Hilarious foreigners and more cenotes

First off, I want to thank everyone who's written me or posted comments. I'm honestly surprised how many people are reading this, so I guess the only option is to make it as interesting and entertaining as possible.

My last week of work was quite tame. One of the guys I'm working is taking time off to get back surgery (ouch), and the other was gone to Guatemala for a lot of the week, so I didn't have a lot of things to do. Luckily for me, I have a boatload of GIS data that could probably use infinite editing, so I always have a fallback. It does get pretty boring at times though.

My weekend, however, was really fun; best weekend I've had in Merida so far. On Friday night, I stayed in and relaxed. I bought a ton of books for my Kindle earlier this week, so I've been reading in the evenings, which is a really good way to pass the time. I've had so little time to read for fun at CMC that I never do, so I've been having the greatest time reading something that isn't peer-reviewed. My Kindle, by the way, has been the BEST thing I brought on this trip. I have no clue where I would buy English-language books here (though if I was brave I'd try reading in Spanish... but I did say I wanted to read for fun), so being able to download them on command is really excellent. I highly recommend a Kindle if you're ever going abroad for an extended period.

On Saturday, I trekked over to my local Walmart to buy more food. (Interested in what I'm cooking? Aware that I am fairly inept in the kitchen? No worries, I'm planning a post on those adventures soon enough!) I've gotten to the point where I recognize most streets in a 4-5 block radius of where I'm living, so Saturday I decided to stop off in all the stores that were open on my way to get groceries. The area I walk through is where all the big, fancy hotels are, so the stores were very nice and no one heckled you to buy things... of course, the downside is that everything was definitely more expensive than it should've been, so I didn't buy anything. But still, it was nice being able to check out the kitschy tourist crap.

After carrying my bags back through the heat (the humidity is killing me here!) I waited to go out to dinner. I think this has been my problem in the past - late afternoon, no one in their right mind is out and about. Everything is later here; the people I work with don't eat lunch until 1 (not to mention they don't get to work until 9:30 or 10, but I can't tell if that's normal or not). So I dutifully waited until 6:30 to go to dinner, figuring that with walking time that would get me there at peak hours. That turned out to be wrong. The restaurants I had scoped out nearby were all closed; I couldn't tell if they had yet to open or had already closed, as posting your hours seems to be strangely uncommon. So instead, I headed over to the Paseo Montejo, figuring that one of the many restaurants there would be open. Turns out, I was still too early - I kept getting my hopes up when I saw places with lots of people out on the patio eating, but upon closer inspection they were all coffeeshops of places selling smoothie/gelato things. But one of the coffeeshops was selling paninis too, so I ate a tasty sandwich while sitting on the patio watching people walk by. The guy taking my order was obviously American - I was quite amused when he asked one of the other guys to translate something into Spanish so he could address me en espanol. So when I get to talking to him, after telling him I could speak English just fine, and he says he's from LA, and then what do you know! It turns out that he was accepted and almost went to CMC back in the 80s. Claimed he didn't go cause he "decided an ROTC scholarship at the school wasn't for him." Well heck yeah, I seriously doubt CMC would've been a place I wanted to attend in the 80s... they didn't even accept women until '84. So I finally found someone who's heard of CMC, but since he was American I don't think it counts. Still on the lookout, I guess.

It was a really beautiful day, and I was in a good mood, so I decided to go to the Irish pub I had gone to a few weeks ago, since it was only a few buildings over. There, I met and talked to (for the first time!) an American girl only a little older than me who lives in Merida! She was very nice; told me a bit about the city. We only talked for about 20 minutes or so, but she told me a few places I should go where people our age hang out, so now I have a goal for next week. That was very exciting, so after she left to meet a friend of hers, I gladly talked to the bartender. All the guys at this bar are trying to learn English, so they try talking to every English-speaker who shows up (I was glad to see it wasn't just me). Since I'm in need of someone to talk to, I don't mind at all. They also keep inviting me out to clubs ("discos" haha), which ain't happening, as any of my friends knows that you have to drag me to clubs in the US, where I speak the language and can go with people I know. I also had a hilarious conversation with this old drunk Irish guy who was there with a woman who looked too young, too sober, and too pretty for him. He had some hilarious back-and-forths with the bartender (clearly a regular), and I found him pretty amusing, especially when he went on this long tirade about "what I should know about Mexico." Mostly it was, "Watch out for the men, and don't think you can make too much of a difference in a poor country." Right, thanks, words of wisdom there.

