February 3, 1996

Its morning again and Vally is in the shower. I tried to take the portable out onto the patio to write from there, but I think our rechargeable battery is not working. Today we go to Uxmal, which is a ruin of a Mayan city from the classic period which ended in about 900 A.D. Vally is pretty wasted. I don't know what he ate, but whatever it was he spent a lot of the night awake and part of it throwing up. He feels much better now, but a little light-headed. We're going for Uxmal anyway, but maybe I'll drive.

So, what did we do yesterday after I wrote? Well, if you have access to the WEB (you know it if you do) why don't you look for our picture? The address is http://www.yucatan.com.mx.

After I finished the letter, Vally went to get the car, and I rested and meditated. Now you must understand that Vally has never driven a VW beetle before, so this was a bit of an adventure-power-assisted nothing, rear engine, no power, nothing extra. We went out to get a diskette. Stopped at a computer school nearby, and lo and behold, 3 pesos (45 cents) and we were on our way. Copied yesterday's letters to diskette (Sergio hasn't reached Roger yet) and went to El Diario to send them to you. Fought with the computers, the line between here and Houston went down, that sort of thing. We decided to go to lunch and try later. Sergio, who is basically a systems administrator/network administrator for both the internet and the satellite news link sides had too many crises to go with us. We went to lunch at the Plaza Hidalgo, where a lot a restaurants are and where we had seen the marimba band the night before and then came back to El Diario. We had a long talk with Sergio and realized that what is going on there is absolutely incredible. Internet came to Merida, in essence, 2 months ago. Instead of the gradual evolution of things, as we have seen in the US, it is all happening suddenly and at once. The owner of El Diario has a very broad vision of the future and he wants to be part of it. Angel, until 4 months ago, was the managing editor of the paper. Four months ago, he showed up in Sergio's office and said, in essence, "I am now in charge of this, whatever it is." He knew nothing about the net but he was very eager to learn and has. Sergio is thrilled to have his perspective, because he is an engineer and Angel is a journalist. Things are happening so fast, its astounding. They now have 250 users and are breaking even. They charge about $20 per month for unlimited access, less for hourly access. They have a weekly class for new users to help them get started. They are very service-oriented. Meanwhile, Sergio is setting up the same thing in Campeche and Cancun (basically the whole state of Yucatan is open to them) and they are getting calls from other newspapers who want to be on the net. Sergio has a brother who is an executive for the company which has the coca-cola franchise for northern Mexico and he called and said,"I have everything it takes to get on the net, the equipment, the lines, the connection and I have no idea what to do with it. You have to come and set it up for me." This is a literal explosion! The internet component of El Diario (Dyred) is now being spun off into an administratively separate company. Vally commented that it is like what Alvin Toffler predicted in his book "The Third Wave" where he said that third world countries are going to skip the industrial revolution and go directly into the post-industrial revolution where they will quick catch up to the first world. We were quite impressed. They know what they are doing here and they are using first class equipment. Angel wants me to translate his article on us so that it can also go onto the WEB page.

Well, after we left El Diario, Vally said he wanted to get out of town. Downtown, as I said, at least during the day, is noisy and full of fumes during the day. He wanted to drive to Progreso, a fishing village/beach resort town 42 km from here to see if we wanted to stay there on Sunday night. We did and it was nice to get away from the traffic. This might be a good time to mention the Mexican speed bump. They do warn you, sometimes with a flashing light, and always with a sign that looks sort of like two half cylinders side-by-side with a rectangle under them. There were at least two on the highway (4-lanes) to Progresso. I have no idea why, but you will do severe damage to your car and your spine if you don't slow to a crawl at those points.

Progreso has a kind of nondescript, poor third world quality-very different from Merida. The coastal beach, however, which goes for many, many miles in each direction is very nice. It fronts on the Gulf of Mexico. Also, you can walk out for a long, long way, because the sea floor slopes very gradually. We had some tender coconut (drink which is the fluid from inside a green coconut) and checked out the hotel which the guidebook suggested (although in tones which said "don't expect too much"). It is right at the beach, and while is a far cry from the Casa Mexilio (at $65 a night) for $18 a night it will do fine. We reserved a room for Sunday night and drove back.

When we got back we stopped at the archeological museum which is on the Paseo de Montejo. Montejo is the man who "conquered" the Mayans. The Paseo was built in the late 1800's during the time that there were an enormous number of millionaires in Merida because of the sisal trade. (Remember the plant that we saw in Chile that looked like a giant aloe plant but wasn't? That was a henequen and is the source of sisal fiber which, until nylon was invented, was the best fiber for ropes in the world.) Anyway, the paseo was supposed to be a sort of Champs Elysees of Merida and the rich built huge European-style mansions along it. Many have been torn down now, but the museum is in one of them-a virtual palace. Actually, we were told that if you buy an old building now, you are not allowed to tear it down, you have to restore it. The museum was interesting, with lots of artifacts and history, but the explanations were in Spanish (except for the identifying signs on the objects themselves) and it was exhausting to try to read them after a short while. Basically we were pretty tired. The fun part was that, as we were leaving the museum, the guard recognized us from our picture in the paper. That made my day!!!!! The museum is a reminder of the contrast between the US and this part of Mexico. The identification here is with being Mayan and the feeling is that the only good to come out of the Spanish was the language, which however, may actually be inferior to the Mayan language which is still spoken. There are even schools which teach in Mayan. This is a little schizophrenic, because this is also a totally, rigidly catholic country where, as Roger, the owner of the Casa Mexilio said, his priest friends, who are otherwise his best intellectual companions think that it is a sin to even THINK about a condom. So, we got back and ate some fruit. I ate the last two mangos (they were small) and Vally ate the last two zapotes. Found out the name from Roger. The zapote is the one with the brownish flesh. It comes from the zapote tree which is source of chicle for gum and a very hard wood which the mayans used extensively and did the colonials. In India they are called chickoo. The other one I mentioned yesterday is the mamey. Maybe Vally overdosed on zapotes? Otherwise it was something he ate at Alberto's-the nearest restaurant-the one we went to the first night with the magical courtyard.

Well, now we get ready to go to Uxmal. We are hoping that Roger will let us send this from here, now that we have an account. We also asked in Progreso and the guy was kind of nervous, afraid that after we used his phone, it would not work again. We gave him a copy of the article and maybe, after he asks his boss, we can log on from there. Til then.

Love

Phyllis and Vally