T&3SAdventure: April 2006

Izamal and Hacienda San Antonio Chalante

Izamal

This is a small town between Valladolid and Merida. The convent here is the largest church in the Yucatan and was built in the 16^th century (Valladolid has the oldest church – the one across the street from where we are staying.). Pope John Paul II visited the monastery in 1993 where he met with representatives from many ethnic and indigenous peoples. The words inscribed here after the meeting are very accepting of other people’s spirituality – even if they don’t strictly follow Catholic ideas.

The town is beautifully restored with colonial charm, and there are five different sets of Mayan pyramids in view from the convent. The town is an artist’s colony with a many galleries open in the late afternoon. There is a nice evening light show at the monastery that is fun to see. It’s a gorgeous place, and we strongly recommend a visit if you are in the area.

Hacienda San Antonio Chalante

While visiting Izamal, we stayed at a fantastic 300 year old Hacienda that has not been “redone”. The grounds are kept up, yet one feels the age and original charm.

One thing that attracted the girls in our group is that there were horses here. And, we were scheduled to go for a Sunday morning ride. We got up early and met the locals. There were not many people here. Besides us, there was only one other couple staying here that night). Anyway, the locals seemed to enjoy our morning company.

We headed out for the ride – just the four of us and our guide.

It was going to be a nice day… until we were attacked by a swarm of bees. Are you familiar with Africanized Honey Bees (Stefan can tell you more about them.). They are also known as “killer bees” up in the states. They get this name because they are very hostile and will swarm and pursue threatws much more aggressively than the European honey bees that we have in the northern (cooler) sections of our continent. The killer bees range from the southern US to the bottom of Brazil.

Anyway we got swarmed. Our tranquil ride suddenly became chaotic – and scary. Our guide turned us around and headed on back in a hurry. Our horses were frantic! However, in this frenzy, Susan and I went to a place of calm and clarity. Sasha’s horse was not with us. Her horse had stopped behind and was kicking away. Against our guide’s wishes, Susan and I reined in our mounts and returned to accompany Sasha out of there.

We were lucky. Our guide got stung once in the face, yet Susan, Sasha, Stefan, and I were fine. I think the bees were more interested in the horses than us. After our mounts calmed, we headed off in the other direction, and we had a nice ride after all (shaken non-the-less).

Best to all of you,
From all of us...

Portland Spring Break!

Can you believe that… We had a Portland Spring Break celebration down here in the Yucatan. Three families visited (including a favorite Aunt) for over a week. We started off on a beach in Tulum where we did some great snorkeling and playing under the palms.

The kids rebuilt Middle-Earth…

And then everybody came to Valladolid where we celebrated a special birthday.

We had a fun time and now miss all our friends from home…

Cheers,

Tim

Visting Ek Balam with Aunt Lisa

Ek Balam means “Black Jaguar” in Maya. We had the pleasure of checking out the site with my favorite sister!

Ek Balam is located less than 30 minutes North of Valladolid. What is really fun about this site is that one is free to climb all over the structures. This is not possible at most other Maya archeological sites. So, explore we did….

What’s pretty amazing about most Maya sites is that only a fraction of the buildings have been excavated and restored. There are many vary large mounds about that still need to be put back together. Well… the Yucatan is basically flat. So, these un-excavated structures are the only hills here actually.