On Sunday, I had a nice trip. The Nature Conservancy director from Missouri is visiting here for a couple weeks on some sort of fellowship to help with the climate change and deforestation projects they're doing here in the Yucatan. His name is Todd, and he's quite nice, etc., but the best part is that his Spanish is substantially worse than mine, which means that everyone speaks English around him. They're also rolling out all the stops, giving him tours and such around the area, which I get to tag along to! Todd, Yves, Yves' girlfriend Karin (not sure how to spell it), and I took a trip to Cuzama (map here), a little Mayan town about an hour from Merida. Hilariously, there was a Mayan pyramid right in the middle of the town square, sandwiched right between two little stores on either side. I suppose it's no big deal for a lot of the people who live there, most of whom are Mayan by ethnicity. I still thought it was strange... like if you added some McDonald's on either side of Stonehenge...

So our real purpose was to visit the "Three Cenotes of Cuzama." When we got there, there was a full parking lot, and we were told that they only let a certain number of people into the cenotes at  time, so we would have to wait. We did, for about an hour, in the sweltering heat (though under a shade and supplied with snow cones, at least). The area had been a hacienda, one of the big Spanish ranches that grew sisal, an agave, to harvest to rope back in the early 1900s when that was the big economic driver of the Yucatan. So to get to the cenotes, we took this old "railroad" on a little cart drawn by these little horses running along the side. I say "railroad" because this thing was ancient, and I cannot imagine going any faster than our horse's occasional trot. It was a very bumpy ride, but still fun, despite the gimmick. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of our horse (his name was Nino), but I've found this one on the internet so you get the idea.

So you take the rail to each of the three cenotes, and you're allowed 30 minutes at each one. The distance between them is farther than I expected, so the horse-rail is actually quite welcome. These cenotes were beautiful,the prettiest I've ever seen. The water was a deep, deep blue; and like all cenotes, almost totally clear. Here are a few photos (these are mine).

The first cenote was the best for swimming - you could dive in, but there were a few spots where it was shallow enough to stand. The water was really that blue! Absolutely gorgeous.

Here's the stairs you had to go down to get to the first one. They were rather slippery, but they were nothing compared to the next one we went to...

...which required you to actually go down this ladder into the ground! This cenote was really cool; it was almost totally covered, with just a few holes to let light in. Swimming in it was pretty scary because the water was so dark, and you could only touch the ground in the very center, where the light was (see picture below).

The things hanging from the ceiling are tree roots looking for the water, not stalactites, though there were plenty of those too. I tried to be brave and force myself to swim over and touch the sides, but having unknown depths of dark water on every side really freaked me out, so I'd tag the edge and then hightail it back to the center.

The cenotes were really fun; luckily, because we had gotten there late and waited, there weren't too many people. Unluckily, because we had gotten there late and waited, the rain that I've now learned shows up around 2-4 pm every day during the rainy season (aka, the summer) had just started to come in, so swimming wasn't nearly as refreshing as it could've been. This is also why I don't have pictures of the third cenote - it was too dark half-underground for good pictures.

