We are back

We have been back for over a week...the ten days before leaving Playa were a little stressful mainly because of Mexican bureaucracy mixed with our incurable procrastination. Anyway we made it to the airport August 15th with 8 pieces of luggage, 2 kids, 2 cats and we all got home.

Andrea and Stefania were waiting for us in our empty house ... all our stuff was in the basement. But we can always manage to have a pizza delivered within 30 min., we are back in town.

The task of putting some order in this house seems overwhelming, but with some energy and commitment life is almost back to the normal chaos.

The kids rediscovered their toys and books, their trampoline house life.

It is was good to leave, it is also good to be back!

Chiapas con amore!

We got ready for our last trip before our departure.

First stop was Bacalar, great, amazing lake with blue-like-caribbean water. The kids had fun jumping from the pier and it was incredibly quiet. No waves, no noise, no tourists...we spent the night at Casita Carolina, in a bunglow decorated in mexican style by the lake. The idea was to kayaking in the morning but somehow we did not collect the courage so we just went for a swim.

Next, we are heading for Calakmul. An archeological site we thought we wanted to see after seeing this poster in the hotel we stayed in Campeche. Literally it was in the middle of the jungle.

We stay at an eco-tourism village, nice a little too village and not very ecological but still pleasant. However, we did not do our homework right and it was quite along way to reach the site. Once we got there, we had to walk one hour for the first pyramid.

The kids were good sports, they ask ONLY 10 times when are we getting there. We were almost by ourselves in the middle of the jungle, 30 km. from Guatemala.

So Alain goes up the pyramid and the idea is that we take turns so that the kids will not go up. While he is up there, a screaming monkey go in full action, Alain thought it was a wild animal having his family for breakfast. No it was just the screaming "dad" monkey reprimanding his "kids" monkey because they were not behaving! One good lesson right there in the middle of nowhere...

Well, of course we end up going all of us up the pyramid...

At this point we reorganize our trip deciding to stay overnight at Palenque but proceeding the next day for S. Cristobald with stop at the cascade, Aqua Clara and Aqua Azul and visit the Palenque archeological site on the way back.

I don't know if because we were deprived for our year of other nature that the one on the caribbean coast, but the road trip up to S. Cristobald was an incredible experience: it was a mix of forest, jungle, banana tree, corn fields and cows eating grass under tall tree.

However Chiapas seems the happiest land for animals and plants, people seems to have it a little harder. Flock of barefooted kids on the side of the street try to block your way to sell you something. An incredible rich land, with incredible poor people, the Zapatista movement had a point. Now the point seem lost, of the Zapatista movement the only thing left is puppet dolls that represent Marcos and his guerilleros sold on the sidewalk of S. Cristobald.

As politically aware tourists, we observe take note, move on and buy some stuff to relieve our conscience! And also to protect ourselves from the cold.

The air at S. Cristobald is crispy. It has not been crispy for one year for us, Matthias and Oscar are full of energy! We sleep with a big blanket and we buy ponchos and wool hats for the kids.

The town is alive: a group of late teens watch a documentary on Castro projected on the church wall on the main square, they are street vendors everywhere, there is the amber exposition (for my joy!).

The town is architecturally beautiful and it has a soul. We were enchanted by S. Cristobald...we end up spending the next day just wonder the street, the market, the churches and looking at the people. Our hotel was very cozy and the waiter at breakfast was fast and the eggs were just right!

We might go back to S. Cristobald one day, maybe we flight there instead of accumulating good 15 hours of driving.

On the way back we stop to Palenque. Beautiful but a little too touristee, now we are used to have the site all by ourselves, the people around and the vendors in the middle of the site kind of ruin the experience. Oh well, Palenque has to be seen in any circumstances.

We stay in the same hotels on the way back, we manage to visit other smaller sites as Becan and Sujil. What can I say the pyramids become almost an addiction....

