Ticul, Dzan, Mani, and Oxkutzcab

Rather than take a walk in town on Sunday, we drove into the country. It's hot here again and the air-conditioned car is a luxury.

Ticul is a favorite place, the town with the leering church facade. This time I photographed the side entrance to the main nave.


Our goal was the town of Mani (about 90 kilometers south of Merida), which we were told is a pretty town and on the way we stopped at Dzan. The church is always the main feature of a village and this is true in Dzan as well. Sunday services are so well attended that there isn't room for everyone inside. Either that or these people were looking for a breeze they wouldn't find inside. In any case, services aren't as formal as in the States. People wander in and out at any time without feeling that they must be there at the start and stay until the end.

Near Dzan's main square.

This chapel was on the outskirts of Mani.

The interior of the Mani capilla. The cross with the embroidered shawl is typically Yucatecan. It mimics the way the ladies wear their rebozas.

Looking toward the street from the front of the church. No one was in this chapel and I felt freer than usual to photograph the interior.

A detail of the door.

Advertising poster in front of the chapel.

The inexpensive furniture in Mexico is perhaps even uglier than that in the US. It's certainly more uncomfortable. I shouldn't say inexpensive, for it seems to us that it's unreasonably costly. And the dog underneath. Everyone was seeking shade yesterday.

This water damaged wall is at the ayutamiento (city hall) behind where the ladies sell crafts.

A side entrance to the main church at Mani. The churches tend to begin to look alike and so I won't repeat almost identical fronts to the various churches in all the villages we visit. This one's facade was left unplastered and unpainted. I'm not sure which I like the best--the bright yellow or red fronts or the rough stone. The netting on the door is to keep birds from flying into the church when the door is open.

The large, open square in front of Mani's church. This one is bigger than most and without any decoration or vegetation--more like the Zocolos of farther north. There is a magnificent tree in a public area on one side--I think a ceiba, but when I asked the men resting under it, they only knew the Mayan name for the tree, not the Spanish. They told me, but Mayan names don't seem to stick readily in my head.

Mani was a pretty town, perhaps the most attractive village we've been in. It's on a hill and that alone recommends it to us, who are hungry for a hill in this very flat Yucatan. The Puuc Hills are the site of many famous ruins--Uxmal, Sayil, Labna, Kabah. We will visit them when Andy comes, but we've been scouting around the area so that we can be fairly efficient in our touring when he does arrive.

Below are two sections of the nacimiento at the church in Mani--a traditional side.

And one featuring sweet Yucatecan crafts. Maybe too sweet for a gringa's taste.

After leaving Mani, we drove on to Oxkutzcab before heading home. (Xs are pronounced like a sh in Mayan. One wishes that Mayan words were legal in Scrabble.) Below is a shy, Oxkutzcabian dog.

The side of Oxkutzcab's church.


An interior courtyard of Oxkutzcab's church. Note the Mayan stones in the upper left corner. They were also in the stone pathway to the side entrance to the church.

The nacimiento in Oxkutzcab was near the altar inside and it was composed of entirely natural materials. Here is a donkey made of earth. The soil around here is much like the red soil of Sundance--a real oddity for the Yucatan as most of the soil is limestone and very white.

You will perhaps have noticed that I haven't been using accents for the Spanish words. I apologize, but I can't figure out how to include them using the blog program. Mayan words almost always have the accent on the final syllable. Merida has an accent on the e. These two instances are probably the worst of my omissions. I know you will forgive me.

Frangipani

I finally remembered the name of the tree, which has appeared so often in the cemeteries--frangipani. They are described as hideous in the winter, without their lush summer foliage, by one website, but I don't agree.

Panteon Florida (another Merida cemetery)

We found another cemetery in Merida today, the older one my neighbor spoke of. Perhaps we actually found two of them, the first being nearly colorless, with none of the vibrancy of Cemetario Xochul from the day before. They must also have some kind of height limit as none of the graves had any houses or statuary. Almost all had a concrete cap with a recumbent Christ crucified. Most of the graves here were from the second half of the 20th century.


Just to the north of the burial place above was a much older part. The next two pictures are not colorful either, but this section seemed to be abandoned. What I found interesting was the stone, limestone with embedded sea creatures, with which some of the tombs and the wall was built and the way it has weathered.





We found the grave below remarkable because of the turbaned figure. The occupant had a Spanish name and the script was Spanish and we had no notion why there was a figure in addition to Christ. It wasn't a statue commonly seen in the area. We did see Arabic script (or at least I think it was Arabic) in the other part, but it wasn't present here.

There are workmen at the edges of the burial grounds who will repair or maintain the graves on a job by job basis. These fellows have found a new use for abandoned tombs--janitor's closets.

An amazing tree growing right out of some one's last resting place.

I call this one the tomb raider.



This tree, and the one above, are seen a lot in the cemeteries. Kent and I wondered if it was because it must go through a remarkable resurrection at some point in its life. Even on these bare limbs it produces a bouquet of a blossom and those banana-like seed pods.


Pam going native near the Mayan house tombs. I finally ditched my black hat for the cheapest straw one I could buy and some light, white cotton clothes. I hope the Mexicans don't know about the old Saturday Night Live Coneheads. Or maybe I wish they did know and then provide me with six packs of beer while I tour the cemeteries.

These angels with one finger to their lips and one pointing at heaven are everyplace.

1902 was the date on this grave.

The picture below is of the union plot. I wonder what the SDSU faculty plot might look like.

And the bones I promised. I don't know whether this was vandalized or not, but there were several graves in which one could see human remains. Apparently no one minds or cleans them up. In some instances people are buried and then a number of years later, after the body has become nothing but bone, the grave is dug up and the bones are placed in a small tin ossuary. There are at least two tin boxes in this grave.

A detail of above. Yes, there are two skulls, broken. Perhaps I should have posed this picture better, but I was reluctant to disturb anything. The plaster leg is from a statue that probably used to decorate the tomb.

I don't think the leg bones used to have those tennis shoes at the end of them. This is probably just a place a groundskeeper has thrust some trash. At first I didn't notice the bone, just the shoes.

And finally, an odd fellow, lightened from his deep shadow in Photoshop so that you can see the Spanish colonial character of the statue. I wonder if the family who erected this monument had some ancient claim to a noble name and wanted it commemorated forever.

A Merida Cemetery

You can see that I like the cemeteries here. This one isn't very old and we came to it by mistake. We thought we were getting to the one our neighbor visited a few days ago when he actually came across some open tombs with bones exposed. Of course, I wanted pictures of that, but since we got to the wrong cemetery, those will have to wait until another day. Most of the tombs were well cared for here, but there were some instances of neglect or places where the tomb had been opened, probably for reburial, and not reclosed, but disappointingly empty.









I'm not sure when the city will remove all the Christmas lights, but it might not be until January 6th, the Day of the Three Kings, which is an important holiday in Mexico. This is the Plaza Principal downtown.




A flowering tree in the cemetery. The branches are nearly leafless, but there is an odd seed pod, which looks a bit like a bunch of bananas.



I should know the name of this purple-leaved plant, but I've forgotten. They abound in the cemeteries.

This bougainvillea wasn't in the cemetery; it's in front of a house we pass on the way to the laundry. I include it for Ken F., who is tending a bougainvillea in Spearfish, SD. He should show this picture to his plant in order to encourage it. Note the supports which are necessary to support the luxuriant blooms.