The Aftermath

Everybody but a few have now left the IMO site. I woke up at four o'clock this morning to see my team off, then went back to sleep. I had teamed up with the French leader and his wife, together with the Italian leader, who also is french speaking, to rent a car and go sight seeing today. I had been told that the site of Uxmal was no less impressive than Chichen-Itza and a definite must see. So, we drove out there and spent a good couple of hours walking around the ruins of Uxmal. Or ruins, some of the structures are actually in unbelievably good shape. Access to some of those at Uxmal have yet been restricted, like the main (very steep) pyramid. I don't know if this is more to protect the structures, or the tourists.

We had a good lunch together close to the site of Uxmal, then continued down the Puuc route, to see yet more amazing archeological sites. We visited among others Kabah, Sayil and Labna. Driving through the jungle like that was fascinating. For long stretches there was nothing but us, the straight road, a tropical forest as far as the eye could see and the odd archeological site. C's wife would be a little anxious about us getting lost and she kept trying to locate us on the map, ever so convinced that we should be on some other road with a different number, but there really weren't that many roads to choose from. The whole time there would normally only be one paved road in sight. Out on the road we would often drive through these clouds of big, brightly colored butterflies, yellow, green, orange and white, totally otherwordly. Yet, it was a long hot day. We would get out of the air conditioned vehicule with a sigh and be happy to find it again after dazing through the ruins, and we would seek out shade wherever we could. And the mosquitos were out there for sure. I would spray another layer of insect repellent on my limbs every so often.

To my constant surprise, most of the sites we visited, with the possible exception of Uxmal, were more or less abandoned, and so completely void of the touristic crowds. Whatever the reason, but it may have been that the passing of hurricane Emily the day before was playing in our favour now. As the afternoon caught up on us, we started getting rain showers. But by then we were almost done with our sight seeing. The rain hit really hard while we drove back to Merida, about an hours drive. Back in Merida it looked as if the city had been hit even harder during the day and all the streets were completely flooded, so much that for a while I even doubted whether we would be able to make it back to the hotel. The streets had transformed into torrential rivers. But somehow we made it.

I had planned to have dinner with F. this last night, but having returned somewhat too late from my excursion I contented myself with a little snack in my hotel room and hit my bed early.