Yesterday was a pretty intense day in an amazing way I promise! We arranged for a group of us to go to this “Adventure Park” attraction thing near Puerto Morelos. It sounds pretty touristy and yes compared to our other Dawley-funded adventures, but it was still an amazing day of adrenaline.

We started off with an ATV ride through the forest. The road, as expected, was a dusty dirt path full of potholes, rocky hill, and rough patches. I would go so far as to call the entire road one colossal rough patch, which was perfect for ATVing. And when I say, “We started off with an ATV ride,” what I mean is, I drove an ATV through the forest on a rocky, dusty path. Yes, I was the driver of that particular vehicle and it was exhilarating! It didn’t take long to get the hang of it and so sooner than later I was conquering rocky inclines and whizzing through dirt clouds.

The path led to a cenote – a pretty cenote with sparkling water and lily pads (since it was on the surface as opposed to being underground). The unique aspect of this cenote was the jumping platform 35 ft above the water. We all jumped from this ledge several times and had a blast. But then the guide showed us that an adjacent tree gave us an even higher vantage point and a couple of us indulged, myself included.



The next cenote was subterranean, about 20 ft underground. Inside the cavern, which we shared with a bat, there was a small zip line. We used this wire apparatus to fly from a raised platform and drop into the water. It was a great deal of fun. We also enjoyed the 20 ft jump from above ground, through a large hole into the water below.

Finally, we ended our day of adventure by ziplining between two trees. It was probably the most underwhelming experience of the day, but was still incredible amounts of fun. I mean I will never turn down the opportunity to whizz between trees from high heights. Plus, you get to wear these really fashionable harnesses that look something like a handyman’s girdle. Mmmmmm, so good.



There was one aspect of the day that I found less than thrilling and that was my encounter with a small white nosed coati. Look it up on the internet for a picture, but it’s essentially a long-nosed raccoon with a prehensile tail (if you can imagine). They’re actually pretty cute, and one of the guides brought his pet coati out as part of the day’s entertainment. We posed with the coati and a couple of boa constrictors having a grand old time until the owner’s let go of their fuzzy coati’s leash and it attacked my camera. Now, I have a certain reputation with cameras; they tend to disappear or break while within my possession so I was not terribly thrilled to see my camera turned into a raccoon’s chew toy. So once it had stopped “examining” my camera and curled up rather calmly next to it, I reached down to retrieve my camera before any more danger could befall it. Sure enough, the coati had taken a liking to my camera and lashed out at my hand biting furiously. Little bugger. Animals just seem to like biting me. Should I reconsider my future as a biologist? It could be a sign, but I’ll choose to ignore it.

DISCLAIMER: Since I know my parents are reading this, let me assure you that yes I was bitten by a relatively wild animal which means there was a chance of contracting rabies. Though however slight this risk was, we have taken all precautions and I have already received the first of two post-treatment shots (the other to be obtained in a few days while in Palenque). So please do not panic, it really isn’t a big deal, and I am on top of my health. Thank God we got the pre-treatment though.

This past weekend was the best (and longest) by far.

The entirety of Friday was spent exploring the expansive ruins of Chichen Itza, one of the more famous Maya ruins. So famous, in fact, that it's full of tourists (like me!) You'd think I'd enjoy being surrounded by my own kind, but rather I found it very distracting. The entire site was far too "commercial" for my taste, complete with food and souvenir vendors, school field trips with herds of noisy children, and clapping tour guides (apparently it's a pretty big deal in Mexico when two buildings are placed close to each other that the sound bounces off the structures - it's the coolest sound trick since the echo!) But it was still a very impressive sight. The Castillo (seen below with me standing in full triumph in the foreground) is a pretty impressive pyramid and it was just one of the many large, ornate structures that comprise Chichen Itza.

Unfortunately it did rain on us. We took shelter under a fabric-based umbrella - in hindsight, not the best choice of shelter.

It turns out that I lied. Because after Chichen we actually drove to another cenote! You didn't think I'd go through a weekend without going to a cenote, did you? This past weekend featured the cenote of Valladolid, one of the first cities to fall to the Maya during the Caste War (fun fact of the day since the Dawley's insist on me learning something about the region's history).



It was pretty cool and had some great places for diving. It was the perfect stage upon which to teach sweet Ellen Aikens how to dive. Channeling the time-tested lessons passed on to me from my father, I went through the motions with Ellen. It was easy because she's a natural; once she figured it out, you couldn't stop her from getting back up and diving again! My lessons were apparently quite impressive, because even Robert Dawley swam over to get some pointers on his form.

Friday night was terrible. I was hit with my first wave of spontaneous Mexico sickness. First I was achey, which I attributed to my long day, but the aching became increasingly unbearable through dinner; it felt like I had been hit by a truck. Towards the end of dinner I started to get cold, which simply doesn't make sense in 70 degree weather. By the time I got back to my room I was visibly shaking, with teeth clattering and goosebumps to boot. I was in bed at 9, shaking under the covers and aching for the entire night.

But don't worry! I'm fine now and I was fine the next day (apart from some dull aching in the evening again). And it was so lucky that I recovered so quickly because Saturday was the best excursion of the whole trip: Rio Lagartos.

