After Acanceh we went to a tiny town with a cenote. I'm at the hole in the plaza looking down at Kent who is almost to the bottom, where the water is. A nice stairway has been provided so that we don't have to go down a ladder. It's probably 40 to 50 feet to the water from the surface.
In about 10 feet Kent and Andy would have their feet in the water.
The town also had a church with the florescent lights acting as a second arch over a doorway.
And here's a young mother heading with her bowl to the mill to have the corn ground or to the tortilleria to have the corn paste turned into tortillas. I can't tell whether she has raw corn or the corn meal in the bowl and Kent thinks they may be finished tortillas. In that case she is headed to her mother-in-law's house to help prepare the fiesta with a bowl full of finished tortillas. The cenote would be behind me in this picture.
The pink building below is in Telchaquillo. It is a colorful town.
We were here on Mardi Gras day and a market was in progress, a rustic bull ring was set up, the church had banners flying from all quarters, there was a carnival with games and rides, and below is the snake oil salesman. He had gathered quite a crowd and offered a number of remedies.
The market.
And the last two pictures are of Techaquillo's city hall.
We stopped at Mayapan on the way south. It's not a large ruin, but it lasted longer than many of the bigger, more famous ones. Mayapan is almost a miniature of Chitzen Itza and it actually dominated in the Yucatan for a few years before the Spanish came. Andy took the picture below. I didn't climb this pyramid, I was saving my strength for Uxmal. You can see Kent and me at the middle right edge of the photo.
It's not only that I was saving my strength. I'd have to come back down this slope. Those are Andy's feet. This is not an exaggerated shot. It's real. Andy's feet are twice as long as the step is wide and they had no rope for me to hang onto. I get woozy just looking at this picture.
A Mayapan palm. It was shading our car.
We passed through Mani on our way to Ticul, where we would spend the night before we traveled onward to Uxmal the following morning. Mani is one of the prettiest small towns in the Yucatan, especially so for us as it's on a hill and we miss hills. Below is a helaconia in the church yard.
A couple of high windows in the Mani church.
A Mani church door.
We got an hotel in Ticul (the city with the leering church). It was Mardi Gras and I snapped a couple of pictures before it got too dark. There was a pleasant, small town feel to Carnaval here. Merida was full of glitz and gyrating, scantily dressed girls, but in Ticul, families went together and celebrated.
Next time, Uxmal.
