The Long Drive

We have arrived in Mahahual on the Caribbean coast after a long bus drive.  We were told it was an hour and a half trip. Some Danes we met were told it takes an hour. Two hours later and a remarkable number of9 stops for gas which I suspect were a poor cover for lengthy cigarette breaks, we made it the 100 km.  Not that I am doubting the bus company but does large transport bus really need to stop at each gas station to fill up on diesel?

Another day at the cenote Azul which was slightly marred by a cloudy day and chilly 22 degrees.  This meant the cenote at 28 degrees was warmer than the air.

The meXi cans and some Brazilians thought we were plain nuts for swimming today, particularly catherine as she swam straight for an hour.

We did however manage to convince the Brazilian women to put their foot in at which point one put on snorkel gear and dove in.

Travelling by bus and walking the small villages you get to see how most maya live. Most homes are a small one room cinder block, concrete or even wood framed affair, the roofs constructed out of salvaged corrugated tin sheets or traditional dried palm leaves. Most people have a small yard where chickens and sundry animals peck.  Cooking like washing is done outside in the yard beside the house. Most people still sleep in Hammocks which hang from the walls.  The front step or yard is your living room where family and neighbour's will congegrate, or a local Pollo shack with a grill and some plastic chairs where people eat chicken and tortillas.

Many of the maya run small fruit stands on the edges of the villages.  Today going I to limone the specialty was pineapples. More than I've seen in my life for prices ranging from 4 to 2 pineapples for 50 pesos.

I think the people are members of a pineapple cooperative as best as I could make out from a large sign by the road.

One of the things I've found most touching about yucatan so far is the relationship between parents, children and siblings.  Because no one could ever dream 9 affording a stroller, not that you could even get one through the tiny uneven sidewalks, everyone mothers, father's and sing carry the babies and toddlers everywhere holding them at their hip. Once little ones are able to walk they pass all holding  parents hand.  I have also noticed that Mayan men are just as responsible for walking with the kids as the women.

Yucatan is lovely.  A gentle people who tolerate our mangling of spanish even if it's not their first language.

Maybe they enjoy someone else mangling a stupid language which was never their own.