I can't describe how amazing Rio Lagartos was. It was a day of bird watching in a boat that cruised around a river flanked by beautiful mangroves. We saw so many types of birds from herons and egrets to flamingos to every osprey and peregrine falcons! Scroll down for photographic evidence!!



We also lounged in Rio Lagartos' own Dead Sea (a water body of extremely high salinity) and Nate was able to experience the sensation of floating for the first time in his life. It was as touching a moment as we've seen here in the Yucatan.

Following the salty floating, we decided the best thing to do was to cover our bodies with mud! Granted it was special Mayan mud. What's special Mayan mud? It's mud that exfoliates. I mean, it's still mud but now I can justify purposefully covering my body in it. We washed it off later, or at least tried to. It's apparently a very persistent substance that requires two dips in a cenote, a shower, and vigorous sink scrubbing - who knew?

Sunday I went to a bull fight, but I don't really want to talk about that. Let's just say, the French matador who looked a lot like Smedberg was not very good at his job (the apparently didn't train him very well in France) and what has been described to me as an exquisite and structured art form turned into a gory, blood bath that I could not endure. There were tears and laughing Mexicans. And we'll leave it at that.

So that was my busy three-day weekend. I'm clearly still feeling its effects since it's only 9:43 here and I'm ready to pass out (in my defense, today we visited three more sites/cities). But it should be noted that located smack-dab in the middle of my tremendous weekend was my 8-month "monthiversary" with Chris and since I miss him and am feeling particularly schmaltzy I decided to include a little shout-out.

Did I mention this is my last week in Merida? Oh yeah. There's that too.

Friday was my last day of Spanish classes! And there was much rejoicing in the streets (and in the school as we gorged on a buffet of delicious, Mexican delights). For the next two weeks in Merida I will be taking an anthropology course called The Maya: Ancient and Modern and a Biology lecture with Ellen Dawley.

Saturday we hit the rode again to check out the Mayan ruins of Oxintok!

We weren't allowed to climb on the ruins so the first part of the day was filled with birdwatching. Aided by our trusted guide Hugo, we traveled all over Oxintok pointing and marveling at all the pretty birdies. The best sighting of the day was an Turquoise-Browed Motmot. It is really a stunningly colorful and beautiful bird. This is the best picture I could get of it.



After a delicious lunch tucked away in the recesses of some small town, we headed to our next cenote! But we didn't drive all the way to the cenote, because it is located in a more remote area. Instead, we had to ride bikes! It was about a 5 mile trek, one half by paved road the other half by rocky trail. And in the middle of our adventure, the sky filled up with clouds and we were swallowed up by a storm. It was a blast, biking through the dry scrub of the Yucatan, surrounded by trees, with the rain falling all around us. We finally reached the cenote, a big hole in the ground and the only way to enter the pool was to climb down a rickety, ladder (actually, two ladders tied together) that had been slicked down by the rainstorm. It was just a pinch of danger to make the entire excursion delicious.



The cenote was as gorgeous as the last and there was an area where we could jump and dive (so much of our time there was spent doing just that). I don't think I will ever get tired or stop being amazed by the cenote trips. Never.

During the bike ride I got stung by something. I don't know what though. One minute I'm biking along, minding my own business, and the next there's this terrible stinging in my leg. I tried to keep going thinking a rock had just been spun up into my leg but when the pain persisted and got worse I pulled over to investigate. There, right above my knee on the back, right side of my leg was someone's stinger who had so kindly left it behind as a token to remember it by. I noticed that it's fleshy guts were left behind as well, so it was a suicide mission. I don't know what I did to disturb this insect so much that it felt the need to punish me in such a way that it too would perish. I guess he had the last laugh though, because I woke up yesterday with a red, bumpy rash all down both my legs (which is perplexing because my legs were the only body parts affected and I can't figure out how the rash got to the other leg...)A large red welt had also formed around the sting area. I've never had an allergic reaction to a bee sting before so I bet that sucker was combined his kamikaze attack with bio-warfare! I must have really pissed this thing off! Oh well he's dead and I'm a little itchy so we'll call it even.

Hola mis amigos!!! My Spanish has greatly improved over these past 2 weeks but my version of Spanish is still like some shameful lovechild of Spanish, English, and charades born of some tragic threesome. But I cherish the lovechild and it desperately tries to aid me here in Merida (sometimes successfully!)

My school week last week was relatively uneventful but then this past weekend, from Friday until Sunday, it was non-stop action. I have only just now acquired enough time to share these adventures so sit back and enjoy!!!

On Friday I embarked on two tours: one of the botanical garden CICY and our second walking tour of Merida. The CICY tour was conducted in suffocating heat (at least for us puny Americans) and scientific Spanish so very little of the information was retained. But I took a bunch of pictures. It was a little disappointing because I expected to see a lot of flowers and I love to draw flowers so I was hoping to obtain lots of inspiration and references for later projects. Instead, the garden was primarily palms. I can only be excited about green palms for so long... I did take a bunch of nice pictures of these water lilies though. I will enjoy drawing them later.