Today I start my packing : one big travelling bag full of unused clothes for the winter in Playa, some long sleeve t-shirt...yeah right like I have used those!
As every departure is bitter-sweet. We are pretty excited about having launched http://www.myrivieramaya.com/ and to have Julieta nad Vito in the project. Besides hoping it will be a successful endeavour it will give a reason to come back and a contast link to this year in Mexico.
We have our two internet babies this year, hope they will be easier to manage that our two real babies (or big boys at this point).
I feel that with M & O in Mexico we are leaving behing the babies and we are coming back to NY with different people.

Tomorrow Isa, Dirk and the kids will be our last guests and we are planning a trip in Chiapas with them with few stops on the way.

I guess our old/new life is waiting for us! It is almost crazy to think that in 5 weeks we are back....

The pros and cons

Now that we finally booked tickets for August 15th I am start thinking about what I would miss from Playa, I will list them without any particular order of importance :

my morning yoga class
the Taormina's and their lifestyle
The blue blue carabbean sea
The snorkling and discovering nature
The fact I paid very little for fotocopies
The good pizza of the restaurant Mananitas, la Famiglia and l'Espresso
Be able to have the kids under control just by jumping in the swimming pool by the house
The good ceviche at the beach restaurants
The winter in shorts

what I would not miss:
the mosquitos and the humidity (also at night, it is June and it is not pleasant to have dinner outdoor)
The "ladies" of Playacar
The too many SUVs around the streets
The fact they are new buildings everywhere and there are few trees left , making very unpleasant to walk around in the heat
The fake conservatism and the fake modernism of the people
The fact it is very difficult to have a real conversation that does not involve cleaning ladies, outdoor temperature and having your pictures taken at some uninteresting event.
I almost forgot the "topes", the ones of Playacar in particular. If you are not familiar with the term you will become once you set foot on Mexico soil. There are speed bumpers, there are an all variety: cemented little hills, sort of round metallic bump and the worst of all are like two consecutive little steps going up and down. If you just go at 1 km/h, you and your car still have to suffer a major annoyance. Every morning to get the kids to school I have 4 brand new Playacar topes, 1 metallic, 2 cemented hills, 1 more metallic. I think I am forgetting some...

Anyway it is always good to go and good to come back like in any vacation (short or extended!)

A mexican particularity

It is well known that Mexicans are never on time, well most of the Italians are not either. So far no surprise there is a clear handicap in time management, and clearly you can't interrupt a good conversation even if you have an appointment with someone waiting for you under 40 C midday sun.

However, the Mexicans have also a problem relating to their space: they can't give the simplest directions. Even in Playa that is a rectangle with straight avenue with perpendicular streets, they are incapable of indicating a location but giving you the two coordinates.

This handicap is also officialized. You have an indication that says 20 km. to a certain location, then you turn the corner and it says 17 km. How the hell, just turning a corner is 3 km.?

We had to rely more on the tourist guide that the indication on the highway. Well having said that, we got there without really knowing the real distance and at the end of the day it did not matter. we can safely assume that 90% of the people driving have probably an appointment to which they are expected to be late anyway.

To Finish the trip...

We had to decide either go to Mayapan, or head home or stop somewhere!

We decide to add Mayapan to our list of Pyramids, after all it was the Maya capital when the conquistadores arrived. It is not really in our way, but after all the kids had already their playground so we can have one more pyramid!

We are the only visitor in Mayapan and it is really fun when you are with the Mayan Gods for yourself….

We have been in the car all morning so there is no way we are heading to Playa that day. We don’t want to go back to Merida so we decide to go to Progresso. Is the closest beach to Merida but according to the Lonely Planet not really worth the trip…unless you decide to go to this specific B&B.

We get to Progresso and it is ugly, sticky, and smelly. I almost loose my usual accommodative mood with “I told you so”, while Alain thought it was the Deauville of the Gulf of Mexico.

We remember the description of the B&B and it is truly an oasis in the ugliness of Progresso. We get a little separate two rooms apartment close to the pool, there is an enormous palapa under which there is a much needed bar and some cozy breakfast tables. Progresso after a margarita seems a good place to stop after all.

