February 2, 1996

Greetings from Merida. It is now about 10-something on Friday morning and we have spent, in essence, one day in Merida. I don't even know where to begin, except to say that we now have our picture in today's paper with a long, and semi-accurate description of us (no Ph.D for me!). I can't imagine what will happen when we show up on the streets and get recognized. People are friendly enough as is!!!! So, how to decide what to write....

We are staying at a bed and breakfast called Casa Mexilio. It is run by an American expatriate (Roger) and caters totally to tourists. It is described in the guidebooks as one of the most charming places to stay in Merida, and I believe it. It took Vally awhile to get used to it, because it is not a hotel, and that is what he was expecting. We have the penthouse, a room on the roof with a large terrace. The house is built around a large courtyard, as is almost everything it seems, and the courtyard has a pool in it, as well as large palm trees including a banana tree with bananas and philodendrons gone amok and lots of other plants. The house was built in the 1800s and is filled with antiques and indian artifacts. Breakfast is fabulous and eaten in another courtyard, which might have been the kitchen courtyard, since it has an old concrete cylinder well with wrought-iron support for the well-bucket apparatus in the middle and more trees, including an orange tree. The floor of the courtyard is rough stone and the walls are partly stone, with rough stones and then the mortar joints between them inlaid with small stones to form a very elaborate pattern, or adobe. Breakfast is probably enough for the whole day-fruits (papaya with lime, bananas), a loaf of bread with butter and jam, a choice of two main courses-yesterday a kind of tamale with black beans embedded in the corn meal and meat or eggs with sauteed vegetables, today pork chops or fish cakes with fried potatoes). I had the yogurt (peach yesterday, strawberry today), plus juice. Today there were also sweet rolls.

We forgot to bring toothpaste. So after breakfast we went out to a farmacia to get toothpaste and wound up wandering (toothpaste in hand) into a mercado. What incredible produce!! What a difference from Cancun! We bought some mangos and also some fruits I had never seen before, although Vally was familiar with one from India and the name in Spanish and the name in India are very similar. On the ourside the fruits look very similar, maybe like a very even medium-sized potato, except the skin is fuzzy and uniform in color. The skin is thin and easily peeled. One of the fruits has a sweet orange flesh, very soft and sweet with a large single, shiny-dark pit inside. the other has a browner flesh and a slightly caramel-like taste, with multiple smaller seeds. The fruit separates completely from the seed in both cases. We also wandered into an old church (built in 1637!!!). From the outside it looked like every photo you have ever seen of a mission curch, with its sort of light orage color, and thick walls and the curved-edged wall on top of the front. This church was not in our guidebook. It was very poor, and looked like it was stripped at some point, which a lot of churches were during the various revolutions here. Still, it was mind blowing for me to be in a building that old and huge that is still in use. We did get a riddle answered for us though. When we were in Chile, Maria Valenzuela told us that Santiago was name after one of the apostles. We could never figure out which one. This church has something to do with the Apostle Santiago, so I decided to see if anyone knew. We asked some women, who didn't but they asked a very dour man, who I guess was a church official and he said "James." Well, that would have been an hard one to guess!!!!

After we got back, we had a long conversation with our "host" about possibly connecting to the internet from here. (We talked about a lot of other things, in a generally fascinating conversation). There are no phones in the rooms (part of what sent Vally into shock). Roger really doesn't understand what this is about and is basically computer phobic. I think by the time we leave here he will be on the way to having his own WEB page for his hotel, but he doesn't even want to consider e-mail. More on that later. Anyway, when we left yesterday, it was arranged for Sergio from the local paper to call Roger and explain that if we used his phone to connect to the Net, he would not be charged. I think he thinks we would be calling Japan or something on his bill. Anyway we set off for the local paper, El Diario de Yucatan. We had an adventure on the way, but first some background. Before coming to Merida (chosen because of its proximity to ruins, the sea and general guidebook recommendations) Vally did a search on the WEB for Merida. He actually found two hits, one to Yucatan and one from the catholic church which he sent to me and it turned out to be a diatribe about the dangers on New Age beliefs and how to be vigilant. However, the Yucatan one got us connected to the Merida website and included an e-mail address and also a description of a visit to Merida of a teacher from Ohio and a bunch of kids. Anyway, Vally forwarded that to me and I wrote to the person at the e-mail address (Angel Escamillo). Angel wrote back and then, pretty soon we were also communicating with Sergio Basurto who is their engineer (Angel was the chief reporter and now is in charge of the WEB page and other computer-related, tourism-related PR) and speaks excellent English. We asked them if we could visit-that's why we headed off to El Diario yesterday. On the way we were accosted, in a friendly way, by a man in his 20's whose name, we later learned was Alfonso Pena. I think he had two motives, one just to be talking to Americans and the other to get us into his brother's shop (which happened to be almost across the street from El Diario). We did wind up buying a panama hat from his brother, and maybe we paid too much, although we paid a LOT less than the original price, but we learned about how the hats are made (in caves, but that's another long story), and we were invited to go to their Mayan village (Cauche-not in the guidebook) for the village festival this weekend. The festival includes a "bullfight" where supposedly they don't kill the bull. Later Angel, in a tone of gentle contempt said "They don't really use a bull there, just some little cow." (I am wearing the hat in the newspaper photo). We were warmly greeted at el diario (Alfonso tagging along, until later I think he finally left out of boredom). We saw the presses and were told that they get their paper from three sources, the governmentowned paper mills, Canada and Chile. There is no recycling here yet. However, El Diario is the opposition (Catholic) paper and there is always the possibility that the government might decide to "quiet" the opposition. For that reason, they have 7-months supply of newsprint stored up in various warehouses. They don't expect to have to use it, but one never knows.... We saw their computers and checked our e-mail, although mine got hung up so I couldn't forward the joke-of-the-day. Vally talked technical things with them, and learned that they are very sophisticated and that, like in St. Louis, El Diario, through its "Dyred" (red=net) component is, like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch where we live, positioned to be the internet provider for the area. I think an accounbt costs $20 per month, and a WEB page $25. They gave us each a Dyred mousepad which we will certainly treasure in some sense. We wound up going with Angel as he picked up his 3 children from school (7AM to 1:10 PM here) and then went home with him for lunch. He drove a very nice Chevy Corsica, perhaps as befits the chief reporter with 21 years of experience in the paper, but his house was similar to Arnoldo's small, cinderblock, needing pink paint on the outside, well-kept on the inside, the sofas covered with stuffed animals and dolls belonging to the 7-year old, Michelle.

