one of our favorite sites, and the center of the divine feminine for the ancient Maya. The guide we used called the site baroque and that is the perfect description for everything is covered by geometric shapes, carved stones, images of gods, and snakes. There are two large pyramids, one of which is climbable as proved by Linda who went up and down all 65 steps, a quadrangle, a governor's palace, and a ball court. This was a walled city and the nobles and priests lived inside the wall. Uxmal is a site where Desire Chamay lived and photographed in the 1840s and Frederick Catherwood lived and made lithographs in the 1850s. As with other sites, the pyramids are built on top of each other so they just get higher and bigger, but here the Magician's pyramid is elliptical instead of square (for pictures of this beautiful ruin, click http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/Uxmal).
We shopped, especially at the silver smith whose designs are so amazing, and at a photographer's whose portraits of doors are often completed with actual hardware and can be life sized (Linda took one home, although it is not life-sized, and we are still thinking about where we would put one). We also went to a nearby hotel, the San Angel, where there is not only a wonderful bakery but also a lovely gift shop of juried crafts that Sandy and Eva usually have a hard time resisting.
And we had a lovely lunch at Hacienda Ochil, where there was a big machine that fascinated Linda and ceiba trees for the rest of us (http://picasaweb.google.com/necshs1/Ochil).
On Saturday, Linda left very early in the morning so we headed out to the beach with Sally to see Lane in Chabihau (east of Progreso and pronounced chubby how, isn't that cute?) and to eat very fresh shrimp and fish, but saw no flamingoes since they are nesting right now. Sally was disappointed but this gives her reason for another trip to the area.