We manage to find a nice restaurant on the board walk and a town fair. The night is over, the kids are out and we are too.

Next morning, after a nice last dip in the pool, we are heading home with enormous relief from the other guests at the bed and breakfast that, after seeing our kids, feared that their vacation was over.

Ok now we are going back, the baby cats are waiting….

Campeche

In Campeche we set foot in the first hotel that our guide mentioned had a great pool, we were hot and sweaty, my previous idea of finding a colonial hotel in the historical part of town is dismissed.

At the hotel, there is an international meeting with high representatives of South American countries and high security around. We don’t seem too much of a threat, the terrorists in our family do not carry weapons (yet) so we go through security straight to our room to the pool.

The hotel has a great location: on the recently renovated Malecon and just at the entrance of Porta del Mar, short walk to the main plaza. Campeche was declared by Unesco Patrimony of Humanity so the colonial part has been extensively restored and, of course, the rest of the town is skippable.

Campeche is hot, so next day we tour the city on the little tramway so that were are not sunstroked. We get in this conversation with an American woman who owns a store and give us some inside on the Capechianos.

Not pretty people according to her : great place to visit horrible place to live especially for a foreigners, I believe her but somehow I thought she could be a little kinder… after all she is a guest!

Finally, in Campeche we find a new, safe a big playground right on the Malecon. Ok, I guess it was our turn to follow the kids around and making sure they didn’t get lost in the crowd.

After, all this intense day we decide to have dinner in this great restaurant right on the Zocalo, we overlooked the all plaza and it would have been great if Oscar had not decide to have a meltdown.

Next day we lounge at the swimming pool just being lazy, we were very active all these days. However, in the afternoon we decided to visit the two fortresses at the end of the both bay. From Fort S. Miguel there is beautiful view of the bay and has also a very intersesting Maya museum that I am only able to appreciate because Alain is watching the kids. Fort S. Jose has a maritime Museum with miniature boats ... more interesting for the kids!

We finished our tour of Campeche next morning we are out.

Pyramids and more Pyramids

We decided to celebrate the Semana Santa according to our traveling tradition. We are en route to Tikul, close to the Ruta Puuc where there are incredible archeological sites. Tikul is a typical little town with a square, a church and Sunday night activities for kids in the square. He has a couple of half decent hotels and half-decent restaurants.

Arriving, as usual, mid to late afternoon, we started the next morning our visit to the Pyramids. We begin the tourists tour with the sites of Kabah, followed by Sayl and Labna. There are all three in the Puuc Styles wich is very decorated and very different from Chichen Itza. We liked them all!

For a little freshness and shade (!!!!) we visited also the Loltun Caves… long around 2 km. with some rough canyons and of course we didn’t have the right shoes but was totally worth it!

At night the kids are rewarded with the usual tour in a battery powered car, they had a blast! Tikul has the cheapest tour of all... 5 pesos!

All they will remember from the trip is going to be slaloming among the very-kids-friendly Mexicans.

Next morning we leave our suite, three double beds room, and a bathroom with a enormous shower to visit Uxmal. Uxmal is an incredibly beautiful site and totally up to his reputation.

The kids follow patiently and after having tour the all site under the sun, the promise of a playground in contemporary style seems like a fair reward.

On our way to Campeche, we stopped in a middle of nowhere town where we eat the usual Porchuc (Alain manage to have the same dish two days on the row lunch and dinner), the only annoyance in town where the presence of this Mormon-evangelist-whatever they are, with women in very black polyester dress and men with jumpsuit with the look of retarded adolescents from some 50s movie.

Anyway, they were in town and end up eating at our restaurant. Very annoying God's creatures that try to convert this people that they seem very much in peace with the world already and in no need of help from some inbreeds with skin clearly not made for that kind of sun.

Let me tell us, the sun that day was strong, I think it was a sigh from God to this people to leave the Mexicans alone.

