Due to Missy's desire to spend more days at the beach and fewer days visiting ancient Mayan cities, we decided to change our itinerary and collapse two Maya ruins days into one. One result would be that we would miss visiting Mayapán, an historically significant city–its fall marked the end of the great Mayan cities–but one that is rather poor in interesting and beautiful ruins. We asked at the front desk for the weather predictions for today and tomorrow. As the prediction was for a nice day today and rain tomorrow, we decided to make this day our Maya ruin day and tomorrow the day we'd knock about in and around Mérida. We also learned at this time that Hurricane Mitch was heading towards the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. We didn't yet have a good sense as to whether or not it would affect our plans to return to the east coast later in the week.

Missy made a credit card call home to check on her dad who was scheduled for surgery the following day. She would make relatively short calls to the US in each of the next two days as well. (Her dad did well through surgery.) We learned after returning to the States that those three calls, none of which was long, cost $133. Lesson learned: when in Mexico, perhaps more generally, try to avoid using phones that only take credit cards.

Prior to leaving for the one hour drive to the ruins of Uxmal (in Maya, "thrice built", though the place was apparently built up five times), we decided to drop off our laundry (we were about out of clothes and really wanted a one day turnaround for our wash). This would turn into the laundry day from hell. The laundromat was to open at 8:30. Curt walked the short five blocks there and waited 30 minutes before being told the opening was delayed until 9:30. When he returned at 9:30, the laundromat was still closed. He found out the manager of the laundromat was also a tour operator with a nearby office. She seemed sharp and told Curt our laundry would be ready by that afternoon (she didn't know why her employee was so late). To be continued.

We ate PBBBs and cereal in the car during the ride to Uxmal. During these long rides, and sometimes on the short ones, Curt and Eric would play card games of either war or poker. On this trip, Eric got a hand of four kings and a jack!

If the ruins of Chichén Itzá are the Yucatan's most impressive, those at Uxmal are the most beautiful. They are also more purely Maya. When we arrived in Uxmal we were a little disappointed to learn its majestic Pyramid of the Magician was under restoration and was not available to be climbed. Still, we were transfixed by its grandeur. This pyramid, also called El Adivino (The Sorcerer) is steeper (a 60° angle) and taller than El Castillo at Chichén Itzá. Built on an elliptical base, its walls are rounded rather than sharply angular.

Just west of the Pyramid of the Magician is the Nunnery (like "The Castle" this is another overused name to label Maya buildings). The Nunnery consists of more than 70 rooms surrounding a large (60 by 45 meters), well-groomed quadrangle. The walls are richly ornamented stone facades which include decorations of entwined serpents, mosaic patterns, latticework designs, phallic sculptures, masks of the rain god Chac, and representations of the typical Maya dwelling.

The Uxmal night show, seen from the Nunnery's quadrangle, must be more impressive than that of Chichén Itzá. Many of Uxmal's more beautiful ruins sit on raised ground and all are visible from the quadrangle. In one of the rooms of the Nunnery a bat swooped over Eric's head. We'd look for and find bats in several other rooms.

Through the courtyard door lies the ballcourt. One of its stone hoops was missing and the other was roped off with a "Don't hang on this" sign. A sign for yutzes. (Is the other hoop missing because it fell down when someone did the idiotic thing of hanging on it?)

A short uphill walk later we visited the Casa de las Tortugas (House of the Turtles), so named because of the border of turtles carved along its upper molding. Next to Turtle House is the grand and beautiful Governor's Palace. Considered by many to be among the finest Maya architectural achievements. This low, massive structure is more than 300 feet long and built on three levels. Its upper facade is covered with intricately carved stone figures and geometric designs. We entered the large throne room, which was bare except for a few carved stones that may have been pieces of a throne. The room had dozens of bats and its floor was covered in guano (bat droppings). Black guano beetles (at least that's what we called them) scurried over the dung. The air in the throne room was putrid and barely bearable. If that's how muckety-mucks live we'd prefer the lives of paupers.

Behind the Governor's Palace is The Great Pyramid. Though not as large or as beautiful as the Pyramid of the Magician, The Great Pyramid was eligible to be climbed. We ascended it and took in the breathtaking view of Uxmal; all its notable ruins and a few others are visible from atop the pyramid. In the temple on its summit is a small throne.

We descended the pyramid, Eric taking the steps one at a time on his butt, then visited "The Wall," at least that's what we called it. It's official tourist name is The Dovecote because its top suggests nesting places for doves. The Wall is what's left standing from another quadrangle. It has a feel of a bombed out building. (By this time, Curt was carrying Eric.)

Before leaving the ruins of Uxmal, we passed by the newly (and obviously) restored Cemetery Group then dined in the restaurant at the visitor center.

There is a road that extends a few miles from Uxmal called the Puuc Trail. This road connects four smaller ruins to those of Uxmal. We visited the two nearest and most impressive of these ruins (at least based on what the photo books show), sacrificing visits to the other two as with Mayapán as cities we traded for more beach days.

