We took our stout little Toyota back onto the some of the same roads that it has traveled before and revisited Izamal. As we passed through Tixkokob, the same hammock salesman, who tries to garner customers by chasing them on his bicycle, accosted us. When we got to Izamal itself, Eduardo Pequeno was just waiting for the bus to take him into Merida to buy metal for his tinsmithing business. He offered to return and open his shop for us, but we thought we probably had imposed on him enough. He is the gentleman who made and remade my shrine to the Virgin of Guadeloupe. And then the same beautiful fruit and flower saleslady was sitting in the same corner as last time. This time I asked permission to take her photo and I'm afraid it's not nearly as good, but she's still very lovely and sweeter than I thought before. She got shy and giggly and her friends teased her. We begin to feel a part of things.
Doors through roofless buildings.
Linnea, Kent, and Eva on the ramp to the church.
The remains of 16th Century frescoes on the exterior of the church. These are under some cover from the colonnaded walkways.
Yellow and blue. One side of Izamal's main church.
Orange peeler in the square.
Orange peels.
Ascent of Izamal's largely unrestored pyramid.
Corner house across from pyramid.
Roofless church in a village near Izamal. This church still seemed to be used for services. The apse still had a roof and one small inside side altar. It retained a great deal of dignity.
We wanted to show Linnea and Eva what an old henequin plantation was like and we tried a new road getting to Ake. We'd been lost getting out of town and so getting lost while in the country wasn't unexpected. Actually, we weren't lost, we were just on a very narrow, dirt track and we didn't know if it would get us where we were headed or peter out, and we hated the thought of backing for seven or eight kilometers to return to a paved road. We ended exactly where we hoped and Linnea and Eva weren't even slightly exercised by the thought of getting lost on a back road in Mexico with the Kedls Perdidos, where, obviously, no one had traveled since before the last rainy season. The joys of traveling with phlegmatic sailors are many. Below are the henequin plants lining the road. The road got significantly narrower and more overgrown late on.
The rail cars which carry the plants into the crusher and the cut "leaves" of the plant. I knew they still used the building for something, but mainly it looked simply a ruin and so I was surprised to see what I thought of as abandoned rail tracks actually in use.
Door in abandoned building in Ake.
Perhaps, you remember the pyramid with the man with the machete chopping down the vegetation. Here's the same same pyramid yesterday after its haircut.
After a few misdirecting stumbles on the way back into town, we found Mega, where we photographed some of the food and bought one of the splayed chickens, shown previously on this blog, to bring home for supper at the apartment. We eschewed the cactus and octopus. I should tell Tyler that the chicken that he claims looked like road kill was good--very tender.
Just before Christmas, Genero and Ariel (the landlord) got the downstairs apartment to this stage. It's still unfinished inside and it needs windows and a door, but the noisy stuff is done. Right now it's full of cement blocks and mortar. I think it will be dark and airless.
