Tuesday 19 November 2013
Had a
lovely relaxing few days at the end of this leg of our holiday.
The Hacienda Temezon had
their own cenote and they took us there on their old railway line with a
donkey. The hacienda was originally a
working station for making sisal (rope) out of cactus and they still have the
old machinery and a bit of semi-working rail track. The donkey didn’t seem very happy.
Temezon’s
pool. Lovely.
Then
to Mayapan. This was the city the ‘Mayans’
were named after. Collapsed only eighty
years before the Spanish arrival. Also a
lovely site with an astronomical observation tower.
We
stayed in Merida town at another lovely hotel. It was a party
town; everyone out and about on a Sunday night.
During the day we went down a boulevard of beautiful homes, what St Kilda Road
must have been like before they replaced the mansions with sky-scrapers.
This
was a view of our hotel - Casa Lecanda in Merida.
The archeologically
site outside of Merida is called Dzibilchaltun
(try pronouncing that).
Then
our last night at a hacienda, San Jose.
Here’s lady and lord muck in the pool.
Izamal
was a nice little town we stopped in.
You can paint your house any colour you like as long as it’s yellow and
white. They have a big convent there from
the earliest Spanish days (1549) and they have a doll of the virgin Mary "Our
Lady of Guadalupe" from back in the olden days. She is so important that the Pope Juan Pablo
II came to visit.
Below is a picture from Izamal with a horse with a sombrero.
And
finally our second last ruin in Mexico, Ek Balam.
Really lovely site. They had a
cenote but we ran out of time to go swim in it L
They
still have some stucco carvings. We
assume they’re original as some are missing their heads (ie not reproductions)
but have to check because they were in excellent condition.