I won't go through the details of lunch, which was very pleasant. Angel's wife Alisia appears to be a full-time mother. She never even sat down during lunch, and spoke no English. The children were quiet and polite but there was no tension. In the car on the way back, Angel explained that he did a lot a reading and decided that his children were not going to be raised the way he was, that they DESERVED to be treated well. He was very big on teaching moral values by example, and working things out with them by discussion, not force. He and his wife are very proud of their family.

We went back to the Casa and slept. I didn't mention the problems of sleeping here. Merida is mostly very narrow streets, one way. Our penthouse is totally exposed to the street, with big window across the front. Traffic virtually never stops and mufflers are not the highest priority. There are also sirens and roosters. Also, our back windows don't have screens. We finally turned on our ceiling fan to near-helicopter speeds, closed the window near the bed, and covered ourselves totally to avoid being bitten. We could have turned on the AC, but didn't. By 7 AM, sleep is out of the question, but 8 there are workmen banging away. We'll sleep again this afternoon.

After our siesta (5:45 or so) we went out to explore Merida. We had been told to try to see the concert of Yucatanean music and dance which is held every Thursday night at 9 PM in the Parque St. Lucia. We wandered around, looking at another church (this the Jesuit Church also built in the 1600s), sat at outdoor tables in another Plaza and I had a delicious fruit drink while mariachis seranaded various tables until they were drowned out by the house band who were playing amplified marimba-type music. Walking around was actually a little stressful, because the streets, as mentioned, are very narrow and the sidewalks are too-really barely enough for two people. So, imagine all this, only there are TONS of people out there-probably only 5% tourists, and a lot of cars, and especially busses of all descriptions, down to the VW microbus bus. The sidewalks are cement, but polished and inscribed.

I left something out, just remembered. Dinner, our first night Alfredo's Continental-in the courtyard of and old Spanish house, under a mature rubber tree. The owner of the place is a COLLECTOR. Can't begin to describe it-religious and colonial artifacts everywhere! The effect earthy and magical. The cuisine, lebanese-at least I had the baba Ganoush and it was incredible. Vally had some of the best fish we've eaten. Dinner second night, Amaro's. Another courtyard of another old Spanish house (birthplace of Quitana Roo after whom the state where Cancun is is named). Not as magical as the last one, but very wonderful. This, aside from Govinda's Punjab, which HAS to be a Hare Krishna restaurant (haven't gone) is, as far as we know, the best-bet for natural foods in Merida. I had chaya crepes, Vally had quesadillas with salsa verde (the hot stuff). He suggested that I probably didn't want to try it. We also had another chaya shake-this one more coarse, but still a green lemonade. I am starting to wonder how spinach lemonade would taste.

Well, getting near the end of this. We decided to rent a car. We may be able to rent a VW! beetle convertible for $19 per day plus $71 surcharge for leaving it at the airport in Cancun, otherwise it would be a hard top for $29. We plan to get it today. The folk ballet was amazing-the women really were flowers, with their hair tied up in cloth roses, and their white, brightly-embroidered dresses. The women wore white. The style was very spanish, but not quite. The show pieces at the end were when everyone danced first, with a beer bottle balanced on their head and later with a beer-tray with four glasses and a beer bottle in the middle on their heads (I am sure those were glued down). They also did amazing things with a maypole. Well, that's enough isn't it? We are headed to lunch with Sergio today, and to explore Merida. More soon.

Love

Phyllis and Vally