Sabado en los pueblitos (Saturday in the little towns)

This weekend, my roommate Carolyn and I decided to do a little exploring throughout the state of the Yucatan.  Afterall, this is our new state of residence, so we should know  what it has to offer.  Our main goal this weekend was to get to Kabah, a mayan ruins site that we never got to see last year.  We thought that along the way we could hit up a few of the pueblos, because you never know what excitement could await you in a pueblo.

So Saturday morning we headed to the bus station and made our first destination Ticul.  Our bus fare cost about 43 pesos for the hour or so it took to get to Ticul.  When we arrived to Ticul, we had absolutely no idea where to go.

If you've never gotten to experience this kind of travel, I highly recommend that you do.  While it may seem a little stressful to some, I think the thrill of not knowing where you're going, how you're going to get there, or what you're going to do when you're there, makes taveling so much more exciting.  Throw a little spanish in there and I could not be happier.  Luckily in Mexico there is always some type of colectivo (van) that you can hop to go just about anywhere.

Ok, so back to Ticul.  Once there, we did some exploring, checked out the church, ate some guacamole and did some shopping.  We had heard that Ticul was known as a big shoe producing town, so there were many shoe shops that lined the little streets.  Of course, I bought a pair.  Then we rode via tricitaxi (a small seat that is attached to thr front of a bicycle, or in this case a motorcycle) to the colectivo and went to Santa Elena.

Santa Elena was even smaller than Ticul.  But we went there because we wanted to see an old church that sat high up on the hill.  It was supposed to have an amazing view.  In addition to this, they had found mummified bodies underneath the church's floor.  So we checked out the museum first and saw the momias.

(Just for the record, we were reading a pamphlet in english on the mummies.  It had clearly been translated into english by a spanish speaking person and the title read: "The mommies of Santa Elena."  I felt like I should tell them that there is a big difference between mummies and mommies, but I didn't have the heart.  However, I wonder how many people went to see mommies of Santa Elena and were seriously disappointed.)

After seeing the momias we waited around for a sister to come and open up the church.  The inside of the church w

as a little creepy, b

ut it was interesting to see.  We had read that if you asked the right person, they would let you climb up a spiral staircase that led to the upper level and to the roof.  We asked the sister about climbing and she proceeded to tell us that they were fixing the roof and that the stairs were really old and molding away.  She said it was very dangerous.  We were expecting her to tell us "I'm sorry, you can't go," but instead she said "so, go at your own risk."

I asked to see the staircase and slowly began to climb - emphasis on slowly.  The higher I climbed, the more I noticed pieces of the wooden steps missing.  My legs were shaking, and I even gave u

p for a second there.  My legs were tremblng and I was thinking that this was either one of the 

bravest or stupidest things I have ever done.  Then Carolyn assured me that we were close to the top, so I quickly climbed the next few steps.

There were still steps left but we stopped at the balcony of the church, which we later found out was about 115 feet high.  It opened up to these long creepy hallways that ran the length of the church and felt like a cave, the walls crumbling underneath our fingers.

We ran around up there for a little while and Carolyn decided that she wanted to go to the roof.  I, however, was just fine where I was and let her go first to check it out.  She went a little higher where she found the steps were either completely rotten or missing, making it impossible to make it to the top.

By this time, we had been up on the balcony for a while, especially when you take into account the slow pace with which we climbed the stairs.  The nun sent up a group of guys to make sure we were ok.  These boys bounded up the steps, two at a time, like it was nothing.  So we followed them down at a quicker pace.

When we reached the bottom, Carolyn assured the nun that we survived and we walked, still trembling, all the way to our hotel.  We spend the night in a bungalow, which we jokingly referred to as our prison cell, because it was a small room made out of cement blocks that was in the middle of nowhere.  And I mean nowhere.  But it was nice to have peaceful night of sleep after a long Saturday.

My Lesson of the Day: There is a very fine line between brave and stupid.