El Espaafa Ol Hotel Merida

... pine needles, which I almost skidded over and broke my neck on. They light loads of candles and stick them on the floor amongst the pine needles (fire safety officers look away now). They then throw 'Posh' all over the place (this is really strong alcohol which they make from sugar cane). Then they drink loads of fizzy pop. This makes them burp, which they think releases the evil spirit from inside them so that it can commune with the Gods. They also offer sacrifices. I looked down ...

... she was twice his age but were fascinating to talk to and invited the three of us for dinner at their place the following evening. They took off about ten and went up to the bar to see Fred in his usual spot with a couple other peeps and by this point I was quite far gone already so after a few more tequilas I was pretty steaming. Went to bed around 1am and managed to slide of my bed while trying to get in it, mattress and all. Luckily I was in the bottom bunk!
Monday ...

... expected to know a fair bit of Spanish already. We struggled through although at the end I felt I understood less than I did at the beginning! Hopefully it will get easier. I don´t want to be put off because we have been doing so well, trying to speak Spanish as much as possible. There are lots of nice students at the school and they are having some kind of welcome party tonight so we will be going there and then there are some excursions to local ruins later in the week.

... a briliant Mayan chess set, $12 with carved stone figures. I beat him down from $18, so it at least felt like a bargain, although it is mighty heavy. The last few days in Mexico City were spent with Shannon, my Kiwi buddy and a Dutch girl called Jori. We visited the zoo 3 times, ate a whole lot of tacos and sampled all the local ale. My last day came and at 5pm, i headed to the airport and farewelled Mexico and Headed to San Francisco to see Sabrina... yay

... tropische planten konden we daar een rondje zwemmen. Het leek een beetje op center parcs, maar dan echt :) ´avonds zijn we gaan uit eten in Merida, waar ik nu nog steeds ben. Vanochtend zijn we een ander dorpje gaan bezichtiging waar we meer hebben geleerd over de plaatselijke cultuur. Ook hebben we een hangmatten weverij bezocht. Nu zijn we even aan het internetten en dadelijk gaan we een cerveza drrinken op een terrasje ...

... was a fabulous old Spanish mansion with a central courtyard and is being renovated so is only half finished. It will be an awesome hostel when done. There were only four of us staying there and it was 100 pesos a nite (10 US dollars). We even saw Speedy Gonzales, a little mouse in the kitchen poking his head out of a frypan.

We ventured out to the fiesta which was in the main square at 9pm. The whole town was alive and celebrating with dancing on the streets ...

... impressive to me, was that they were buiding this monument in 200 AD to 600 AD. It was a time 500 years prior to the existence of the Incas, Aztecs, or Mayans. wow!!! Our next main stop was the Pyramid of the sun. It was crazy huge!!! The scale is hard to say in words. I'll give you an idea of how big this pyramid is: 1. Took 20 years to build 2. Took 20,000 people to built it. 3. 1,000,000 cubic meters of stone 4. 227 Steps to the top Amazing ...

... looking at various old buildings & churches. We went to the free Macay museum near the plaza (modern art). It was not much to my taste, but well done for a free museum & it had free bathrooms and AC. There was also a sculpture garden outdoors near the museum. We looked at many artesania shops as well. The souvenier shopping seems to have been much better San Cristobal de Las Casas & Guatemala. They have lots of hammocks here & some ...

... a plane for a stupid amount of time. My first observation of the city is that it lacks color, with the exception the the countries flag flying over the square. Its just gray and shades of gray. It didn't matter how hard I tried to ignore it but I just kept seeing gray. I decided to dine in the hotel restaurant. It was full of people, thats a good sign that the food is edible. I grabbed the English menu and ordered something that I ...

... like to explain what a cenote is: it is small hold back which receives water from subterranean running and its origin is in a cave subsidence. In the holy cenotes the maya people throwed lots of objects as offering to their gods; also, the made human sacrifices, throwing women, men and children. Score:3 Location: 30 street (Valladolid - Yucatán state) EKBALAM Ekbalan means 'black jaguar'. Thought a way (sacbé in ...