William Lawson
And there was the cenote…
And there was the cenote…
William Lawson
Ni Chac - A Yucatan Bourdain Moment
Ni Chac - A Yucatan Bourdain Moment
William Lawson
Hacienda Chochoh, a Dog, and some Flowers

Doggies, hacienda and flowers

Hacienda Chochoh, a Dog, and some Flowers
Destinations
William Lawson
Wild Lunch at Codornejo - Akil, Yucatan

…wild lunch in Akil Yucatan…

Wild Lunch at Codornejo - Akil, Yucatan
William Lawson
Los Chocantes Caves - Revisited
Los Chocantes Caves - Revisited

Magical Mystery Tours

Magical Mystery Tour 5 - There and Back Again. Valladolid that is.

Valladolid and back.

There was a tourism fair announced for Valladolid and at the last minute, I decided to go. Too late for company and I always enjoy some stress-free exploring, being able to turn down any road I find appealing without worrying that there will be nothing to entertain my guests at the end of it.

Taking the regular highway, I stopped where a sign advertised a cenote, but the person in charge said they only open it later that afternoon (Saturday) and on Sundays. Could stop by later, I thought and continued on.

Then I saw a sign for Chankom, which sounded vaguely familiar from a book I am translating and so decided to visit this obviously sleep little town a few kilometers before Valladolid. There, I found a lady selling tortas and tacos and so that's where I had breakfast. Also, the town has a gorgeous little cenote, that is not of the swimming variety, but potentially could be. No access to be had, though.

After Chankom, I headed directly into Valladolid and found that what was going on was a food expo in the main square which was right up my photographic alley and so I took some shots. I also chatted with the author Rafael Chay Arzápalo who has published a great dictionary that features photos of almost everything you can imagine, with their names in Maya, Spanish and English.

After not seeing a whole heck of a lot else, it was time to go back.

I stopped at the town of Cuncunul, driving the back road from Chichimilá. I was looking for an elusive home restaurant serving what is purported to be the best poc chuc ever, but alas, I never found it. What I did find was a tidy little town with plenty of photo ops. Here are a few of the photos of downtown Cuncunul.

After Cuncunul, I zipped through a few more towns or maybe not, can't remember and pulled into a vivero to check out plants. The name alone is worth stopping for: Mr. Collis Mystical Nursery. I bought a cacao tree, a coffee bush and a Yucatan tobacco plant to add to my garden. I also took some photos (of course).

Finally, just before Merida, I stopped at Holca to check out the church which in all these years I had never done, and have some roadside chicken, one of my favourite meals.

At the end of the day, I was rewarded - for what I don't know - with a beautiful fall sunset.  

Magical Mystery Tour 4 - Homun Adventure

The fourth Magical Mystery Tour took place this week, and the destination turned out to be Homun, an area that is like a piece of swiss cheese: full of caves, cenotes, as well as a whole lot of history dating back to Mayan times and then the colonial era as well.

For those unfamiliar with the Magical Mystery Tour concept, in a nutshell it's this: you sign up for a tour which is practically free - you share in cost of gas and any tolls (vehicle rental if there a whole bunch of people) but you have no say on where the tour goes. These tours are designed to explore potential destinations for more formal tours in the future and may involve birding, photography, cave crawling, hacienda exploring, food tasting, cenote dunking and whatever else occurs to me. You have the option of participating in everything or nothing, but once you are along, you're along for the day! No whining, no special requests and a sense of adventure is a must. 

On this tour, Angel (the internationally renowned Lawson's guide) and Jose Luis (professional driver and all-around go-to guy) were on the tour to Homun, to check out an hacienda and other attractions on a large property on the outskirts of Homun, way off in the Mayan jungle. This was not off the beaten path, there was no path.

First stop, after Starbucks, was breakfast in the town of Tahmek, just off the Merida-Cancun highway. Poc Chuc sandwiches amidst villagers and colorful chickens. Across the street, a very unusually named kindergarten.

A few minutes later, we were on a back road, leading out of Homun into the forest. As often happens, there is a bit of garbage along the side of this road, and while it looks disgusting, it did give us an opportunity to see and photograph the largest flock of turkey vultures I had ever seen. 

After some time, we arrived at this former cattle ranch, which saw a little of the henequen action but is not at all built up in the sumptuous way some of the over-the-top haciendas are. The building itself is very modest, but it sits on top of a cenote. Note the giant arch over the cenote, holding up the hacienda building. In the forest, falling to pieces, are more buildings. There is cow poop everywhere so you have to watch your step!

After checking out the hacienda and grounds, we walked about 25 minutes into the jungle to check out an opening in the ground which was really a cave. Inside, enormous rock formations, strange little critters and shards of pottery probably dating back to the Mayans, who used these cool underground spaces for both ceremonies and burial purposes. There was indeed evidence of Mayan actitvity in this cave.

After the caving, it was time to get into the underbrush and check out something else that is on this property: a Mayan ruin and a dry cenote. There are no more carved stones of any kind on the largish building structure, and there is a nearby Mayan graveyard that used to have stone tablets, all of which are now gone; stolen apparently. In the dry cenote, evidence of a Mayan garden, including a raised platform with earth and a cacao tree, which the Mayans cultivated back in the day. Also the skeleton of some poor cow that got too close and slipped into the hole and died there.