Our trip was made more amusing by this fellow Harry, who showed up and asked if he could join us, as they only take groups out to the cenotes, not individuals. He seemed pretty nice, so we said yes, and he was a very interesting guy. He was an Austrian photographer, and had been doing war photography in Afghanistan. Not recently, mind you, because he'd spent the last 3-4 years literally driving around the world. He went from Europe to Singapore, through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Said he has military contacts in Afghanistan, so that's how he was able to get through, though it was "an armored car in front of me and one behind me the entire way." From Singapore, he shipped his car to the tip of Argentina, and has been driving up through South and Central America. He was on his way to Merida, when he got lost, and was informed of some good local cenotes when asking for directions. Being a photographer, he'd showed up to take some pictures while he was in the area.

Though he was clearly a strange guy (Where does a photographer get money for a four-year world-wide trip? We were suspicious he's a trust-fund kid.), he did have some very entertaining stories. For instance, there were several stories about the delicious barbecue in Argentina, which has some of the best barbecue outside of Texas (I won't give you up, Texas!). One of them involved him showing up to a town right as they're starting a festival, and this guy, the best cook in the town, who is actually nicknamed "Goat" (in Spanish, of course), is about to set the world record for the most number of goats barbecued at once. So the next day he cooks something like 1,200 goats simultaneously on this area the size of (in Harry's words) "three football fields!" I also learned some interesting things, such as the fact that the border between Panama and Colombia doesn't have a road going through it, and is the only part of the Americas you can't go across by car. The reasons are partially ecological (it's a terrible swamp-rainforest mess), and partially because if you go there Colombian drug gangs will kidnap and murder you. Harry had shipped his car and gone by sea.

So after we returned from the cenotes, we had dinner at this great restaurant called La Chaya Maya. That was the second time I've been there, and it's super good. You get these fresh-made tiny tortillas with your order (there are these cute ladies making them on the side while you watch) and giant portions of traditional Yucatecan food. Delicious. After getting dropped off at my hotel, I was in for one final surprise - I try to turn on the light by the front door, and it doesn't work. So I'm thinking the bulb must be out, so I walk across the apartment and try another one... no luck. At this point I'm realizing that my electricity is out, but what can I do? It's 9 pm on a Sunday night, and no one who works here is around. So I wander down to the parking lot and spot a familiar looking guy, and as luck would have it, turns out he does work here! I tell him my problem, and he gives me the a very fast Spanish reply, and all I can gather is that they know; it's been out since 6 pm; they're working on it; it should be fixed in about an hour. So of course, around midnight, I'm laying in the dark sweating without A/C or even a fan, thinking, "Yeah, an hour. Right." Finally, around 1:30, I wake up to all my lights suddenly turning on and get the A/C going. I will willingly admit, I can't take the heat.

So that was prettymuch all my weekend. Since Todd (the Missouri director) is still here, they've arranged for him to tour several sites across the Yuctan Peninsula tomorrow and Wednesday, and as an afterthought, they told me I could go too! So I'm off tomorrow to some place whose name I can't remember way to the southeast to go to a site where one of the ejidos is working on a carbon capture/forest conservation project. We're staying in a hotel near there, then going the next day to swim at the beach or somewhere? I'm not sure about the details (I got the abbreviated version), but I'm excited to get out of Merida and visit new places. Of course, I will let you know how it goes.

A work week and various adventures

So things have not been too exciting (don't get your hopes up). This update will mostly be about my work, which I find interesting, but which you, dear reader, my not care about in the slightest. If you want, skip ahead 3 paragraphs to get to actual adventures. Sorry for the lack of pictures here too; I feel so touristy with a camera out that I only want to take pictures if things are really pretty, and I haven't gone anywhere too cool this week.

