It's Saturday afternoon, and I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my best and longest-standing friend, Julia! I've known this girl since I was 12 years old, and I think of her as a sister. We've stayed in touch over the years and even took an Alaska Cruise together last summer. Pretty cool that we got to share an adventure involving glaciers and now she's on her way to spend some time with me closer to the equator--definitely no icebergs here. She is my first American friend to come and visit me while I've been living here in Merida, so I'm really excited to play tour guide for her this week. She flew into Cancun and is now taking the ADO bus out here to Merida, and I'm happy to report she's checked in to tell me she's on the "autobus", so just a few more hours now.
My brave friend accepted a position at a new company, so she has a few weeks off in between finishing up her last day at her previous company and when she's scheduled to report for her new job. I was thrilled when she told me she'd be filling a few of those free days by coming visit MOI! I have a trip planned for us tomorrow to the Cenotes of Cuzama along with 12 friends from work. My local friends had taken me to these cenotes last year when I came down on my initial trip, and I'd told Julia about how great they were, so she'd mentioned that they were high on her list as somethings she'd wanted to see/do. Luckily, these cenotes are popular enough that 12 more people from my office decided they'd join us so we were able to reserve a van and driver for transportation. The only downside is we have to be at the pick-up spot at 9am tomorrow, ugh! But I know it'll be worth it, so I'll suck it up. Sometimes I just wish I was a morning person. We'll be taken to the small town of Cuzama (really kind of out in the middle of nowhere) where we'll get on these carts referred to as "trucs" which are pulled by donkeys or mules along an old track that had been laid down for harvesting the local plant called henequen during its boom era in the early 20th century. Each truc has a local man assigned to it who coaxes the animal to pull the cart and is responsibe for hauling it off the tracks and back on when there's a group of people coming back in the opposite direction; not an easy task, let me tell you, those things are heavy! They take us to 3 different cenotes (subterranean water holes): one accessed by a relatively small hole with a rickety ladder built down the side, one a bit more open with a make-shift staircase and a place you have to duck down really low, and the third is the most open and has a long staircase built in (but the openness makes it the least popular because there are more bugs and bats inside). The first two are definitely the highlight, with cool, clean, crystalline water, shafts of light streaming in from holes above, and roots hanging down from the overlying trees. We're given time to swim in all three for about 30 minutes each, and then taken back to the small town. There isn't much in terms of restaurants out there, so we'll be packing a picnic lunch.
My plan for Monday is to take her to the local beach, Progreso, but I did hear it is pretty crowded on Mondays because that is the day that Carnival Cruises has their ship in port. It will likely be swarming in tourists, so I'm going to try to get directions to one of the less established local beaches where we can swim and avoid the throngs of cruise passengers. Maybe I'll even convince a local friend to come a long--let's see what I can make happen.
I really can't take more than a day or even a half day off right now since I have the big China trip coming up this summer and then time planned for a beach vacation out to Playa del Carmen or Cozumel with my friend Stephanie who will be visiting in August. So my thoughts for Tuesday are having Julia book a day trip through my contacts at the office, and she can pick which ruins she'd like to see--my guess is she'll pick Chichen Itza, but I'll leave that up to her. The lady at my office said all of the day trips run about the same price (~600 pesos), so I just need to take her in on Monday to decide what she wants to do while I'm at work on Tuesday and she'll book it for her.
It's just a short visit, so I'll be putting her back on the ADO bus on Wednesday so she can catch her evening flight back from Cancun to Washington, DC. My goal is for her to at least experience some of the local Yucatecan food, hopefully take in a little local culture like the "baile folklorico" in Centro on Monday night, and just relax and enjoy my little corner of the world here. Let me wrap this up so I can get in a quick workout before she arrives, and get started with playing Tour Guide for the next few days. Wish me luck!
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