Excursion and Emily

We woke up extra early today. We wanted to leave for the planned excursion to Chichen-Itza very early, or 7:45 in the morning, so that we would get back in time before the hurricane hit land. The organisors had been hesitant whether to go ahead with this excursion or not, considering that Chichen-Itza is on the way to Cancun, from where the hurricane would be expected to come. It was finally decided to stick to the schedule, but to advance it in the day and return early afternoon.

So, we drove east to Chichen-Itza from Merida early morning. The roads were completely empty. The Yucatan country is very flat, although the peninsula is cut off by a mountain range, thus all the roads are very straight. One just picks a direction and drives straight on! The vegetation is thick, so one doesn't see much from the road. It's just trees after trees after trees.

We had a very friendly and funny local guide on our bus. He promised us lots of tequilas and snake and iguana meat for lunch. And explained the philosophy of the Mayan people who unfortunately were basically wiped out from the region. They were probably just way to friendly. Besides, we the Europeans had guns, germs and steel ...

Arriving at Chichen-Itza we got about one and a half hour to walk around. That's not a lot of time for such a big site, but we were trying to keep ahead of the hurricane, right. I escalated the big pyramid in 91 steps. It is pretty steep (and even more so on the way down). It offers great views of the site and gives you a sense of the immensity of the structures that once were, but also of the expansiveness of the surrounding rain forest which seems endless. I was a little shocked at how steep the staircase of the pyramid was when I wanted to get down and I ended up holding M.'s hand all the way down. I think he was a little shaken too ...

It was really hot. I had left my hat and my water bottle in the bus, how smart is that, so I tried to stay in the shade after I had explored the main structures. We had an early lunch at an outdoor's buffet in a park just off the side. We met our students briefly.

As we returned we ran out to the drugstore once more to get supplies in case the hurricane would pass. In addition to the headlights we already had we got extra supplies of water, candles, lighter and some chips. Back at the Hyatt I found people a little fatalistic and solemn, and it suddenly hit me that maybe a degree 5 hurricane was nothing to joke about. People seemed really concerned, not to say worried. Nobody was saying jokes anymore, as if everyone was preparing for the worst. I wondered what "the worst" could be. Would our flights back home be delayed? Would we be locked inside our hotel for a couple of days? Would the roads be closed? Would we have floods? Would we be out of electricity? Would we run out of food? Would we be isolated from the outside world for days? Would the elevators break down while we were inside? Would the windows in our rooms break open and suck us out? Would there be casualities? I had no idea what to expect. Suddenly I felt very small and insignificant. I went and called C. for the first time during my stay. He sounded very excited about the whole thing. He told me to go outside and shoot lots of pictures of the hurricane. I told him I didn't wanta do that! Besides, we would not be allowed to go outside.

At dinner, the outlook was pretty dark. The hurricane had gained in power. It was already being felt in Cancun, but the eye was supposed to hit land at 1 a.m. Again people seemed unusually quite and serious. We had received a notice telling us to either spend the night in an emergency shelter on the first floor or otherwise to stay in our rooms, preferably in the bathroom and not to leave them during the night. I wasn't to thrilled about that bathroom thing, and neither was P. when I consulted him. My deputy was thinking about walking over to our students' hotel and spend the night there. We both walked over after dinner to see how they were doing. It was abnormally calm outside, kind of eerie. Windows everywhere were taped up or hammered up. At the hotel the kids had all been gathered in a big hall on the first floor where they had camped with blankets and pillows on the floor. Actually, they seemed to be having a blast. It was like a mega sleep over they were having with all their friends at the same time and lots of games and snacks. I walked back thinking that they would be fine without me, but my deputy felt safer being with them so she gathered her toilet bag and deserted me for the night. I almost felt lonely as she left, and I turned on the TV for the first time here ...