It's been cloudy for the past few days, which is sort unsettling because it's NOT going to rain, even though it looks like it. A little cooler, too, but not cool enough for a jacket.

There is a small festival situation for the weekend, at the Santana, which is short for Saint Anna church. The Santana, like San Jose, or St. Lucia, not only names the cathedral, but names the neighborhood. Because there is often an open square with the cathedral, much of the community life is centered in these open places. So, when someone asks where we live, we say, "Santana". But, back to the festival. It's a group of people from Oaxaca and Chiapas, who are mostly not spanish but native Americans, and they are selling their handmade goods. We were very excited to see a booth with the familiar tubs, filled with ice and big silver kegs in the ice. Nieves! Nieves are a kind of ice cream we love, a Oaxacan treat. The guys in the booth spend much of their time spinning the kegs in the ice, sort of a manual ice cream machine. i tried to capture it with my camera, but won't bother to post the results. Yesterday, we had a leche quemada, and a tres leches: a burned milk and a three milk nieve. Delicious! As we sat in the park, savoring the taste, we listened to the inevitably loud music from one of the vendors, who for once happened to be playing something palatable to our ear. Stuart bought the CD (to find out when we got home that it is a double CD), entitled Buddha Bar. It's pirated, which of course we didn't know until we got home and opened the CD, music from an apparently famous bar in Paris. If you have an opportunity, find a CD, and give it a listen. Puto Mayo material, for sure.

Later in the evening, we walked around the corner, to another park, for Noche Mexicana. Seems like this city is very focused on fun, there is free entertainment every night of the week somewhere in the historic district. Last night, we heard a local marimba band, with a standing room only crowd. A family affair, with grandfather, sons and wifes and a 10-year-old grandson in the band. Much fun!

Dinner last night was very successful: pollo con poblanos. Chicken with polbano chilies. Boil a whole chicken with some onion, garlic and cilantro, cool, and shred. Set aside. Boil 4 poblano peppers for 30 minutes. In the blender, put 1 cup cream, 3 cups chicken stock, and the poblanos. I added some of the whole garlics from the chicken, too. Layer the sauce/chicken/sauce/chicken and top with manchego (monteray jack) cheese. Bake for 10 minutes. OK, I baked for almost an hour (remember, I'm cooking with the Easy Bake oven). The recipe came from my new Lyman Morton cookbook, almost as he wrote it. This should be served with tortillas, but I had neglected to buy some, so I cooked some rice. I also served it with a salad of made-up ingredients...lettuce, some sliced radishes and papaya chunks. The dressing was mayonaise with lime and a little chipotle sauce. Oh, my! The sweet/sour/spice combination was perfect. OK, it was good.

Today, we actually got out of bed early, and caught a bus to Progresso, the port city. The pier there is reported to be 7km long, but since it's become a terrorist's target, people are no longer allowed to walk out on it. The shallow limestone ledge runs out for a long way, making the water thigh-deep for 1/4 of a mile. Which, makes shipping here a little more difficult. During the sisal heyday the wharf was built to ship product, but I'm sure shipping was taking place before the Spanish enslaved the Mayans to produce rope. Anyway, now the same wharf is used by the tiny sisal industry, and more often by the tourist ships that call at Progresso regularly. The tourists are bused in from the ships, because, let's face it, if you had to walk more than 2 miles, one way, to buy some silver jewelry and cotton blouses, you'd never leave the ship.

The malecon, the seaside sidewalk, was pretty, wide and smooth. Since it was not a ship day, and it was Sunday morning, it was very quiet, very few people out walking. We agreed that Progresso would be nice if we had a an enormous pile of books to read at a beach front house. It reminds me, in a way, of Topsail Beach of my childhood. There are lots of rentals, so if you were looking for quiet, this would be the place. We stopped for a beer and some of the best ceviche we've ever eaten, and to just watch the waves roll in. Two blocks away from the waterfront, the locals were out in force, spending money at the small businesses around the mercado. The bus trip back to Merida is about 45 minutes, just long enough for a nap.

Back in Merida, spent the rest of the afternoon at the Sunday afternoon festival downtown. We saw dancers, artwork and people, and it was a perfect day.

Random thoughts...

The Mayans were an amazing civilization! We white folk tend to think of the world in post-Columbian ways, and we are missing the whole story. There is much science, math and culture we've lost by ignorance.

the eggs have a thicker shell than those at home. They are bigger, too, with more golden yolks. And, they don't have to be refrigerated.

Chickens are bigger,and more tasty. The stock is slighly more golden in color. Don't know why, but it could be the marigold flowers they are reported to be fed.

Public construction projects seem to move along more quickly here. Of course, they happen more often, and the work quite often doesn't involve more complicated equipment than a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

The Mexican structure would collapse without plastic. Plastic bags of sizes from lemon to Lincoln, plastic chairs, plastic dishes, plastic canvas, plastic shoes, plastic everything.

There is no such thing as recyling anywhere in Mexico that I've seen. Styrofoam plates by the ton go into the trash everyday, along with paper napkins and plastic forks. Bottles, cans, plastic, paper all go in the garbage. Compost? No one ever heard of it! Even here, where people bring their own bags, there is still an obscene number of plastic bags given away. I find that each time I leave the apartment, I have a bag full of bags over my shoulder, just in case.

There are no regular church bells, barking dogs or thumping cars here. And, the traffic pretty much settles down each night at a civilized hour. Teenagers comb their hair, and I haven't seen any boxer shorts yet.

Older women are the only people wearing traditional clothes.

Trash is picked up in the middle of the night. This is a colonial city, with streets of an inappropriate size for the traffic of the 21st century. Think of how a trash truck would snarl traffic in these tiny streets during business hours! Oh, and trash is picked up THREE times a week. Keeps the rat population down. Bedsides that, think of the trash that can't be flushed...

Meridians seem to be relaxed. We have met so many locals, who just want to talk. They don't want to sell us anything (even though those people are here, too). The mood of the city seems very calm.

I still can't post photos, some technical issue with the server. Oh, I'm gonna have to serve lots of popcorn for the slide show when we get home.