Of Guayaberas and Panama Hats (Craig)

Amy and I arrived in the Yucatan a couple of days ago. Yesterday was spent wandering the streets of Merida, a wonderful city, full of life, traffic, noise, great food, shopping, music and art. Things happen here everyday, music, fiestas, you name it. And they are getting ready for one of Mexico´s biggest days, the day for the Virgin of Guadalupe. So there are lots of decorations all over, both for the Virgin and for Christmas.

We did a lot of wandering....eating and shopping. The food here is marvelous. We came into town by public bus from the airport (only 10 pesos!) and were dropped off about 10 blocks from the hotel. Luckily, we are travelling very light, so no problem walking around with our bags. We went into one market and had a breakfast of tacos filled with turkey meat and this sauce they call relleno negro, which is come kind of black sauce made from chillies. Yum! For lunch we ate at a great restaurant called Marlin Azul. 5 plastic tables are all they have, but the food is to die for. We had a mixed ceviche...very fresh! That was followed by conch cooked with a green garlic sauce. Ohmygawd! Never had conch before and it won´t be the last time. For dinner we went to a rather pricey restaurant, called something or other de Pelegrino. We had a sopa de lima (typical Yucatan soup) and another ceviche. Amy had a baked eggplant dish with chicken and cheese. I had pollo pibil, a typical Yucatan dish cooked in banana leaves with a delicious brown-red sauce. We drank a glass of a very good repasado tiquila, I wish I could remember the name. Also, an Argentinian malbec. For dessert it was coconut ice cream with kalua on top. WOW!

In between all this eating, we went shopping, or rather kind of just window shopping as it turned out. I was interested in looking at the Panama hats, which are made in Campeche state next door, and the famous Yucatn shirt, the Guayabera. I wanted a really good Panama, with a weaver that was close to those of a fino Equadorian Panama. I found one that I thought was pretty close, very fine weaving on it. But the lady quoted me $240!!! OUCH!!!! I hemmed and hawed quite a bit and she finally got down to $119 (quite a drop), but I decided that the Equadorian versions were much better anyway, so didn´t get it.

Most of the guayaberas I´ve seen aren´t all that great. Most come in white or baby blue (I had a leisure suit that color in 1973) and were ugly and made with a cotton-polyester blend. Gimme a break. Polyester? In this heat? But in the same place with the fine Panama, they had some really high quality linen guayaberas. But the price was over $100!!! I might go back though and see how far they can reduce the price.

Other than that, we just wandered through the interesting markets here. Really good local markets with very few tourists. In fact, not that many tourists here it seems. Maybe the calm before the storm, who knows? Amy was able to find a lovely dress, the kind the local indian ladies wear, with flowers actually PAINTED on the dress! How cool is that?

So today, Thursday, we´ve rented a car and headed south to the Puuc Route, where there are all sorts of Mayan ruins, including Uxmal, which we will go to tomorrow. We´re in the town of Ticul and are about the only touristas here. It´s a very typical Yucatan town with no tourists stores, just stuff for the locals. The weirdest thing we saw today was a plastic Virgin of Guadalupe that was surrounded by green and red flashing Christmas lights. Just the thing to put on your mantle and impress your friends. Wandering around Ticul is a lot of fun, mostly because you really see what true life here is like. I don´t know what it is, but for some reason, as soon as it gets dark, people get the idea to put their stereo speakers on the street, put on some incredibly obnoxious music, and turn the volume up to 11 (Spinal Tap 11). But it´s all part of the ambiance, unless it´s next door to your hotel. But that is why we travel with earplugs.


Today we also took a one hour tour of a cave. It´s a huge sinkhole in middle of nowhere that you climb down into and then walk several hundred meters back into. A guide goes with you, the great-great-great grandson of the guy who discovered it in 1840. There are all sorts of stalagtites and weird forms on the walls. And it was interesting that they all had a recognizeable shapes, like a standing bear, a running horse, a penis complete with testicles, a llama and even Osama bin Laden with the devil whispering in his ear. They even had vampire bats in this cave, which move and do their little noises when you shine a light of them. Kinda makes you shudder and think of Bela Lagosi. The cave was quite intersting, but I learned that I probably won´t add caving to my list of hobbies.