The day was a resounding success. Cenote, cave, Mayan ruin and cow poop. What more could you ask for? Muddy and dirty, we returned to Merida with yet another Yucatan adventure under our belts and Magical Mystery Tour #4 complete. Stay tuned on Facebook (Lawson's Original Yucatan Excursions) for the next outing.



Magical Mystery Tour 3 - Sacred Mayan Moments - Xocen

Yesterday, another Magical Mystery Tour, but this one was less mysterious as I had a destination in mind that I was going to follow through with and I was joined by two lovely ladies: one was my lovely wife and the other our comadre (a comadre is the godmother of your child) both Yucatecans and both excited to see a little of the Yucatecan countryside. 

First stop, tamales. These tamales can be found in Libre Union and were just coming out of the ground, literally. Note in the photos, the large pib or pit where the baking takes place. The rocks were still scaldingly hot enough for someone to walk barefoot across 

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While making a mess of the car eating the tamal (tip: get the tomato salsa - it's the best and extra spicy) we turned off the Valladolid highway and headed towards Uayma via San Francisco El Grande and Tinum. That's the tajonal (yellow flowers) filled road in the photo above.

If you haven't been to Uayma and have only seen the church in photos, it should be on your Yucatan to-do list. Here is a taste to whet your appetite:

Finally, we arrived at Valladolid and the original plan of eating smoked pork tacos at Temozon was shelved due to time constraints as we just spent too much time at the beautiful Uayma church. So we made a quick stop at the Coqui Coqui boutique for some fragrance sampling and a little shopping before heading to our destination for the afternoon, Xocen.

Xocen, aka the center of the world as it is known there, is a small Mayan community with a feel that is hard to describe but not anything I have felt in the Yucatan before, and if you know me, you know I am a cynical old cuss and hard to impress. Xocen impressed me in its "Mayan-ness" and of course I am not the first one to write about it or wax poetic. It was the Yucatan Today magazine that brought it to my attention just a few days ago!

We were going to to witness the Sacred Mayan Moments presentation, which is an outdoor theater production that highlights important moments in Mayan village life, and after driving around the small village and asking, we were able to find the venue. I will not go on and on about how colorful, beautiful or moving this production is - since it could take paragraphs and I would lose my reputation as a hard-hearted Teutonic cynic and reveal my inner mushy self - and will leave you instead with some of the hundreds of photos I took. Admittedly, there are a LOT of photos.

If you are at all interested in or feel an affinity with, the Mayans, the Yucatan and this land, you MUST see this. I cannot recommend it highly enough. More info below the photos.

Yucatan Today article here. Video of the presentation here.

We will run a tour out to Xocen on Sundays so everyone can see this, or go on your own, but GO. Presentations are on Sundays only and the last presentation is March 8th 2015. 

Please let me know if you are interested and I will send further info as I will be putting something together today for each Sunday. Cost will depend on the number of participants so get your group of amigos together and spend a magical day in the heart of the Mayan culture.

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Magical Mystery Tour #2

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This is the photographic chronicle of my second Magical Mystery Tour outing, as described in the last installment here.   

On this occasion, as I had some garage sale items to deliver to the beach, I thought it would be interesting to take a drive I never had made before - the road from Chuburná to Merida, via the back road through Sierra Papacal and the hacienda Suytunchen. 

It was a beautiful, sunny day and the tour started, as usual, with a detour to see the fishing boat "refuge" or harbor in Chuburná. A stop along the beach also provided a glimpse at the major work underway to reclaim the eroding sandiness there.

Once you leave the beach area, you are driving on a raised one and a half lane, pot-holed road that cuts across the mangroves. You will see egrets, ducks, cormorants a pelican or two and on this occasion I saw a couple of small groups of flamingos. Not being equipped with a super birders zoom lens, I could only take photos from the road and at a distance. 

At the end of what seems like an interminable road where the vegetation changes from marshy mangrove to scrubby underbrush, you suddenly find yourself on a wide, brand new stretch of highway, and a sign announcing the CICY. I always wondered where the CICY was, having heard they had another property. Well here it is, out in the middle of nowhere with a security guard and gate - to prevent intruding zombies from attacking, I suppose. 

This wide, well marked highway is like an oasis in a mirage, as it appears after the long drive along the pocked road from the beach and then disappears when you enter the town of Sierra Papacal. Please, someone explain to me the logic of building a perfect, modern highway - that is only 1 kilometer long and abutted by crappy roads to get there in the first place?

The balché tree is in bloom however, and growing right there by the mystery highway so I was able to get some good photos of the flowers.

Sierra Papacal was next, but there was nothing in the tiny village that caught my eye, even with a circus in town, except a sign for a turnoff to Suytunchen, which sounded interesting so I went there instead. It turns out Suytunchen is another hacienda, this one raised cattle up until recently, when it became a venue to be rented for social events. The daily rate is around $25,000 MXP for the location; you provide everything else. As you can see, it is small, but has some great photo op potential. The afternoon light warms up the bright colors painted over those melancholy, silent walls, that have watched the telenovela of life play out in front of them.

With the light fading fast, this was the last stop of the Magical Mystery Tour #2 - a slightly shorter version than the first, but nevertheless, a worthwhile trip.

From Suytunchen, a sign indicated the road to Merida and I was on the Progreso-Merida highway in minutes and home.

 Stay tuned for the next Magical Mystery Tour!