We went to the ruins closest to the city, about 10 miles north, Dzibilchultan. The bus dropped us about 1/2 mile walk to the entrance to the ruins. 'Ditzy', was in a pen with a couple of siblings and two adults. The pen was built of dry-stacked rocks that probably were re-purposed from the ancient Mayan city the current puebla is built on top of.
El Fero in Progresso. Navigating here must be difficult, simply because the limestone shelf extends for miles, making the water only 20 feet deep 2 miles out. Come on, you KNOW we were going to find a lighthouse!
Yes, my friends, there is a Wal-mart here! If someone didn't tell you where, though, you'd never find it. And, it is far from the most popular shopping destination in town. This is a picture of Stuart, at the street entrance. The parking garage is underneath. They have the same sort of stuff the WM in Wilmington has, just less of it. And, they sell clothes made in Merida. It is, however, the only place to buy decent bread we've found so far.
There are three kinds of cenotes, I'm told: a cave type, a well type, and this open type. Stuart took this photo of the cenote Xlacah, at Dzibilchultan. Archeologists found 30,000 artifacts at the bottom of this 120 foot deep cenote in 1958, many of ritual significance. This cenote is now a popular swimming hole.
One afternoon we heard what sounded like a parade, and walked a couple of blocks over to the Paseo Montejo to inspect. We came across a group of Crusaders, marching and all dressed either in black or white. The littlest kids were first in the parade, followed be older kids, then the segregated groups of men and women, and finally the teenagers, following a flat-bed truck with a rock band complete with a speaker bank the size of a ship container. The evangelical Christians are a minority here, since everyone else seems to be Catholic. Well, Catholic with a healthy dose of Mayan tradition.
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