Sunday Evening
We left Rio Lagartos on the eleven o’clock bus for Merida. The whole weekend had cost me approximately £100 including accommodation, food and excursions. It was money well spent, I feel totally rested and privileged to have been to such a beautiful place. We got back to Merida at about 2p.m. and spent the afternoon catching up on cooking and washing.
The internet is down. A car ran into the telegraph pole opposite the house in the early hours of Saturday morning and it snapped in half cutting the wire to our side of the road. Heaven only knows when we will get reconnected as we live in a back street and I should think that we are low priority.
Ian and I got dressed up and went to the Grand Plaza for the Sunday night out; a stage had been built at one end of the square and there was a great band playing. Once again it was packed with people dancing and walking about, sitting outside the cafes drinking and enjoying the whole atmosphere. We had a drink; I had a pina colada, a drink that I am getting quite fond of! We moved nearer to the front to get a better feel of the music, the trumpets and the drums kept the pace moving and two singers, a man and a woman, took turns to sing. Then it was suddenly all over. The lights went out and before they could start getting their equipment off the stage men were dismantling the barriers.
We wandered around the Mayan market stalls buying ear rings and admiring the exquisite embroidery. We were attracted into a side street where five drummers were playing. It was hypnotic as the beat hammered through your body. A little boy was jumping up and down to the rhythm. Back on the square for a plate of chips a strolling band came by and I gave them some coins, mainly because they had a tenor sax with them. We then went on to the Italian café for a café friore, a cold coffee served in a tall glass with chocolate chips in it and a topping of a swirl of cream, absolutely delicious, a great end to a great weekend. On the way back to the house we met Pia who was just on her way out to go to a party, that is the difference between the young and the old!
Monday 24th January
It is 10.30p.m. and we have just got back from the main plaza. Ian and I arranged to go out for a drink with Carlos, the young man who helps us with teaching the girls on a Monday when we go to the library. He lives in an enormous town house. It stretches from one street right through to another. It is truly amazing. He has decided to do bed and breakfast to raise some money whilst he is studying at university and showed us around. He is only 20 years old and lives alone with his mother in the house whom we met, a lovely gentle woman. His father lives about six hours drive away, he didn’t explain the family situation and I didn’t ask.
We went to the Mayan bar but it was closed and so we went into the square and sat at an open window in an upstairs bar. Down in the square a band was playing and a procession was being organised outside the cathedral. When the procession began led by the band made up of a line of trumpeters and a line of drummers it was amazing. The ladies were all dressed in the beautiful Mayan dress that is white and very heavily embroidered at the yoke and hem, a lace underskirt shows beneath. In their hair they wore a pile of flowers twisted around ones side of the hair line. The men all wore white suits and panama hats. There were children dressed in the traditional costume as well. Some paraded carrying flowers others carried banners between them and the Mayan virgin was carried aloft by four men. There were three bands in all and the number of people taking part all dressed in the traditional costume was endless.
Once on the far side of the square their was the inevitable announcements before the music began and these beautiful people danced.
In the concert hall nearby a blues band was playing to another packed audience, and it is Monday night! This is a fantastic town.
Monday 24th January – Another Fiesta
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