However, we made it to the hottest playground in the Yucatan Peninsula and even the kids had to surrender 5 minutes later. Finally, in our noisy but with a working AC car we proceed to Campeche.

Valledolid Weekend

You can bet in Mexico every month there is some kind of vacation...March 21st is one, I think they celebrate the beginning of Spring...well after a long cold winter it is normal (!) . Anyway they move the holiday to a Monday so that the well off population of Mexico can take a long weekend.

So here we are en route to Valledolid that we visited 10 years ago when the kids were still in the "planet of the non-born kids". Very charming colonial town about 2 1/2 hours away from Playa. We get, I think, the best room of the hotel with full view on the square just accross the street from the main church. The hotel "Meson del marques" is an old colonial building with a great internal courtyard.

Next day we went to visit the ruins of Ek-Balam...great archeological site with the pyramids almost attached to each other and in the middle of the jungle. We also climb up the main Pyramid with the kids, they stopped 3/4 of the way and we go up to the top (not both at the same time!) the view from up is spectacular...this Maya knew what they were doing.

We proceed to Tizimin, really just because the guide said there is a great pizza place (to make sure the kids would eat), but forgot to mention that the pizza is prepared only at night. So out of desespoir, we buy incredible fresh bread and other cakes and we go to the local park and do what the Tiziminian do: take a stroll, let the kids run at the playground and look a the sorry looking animals in very little cages. The best part been the cement slide and for Oscar borrowing the skateboard of a kid and almost breaking his neck.

Next day, we were not planning it, but we decided to revisit Chichen-Itza and then you realize how much your memory fades over the years. I remembered the main pyramid but I had not really recollection of all the other structures around to the point hat I think there were not open to the public. (To be checked)

Even if hyper-touristic it is totally worthed. The trick is too get there early so to avoid the crowd. We don't really get tired to see ruins, it is not like back in NY we will get the chance to see archeological site! Plus it is great exercise for the legs, next day you really feel it.

For the kids the highlight of the trip was renting the battery powered cars in Velledolid square and go around like crazy trying to avoid any human being that had the bad idea to come their way.

We can not go without going to see the two cenotes recommended, not impressive but still nice to take a look.

We are back in Playa with our new buildings everywhere..it was good to breath a little history.

Playa Society

Alain likes to say that in Playa there are : the high society wannabes and the help, and I should mention the tourists which is the reason why the two previous mentioned groups are here. So when you go to an event you see the same people to the previous event, and everybody is so conforted by the fact they have been invited.

It is not about meeting new people it is about seeing the same people!

On the top of it your picture get printed on the paper and there you are a playa celebrity or better someone in the "inner" circle.

After 8 months in Playa I realize I could not go somewhere without meeting someone that I know and that knows of me...how could people manage to have extra-marital affair???

Well I guess they go to Colosio (the poor neighbourhood), at least the men, and before they know they have impregnated a 20 years old that hopes to get married to the well-off guy and move to the nice neighbourhood!

It is strange to see how this fishing village where people would move to for a different type of life it is becoming this little bourgeois enclave.

The kids have to follow the trend, going to the right school, right after-school activities and right friends. Well all you want is that are not showing up with a Colosio partner....let me tell you very little chance that it is going to happen!

The "help" comes mainly from Chiapas, they need to leave their ID at the gate of Playacar when they come and clean houses and attend kids. They speak and incomprensible Spanish to me, they are mainly nice and sometimes have no idea how to clean and sometimes they don't show up but there is nothing to argue or to say, they work for little money and they retain the freedom of having little and needing little! I don't think they have mortgages to pay...

The rule of thumb is the whiter you are the richer you are...only 8% of the population is white in Mexico and they are all in government, in business, and in parties!

In Playa they are the foreigners which make it a little confusing but basically they are a bunch of people as my grandfather used to say : they want to fart higher than their behind (loosly translated from French).

Having said that we are glad to have come here, to have a winter with no cold and a time to think about where we went to be, and above all show the kids that we are in our 40s but still adventurous and fun (expecially me!).