Mexico Fiestas and Day Tripping
Chapter 20: Christmas in Mexico!
Hola Amigos! After years of toil and trouble, we’d finally realized our heart’s desire—Casa Maya on the beach in Puerto Morelos—was finished! With two weeks of vacation time at our new digs, we were cramming in everything possible to make it feel like home. And at our contractor’s suggestion, we were considering renting it part-time to tourists until we left our jobs in San Francisco and headed south to retire.
Knowing Casa Maya was a fait accompli was a gift in itself. In the days that followed, we were busy with shopping trips to Cancun and getting things settled at the house. We organized dishes, pots and pans in the pantry, assigned closets for bed linens and towels, learned to wash fruits and vegetables with a few drops of Microdyne in water which cleansed them of all bacteria.
We ordered top soil for the front and side yards so we could plant palms, shrubs, bougainvillea. Although the house was complete, the surrounding area was starkly bare and we wanted to add as much foliage as possible. We decided to maximize the concept of Casa Maya by searching for Maya-style artwork and incorporating it into both the interior and exterior of the house. We knew the region near Valladolid had plenty of stone masons who created knock-offs that looked just like the stela—stone tablets—from the pyramid sites. After New Year’s we’d take a day trip to see what we could find.
After the rains subsided we lolled around the beach for a few days, enjoying the sun, the sand and the quiet. Occasionally a neighbor would greet us to wish us happy holidays. Some days we’d wade into the warm Caribbean up to our knees, other days we snorkeled offshore, amazed at the number of fish and conch.
We’d celebrated Christmas Eve with Joe Marino, Enrique, and their families and planned to reciprocate by hosting a New Year’s Eve party to show our appreciation for a job well done and to christen Casa Maya. We invited everyone we knew from town and all the people who’d worked on the house. Arturo planned to come from Merida and bring his guitar. Apparently carpentry wasn’t his only talent.
New Year’s Eve proved to be quite a fiesta. Paul and I had cooked all day, my forté being appetizers, side dishes, desserts and an assorted variety of Christmas cookies I made every year, no matter what land I was in. Paul took on the main course—he was the meat and potatoes man. We served the purloined honey baked ham, fresh from customs, a roast turkey with Paul’s dressing and giblet gravy, and what we couldn't eat, we’d send home with our guests.
The night was full of serenades and songs thanks to Arturo’s musical abilities. Everyone knew the lyrics to every Mexican song. We ate, sang and partied late. What a night and what a way to inaugurate Casa Maya.
New Year’s Day brought sun. We slept late, finally dragged ourselves out of bed to face the after fiesta cleanup. We opened all the windows, let the fresh Caribbean breeze blow through, put on music and broke out another bottle of champagne for our private work party, happily content we’d successfully survived the first fiesta in our home.
To change pace, later on we took a walk into Puerto Morelos by way of the beach. A wide expanse of nothingness stretched from our house to town in those days. It was near sunset and the sun sank into the mangroves, not over the ocean as we were accustomed to in California.
Carrying our sandals we walked barefoot, arriving at the zocalo just as the mercury vapor lights came on at the basketball court. We took a seat on concrete benches next to a family of four and watched several teens pass the ball back and forth. The parents were 40-somethings with pre-teen daughters and we fell into conversation about the game, the day and their recent travels.
Just back from Valladolid they’d seen the little known pyramids at Ek Balam. Since we planned a trip in that direction the next day, we were curious about the site.
“Ek Balam is only 20 minutes north of Valladolid. There was no one there when we visited. We walked through fields, and then there we were, in the midst of all these barely uncovered temples. We ran into an archeologist who said it was a major site and had been inhabited for close to a thousand years in its heyday. One building he called the Acropolis was over 500 feet long,” the dad said.
“Balam means jaguar in Mayan,” his daughter said. She looked to be about 13 with her blond hair braided in tight corn rows. “Jaguars are powerful in the Maya world.”
“Fascinating. We’re driving that way tomorrow. Maybe we’ll stop. Well, have a good trip, wherever your journey takes you,” I said as we waved good bye.
Walking home on the beach, a half moon rose in the winter sky. Stars peeked out from the darkened heavens. “Look at the stars, Paul,” I said, as we picked our way along, wading between sand and surf.
“It’s so dark. I’ve never seen brighter stars or a darker sky than right here in Puerto Morelos.”
So true. Once away from town, there was no peripheral lighting to diminish the stars’ brilliance. It made a perfect backdrop for a spectacular night sky. At that moment our minds were on the stars but tomorrow we’d be well out of the clouds and grounded in a different reality—the jungles of the Yucatán, searching for different answers to different mysteries. We were going to the pyramids at Ek Balam.
To a Californian sunrise on the Atlantic seems a contradiction after watching the sun set on the opposite shore and ocean day after day for years. It takes some getting used to. But what a display. As the sky begins to take on light, a haze of soft color permeates the horizon. Then the orange-red slice appears, flush with the ocean, not round at all. And slowly the great ball of flame surfaces. Another day.
Paul and I were already up. I was arranging clothes in a small duffel bag, drinking a quick cup of coffee before we got on the road. Paul finished putting juice, water, sodas and ice into a cooler.
“Are you ready?” he asked, waiting for me at the front door.
“Let’s go,” I said, following him outside into the quiet morning, checking the lock as we left.
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Backstory—Puerto Morelos sits within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites: Chichen Itza, Coba, Tulum and Ek Balam. By living in close proximity to this Maya wonderland we pyramid hopped on our days off from Alma Libre Libros, the bookstore we founded in 1997. Owning a bookstore made it easy to order every possible book I could find on the Maya and their culture, the pyramids, the archeologists who dug at these sites and the scholars who wrote about them, not to mention meeting archeologists, tour guides, and local Maya who popped into the store. I became a self-taught Mayaphile and eventually website publishers, Mexican newspapers and magazines, even guidebooks asked me to write for them about the Maya and Mexico. I’ll never stop being enthralled by the culture and history and glad there’s always new news emerging for me to report on right here in Mexico Soul. Please share this post if you know others interested in the Maya. Thank you!
I love the old pictures sprinkled throughout, there's such a warmth to them
Love the photos!