Since the reason I was employed here was because I said that I could do GIS on my resume, it is not surprising that they gave me GIS files to work with. In truth, I have worked with GIS a few times in classes, but I only know how to deal with the most basic issues - none of the hard things that a real GIS technician person would understand. However, I am dedicated, so I've been learning about GIS quite a lot in the last few days. The biggest thing I've been working on is the process of assigning projections. The data I've been given is in many different projections - the way you project, or change, a round globe onto a flat surface - so my main goal right now is to align all the projections into one file. I think I've gotten it down, but there are a lot of little edges that need aligning. I've really been enjoying learning GIS - it's really seems like the sort of program that's tailored for me to like. The main components are data organization (sorting), which I've always loved, and effective communication, which I truly value. End result? Today I accidentally worked until 5:30 because I was wrapped up in what I was doing and din't notice. If strange legal reasons don't prohibit me, I'll try to post a few finished maps to this blog to share my work with you.

Thursday evening, I went to a meeting with several nonprofit groups and the Yucatan state environmental secretary that are trying to get an area declared a state protected area (I mentioned this in my first post). Despite the fact that this is a completely symbolic gesture, as the state protection does not affect the land or what you can do with it in any way at all, there's still opposition to it from people who have this idea that it somehow represents "big government ordering us around." So the meeting was mostly about their plans to talk to people and convince them that this won't hurt them in any way. It was interesting, but 2 1/2 hours of talking in Spanish killed my brain. I can follow generally what people are saying, but I'm not used to having to spend so much attention listening and thinking about what people are saying, and it's really quite tiring.

Today I decided to go out to downtown Merida, thinking Saturday would be more busy and interesting. It was - there were lots of little shops open, all selling this same dress in varying colors, as well as a few other articles of clothing. I wanted to look around, but every stop I went into, it was non-stop salespeople following me around saying, "Have you seen this? You should buy this. Where are you from?" I tried being polite, but that just encourages them to try to ell me more. Ironically, if there had a been a shop where the workers left me alone, I would've bought from there. But that seemingly does not exist, so I didn't buy anything, despite the fact that I've been wanting some souvenirs.

At one store, I must've smiled and nodded at the wrong guy because he FOLLOWED me into the next place, very obviously. Mind you never said a word to him, just smiled like a normal polite person. Now the whole area was very crowded with lots of families, so it wasn't particularly scary, but I'm not a big fan of having strange older men follow me, so when he wasn't looking, I hurried out of that store and around the corner, and ducked into the first place I saw. So by this time I'm getting really discouraged. I clearly need to be much ruder to people or they will continue to talk to me, but I just can't bring myself to do that. I also realized that I don't know how to say, "leave me alone" or a less-polite equivalent in Spanish, so that's something I clearly need to learn.

The place I had randomly ducked into turned out to be a Mayan cooperative that sells goods made by the peasants there. Unsurprisingly, the guy at the store starts trying to convince me I need a hammock (I actually do want one for our apartment next year, but I don't have any need for it right now, so wasn't planning to get one). He turned out to be much nicer than the other sales people I had talked to, and gave me a lot of information about the local Mayan groups that the co-op works with. He also gave me a brochure about the cenotes nearby, some of which were WAY bigger than the one I went to, and much prettier, too. This is one of the ones from the brochure, the guy told me that it's about 3 hours from here, and I want to find some way to go; it looks so beautiful. They also had some weird things for sale, such as live beetles with little rhinestones glued to their backs. When I asked what you would do with them, he told me that you wear them on your shirt as broaches!!! I cannot picture anyone thinking that would be a good look, but apparently someone must. I also asked how you keep them from crawling away; he showed me one that also had a little 4-inch chain glued to it and told me you would pull the chain if it started to get away. What?!

So he was very nice and less creepy than most other guys I've met, though he did both offer to show me Mayan massage techniques, which he claims are based on ancient shamanistic rituals, an to take me for a moonlit walk on the beach. Since I had already told him I had a boyfriend, he's either genuinely nice or extremely persistent - perhaps both. Not likely if I'll take him up on the offers, though a massage sounds really good; the bed in my apartment is the #1 hardest bed I have ever slept on (no exaggerations, I'm serious) and I've been waking up sore every day. But showing up around 10 pm Monday night for the massage, as he suggested, sounds like a particularly bad idea, so unfortunately I think I'll just stay sore. I did get the impression that he is some kind of teacher, though, and that he gives massages regularly to people. But since I'm never sure where to draw the line between adventurous and foolhardy, I'm planning to err on the side of caution with things like this.