When we arrived at Kabah ("the hand that carves"), ours was the only tourist vehicle there. Later a few more cars and a bus would arrive. Kabah has two remarkable buildings and a good climbing mound over a third. We first approached the Palace group of buildings and climbed the steps of its most prominent, and apparently reconstructed, building. After exploring its rooms, we descended into the quadrangle before it. Missy sat while Curt and Eric climbed the broken steps of Teocalli ("House of God"). This building is largely a mound of rubble. We went as high as is allowed and poked our coconuts into holes in the mound to see the building's interior, overgrown with greenery. Behind us was the dominate building of Kabah; the lavishly decorated Codz-Poop (in Maya, "rolled mat"). Codz-Poop is emblazoned with elaborate stone masks of Chac. The large hooked snouts on these masks can be used as steps to enter the building's ten rooms. Eric led the climb to the roof of the building but a "Danger: do not enter" sign kept us from walking along it. Across the road from Codz-Poop is a mound of rocks, unrecognizable as the great pyramid it once was.

A couple miles farther along the Puuc Trail, after passing through a military checkpoint (at which Curt had threatened to mouth to the guards, "She's the one" while pointing at Missy), and henequen fields, we arrived at Sayil ("the place of ants"). It is claimed that Sayil contains several hundred known Maya structures. It's imposing Palace might be the most scenic building of all the Maya ruins we visited. The columned Palace is three levels high, more than 200 feet long, and it contains 94 rooms and several cisterns. (Throughout this part of the peninsula, water was especially scarce as there are no cenotes. Here as in Uxmal and throughout the Puuc ruins, rain water was collected and stored in cisterns.) Curt and Eric explored the Palace for a while (Missy's interest level was low after the earlier stops) before we headed down the jungle trail towards other landmarks. It turns out the walk to the other ancient structures is long (over a mile in mud) and unrewarding (the structures are mostly piles of rocks or else hidden by the jungle). As we returned to the car we met a young German couple just getting started down the trail. They took our advice not to bother going further and walked with us back to the parking lot. Their English was very good (it seems it's only second generation or later Americans who are unilingual). We asked them why we saw more Germans than any other tourist group and they said tours to the Yucatan are pushed heavily in Germany. They were on a four week vacation starting and ending in Mexico City. They were planning on heading southeast to Chetumal next when we suggested that was probably not a good idea. Hurricane Mitch was projected to hit land at Chetumal the next day. Their eyes lit up. (As Germany doesn't get hurricanes, it seemed the thought of one scared them). That was the first they heard of Hurricane Mitch. They were grateful that we told them about the hurricane and they sat for several minutes in their car with maps pondering where to go next.

Before leaving the parking lot, we fed the local scraggly looking dogs our breakfast cereal. It was the first time we could recall seeing dogs in Mexico wagging their tails.

We passed on visiting the nearby ruins of Labná and Xlapak and headed back through the military checkpoint to Mérida. We arrived at 6:30 after darkness had fallen. We stopped at the laundromat to pick up our laundry but was told that it wouldn't be ready until 8:00. We pointed out that the black backpack contained our laundry and the inept, green-toothed laundry woman indicated it would be taken care of.

We had a very good dinner of stuffed zucchini, stuffed pepper, and mushrooms and rice, with a watermelon liquado and a pineapple liquado as our drinks. On the way back to the hotel, Missy and Curt did some more shopping at the hammock specialty store while Eric visited his Mexican girlfriends.

With Missy and Eric packing it in for the day, Curt headed back for our laundry. He arrived at the laundromat at 9:30. Green teeth, who spoke no English, indicated the laundry was just getting done in the washer pulling out a couple of garments as proof. Curt did not recognize the clothes then looked for and found the black backpack still full of our dirty laundry. Greeny slapped her forehead, as if to say "D'oh!" She did say, "Uno hora" (one hour). Right. Fifteen minutes later our clothes were in the washer. Curt decided to stay at the laundromat until our clothes were done–this probably bothered Greeny. When the clothes came out of the washer they went right into an available dryer. After forty minutes Greeny started pulling articles out and folding them. Curt checked the clothes and found they were still very wet. He was tossing them back in the dryer and demanding more time for them. This reoccurred every few minutes. Greeny pulling out and folding wet clothes, Curt returning the folded stack to the dryer. Greeny then pulled out the lint catcher and removed lint an inch thick from it. No wonder the clothes weren't drying! As Curt continued his vigilance he noticed a stream of water making its way across the laundromat floor. Greeny saw it too. One of the washing machines was leaking. The water was running over a dirty floor into piles of customers' laundry waiting to be washed. Greeny made no effort to move them. Finally, about 11:00, Curt conceded and accepted a stack of damp clothes. He fairly stormed out of the laundromat (leaving no customary tip) and spread the clothes out around the hotel room to dry before turning in at 11:30.
 

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