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!