So I asked him directions to the nearest good restaurant and headed out for dinner. The place he recommended turned out to be closed, and as I'm walking back to another restaurant I had seen on the way, this guy comes up to me and asks me if I speak English. I'm thinking maybe he wants directions, so I say yes, and out comes this bizarre story, which I can't even totally recreate. He tells me he's a missionary from Australia, and that he's here with his brother, but that he got a flat tire while he was driving around, and as he was repairing it some robbers come out and demand his money. Sounds reasonable so far, but THEN he says that some cops show up and run off the robbers and then they take all his money, wallet, keys, truck, everything he has, and STAB his brother. Now, I've heard horror stories about Mexican police taking advantage of foreigners and demanding bribes, but stabbing someone seems a little extreme, so there were clearly some serious edits to this tale. But it ends with him saying that all he wants to do now is go back to Australia, but he has no money, and his passport is in the hotel and the hotel won't let him have it till he pays his bill, which he can't do because he has no money. I suggest he talk to the embassy, he says they won't give him anything without his passport. So of course his goal is asking me for money - he claims he needs 200 pesos to pay the hotel bill. I'm pretty skeptical of this tale, but he will not stop talking me, and does genuinely seem stressed out, and some of the things he's telling me seem true. So eventually I give him 100 pesos (about $10) and tell him that I'm "just a student" so I can't offer much more. Luckily believable, but this then makes him ask, "You're a student? Wait, how old are you?" I tell him 21, and he's all shocked, claiming, "I thought you were 16, same age as my daughter, but wow, at least your of age then, right? Hahaha, oh actually, sorry, I mean, um, not that I was, um, I'm a Christian, you know, I just, um..." Wow. So finally I just tell him I'm leaving, and he's all nice (of course, I gave him money). Probably went and spent it on beer and is just a clever con artist, but I'm such a sucker, so there you go. My only real regret was that I thought afterward about how much I'd've rather given money to the nice guy at the co-op... seems like he deserves it way more.

After this, I ate dinner, and then had been planning on going to the cathedral downtown and looking at some of the nice architecture, but after all my awkward encounters, I'm pretty frightened of walking around at night alone, so I decided to head back to my apartment before the sun went down. This whole evening has illustrated the most frustrating thing to me: as a young girl by myself, no one who helps me or talks to me seems to have good intentions. It's all guys who appear to be rather badly hitting on me, and I don't know that there's any way to change that. I have never in my life wished I wasn't a girl so badly; I really feel like I can't even get out and explore the city effectively because I literally have to worry about guys following me. Extremely frustrating. I'm going to keep trying because I don't want to be a shut-in, but today's events were very discouraging. I think things would even be better if I had other people with me, no matter who they were, but being by myself makes people think I'm looking for someone to talk to.

Well, enough complaints. Other than that, things have been good. Yesterday, it rained for the first time since I've been here. They warned me the rainy season was starting soon, and boy, this was a real tropical storm. One minute I'm working and hear a few drops, within 10 minutes there is a MONSOON outside, with the wind whipping in every direction, the trees thrashing around into my building, and the water is just POURING down. I was worried about walking home in the downpour, but it stopped as abruptly as it started, and within 2 hours, the sky was totally clear. Lesson learned, though - looks like I need to start bringing my umbrella with me to work.

I have more stories, but these are all the interesting ones. I miss my friends and family quite a bit, so if you're ever on gchat or skype and want to talk, it would make me very happy. Also, if you have money and time to spare, then I would absolutely love to have people visit. If I just had a partner in crime, I really think it would improve my experience of Mexico tremendously. Unrealistic to assume anyone would take me up on that offer, but if you're looking for a vacation, I'll soon know all the best tourist spots! Till next post!