The hacienda tour was really nice. It was a little later in the evening so the sun wasn't so invested in burning our skin off (which I appreciated). Even though Merida isn't what most American's think of when they hear developed city (no skyscrapers or things of that sort) it really is full of surprising treasures, like the haciendas for example. The haciendas are the mansions of henequen farmers which was the Yucatan's primary cash crop back in the day. Merida has a number of these gorgeous, impressive mansions. Some of my favorites I have posted below.



Saturday was our second day trip and our second cenote! Keeping with the henequen theme, we actually visited a functioning henequen plantation known as Sotuta de Peon. While I'm more interested in the biology of the Yucatan, I actually enjoyed this more historical tour because unlike colonial sites or museums in America, the featured colonial equipment still worked! Therefore, the process of refining henequen fiber wasn't just described but actually performed! Plus I got to comb the henequen fiber and I did it with pizazz!



We rode in a horse drawn train car of sorts to tour the henquen fields and visit our next cenote which was even more beautiful than the first. This cenote was actually underground so we had to climb down stairs into the earth to reach the subterranean lake. Once there we spent 45 minutes diving and exploring underwater cave formations as bats darted overhead. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life (one of many to come this trip I'm sure).



Saturday evening a group of us went out to the house party of a friend, Felix. Dana and Amanda had befriended Felix 2 years ago on the last trip and since then Felix and his merry band have partied with us on weekends and been good friends to us. The house we went to was more of a Mayan mansion than anything and we had an awesome time. We taught the Merida boys how to play American drinking games like Kings and Fuck the Dealer. They thoroughly enjoyed the learning experience. They then attempted to teach us salsa dancing and we discovered how inadequate our one day of lessons at school really were.

Finally on Sunday we took our first trip to Progresso, the closest beach to Merida. It was a very beautiful beach and was a perfect relaxing end to an otherwise busy weekend. A man came up to me at one point and showed me this purple (presumably) seed pod. It was a nice seed pod and he seemed to think so too. But I couldn't understand his Spanish so I just nodded and said, "Oh..." then he seemed to ask me a question so I responded with, "No hablo Espanol," nervous laughter and an apology in English. He said my Spanish was good and gave me the purple seed pod. It kind of felt like a quest from Zelda. Talk to this strange beach dweller and receive a purple seed pod! Plant the seed pod and return in three days. Sell the resulting fruit for a shield! I don't know, something like that. After he was gone and I talked with some friends, I raised the seed up and sang "Da na na NAAAA!" It felt good. On the downside, I got sunburned but only on my left half. So now my left half is darker then my right half. You could even say, I have a dark side... (oooh puns)

This is my last week of Spanish class as well! Woo hoo!

I have had an incredibly busy couple of days and it has left me very, very tired. Plus, these early mornings are starting to get to me. 6:30 every day? No bueno! See that? My Spanish is improving (barely) but enough for minor boost of self-esteem. But no one wants to hear about my puny ego so I'll move on to more exciting matters.

This past Saturday I visited the first of many Mayan ruins: Dzibilchaltún y Izamal! At Dzibilchaltún we climbed our first pyramid...

...and then later swam in our first cenote!



For those less informed readers, a cenote is essentially a cave filled with water. When the ceilings of these caves collapse however, the pool or underground lake is revealed. The cenote at Dzibilchaltún was very close to the surface so it just looks like a very clear, pretty lake. It was so much fun to swim in though! There are a bunch of nice pictures in the Dawley's Newsletter of people jumping and diving in. When we had our fill of swimming, we all sat on the side of the cenote with our feet in the water. Our submerged feet transformed into an all you can eat buffet for the little fish inhabiting the cenote. They swarmed to our feet and nibbled relentlessly. But their nibbling looked more like kissing so it was like being wooed by multitudes of tiny fish. And it tickled! Oh did it ever tickle. I could hardly contain myself. Nate was the fishes favorite, however, since he has by far the driest skin on the trip; the fish must have mistook his feet as a feast from the gods.

We also saw this tarantula in the museum at Dzibilchaltún. He was so neat and now that Straub and Chris have wheedled their way into my head, I feel inclined to take macro pictures of every new arthropod I see.



Then we drove to Izamal where we climbed yet another pyramid. This one was much higher and towered over the entire, yellow city of Izamal. It's a beautiful city and all the buildings our painted the same, golden color. However, we didn't stay on the pyramid too long because it was incredibly windy and started to rain so everyone fled pretty quickly down the "stairs" (I say "stairs" because they were more like irregularly shaped protrusions of rock that may have served as stairs in an earlier stage of their life).



Later that night we went out to my first club: Cielo. I only had to pay less than $10 American dollars to get in (100 pesos)and then was able to enjoy an open bar! It was a weird and crowded place though, with lots of screens with odd movies playing (a Victoria's Secret fashion show and a poorly computer animated robot as examples). I have discovered a new love here in the bars of Merida, and that is my love of mojitos. I wonder how this drink had eluded me for so long, but now that we have met I doubt we will ever part.

Today Jenete (my roommate) found a gecko in our bathroom. I think I will name him Sal.