However, it must be the rainy season in the Yucatan Peninsula. So, as the song lyric continues, “when it pours, man, it pours!”
I shared with you in an earlier post that while your spouse is deployed, it would be both wise and fun to accept as many invitations as you can. It was impossible to turn down a trip with my parents to Cancun and the surrounding environs for a week. The trip was fantastic, catching up was great, and the ruins at Chichen Itza were spectacular. The three hour bus ride was well-worth the saddle soreness as the guide was full of interesting information. He shared two nuggets of info that I found quite funny.
When the Spanish conquistadores arrived in Mexico, they were met by the Mayans. The Spaniards asked their hosts, “What do you call this place?” The response was, “Yu-ca-tam.” Hence, the current name of the area, Yucatan. What the Spaniards didn’t know is that Yu-ca-tam in Mayan means, “I don’t understand you, you idiot!”
Next, the conquistadores asked the Maya peoples what they called themselves; they were interested in the name of the tribe. The response was always, “May-ja, May-ja!” Henceforth, the native people were known as Mayans to the Europeans. What May-ja actually means is, “Stay away!” Gotta love it!
Chichen Itza was stunning. Its name means, “at the mouth of the magic water.” It was the center of the Mayan world and contained so many more ruins than just the one pyramid normally associated with it. There was an entire field full of “acoustic stones” where people would come to listen to very pure tones. They were mathematicians and astronomers extraordinaire. There were enormous ball-courts where, contrary to popular belief, the losers weren’t slain. That piece of info was written down by the conquerors later, after they had burned all the Mayan books, which, I was interested to learn, were made of paper. As many conquered peoples have learned, the victors tend to misrepresent them; losers are often shown throughout history as barbarians to justify the destruction of the civilizations.
I know I’m kind of a new-agey sort of girl, but I think places have a feel to them. This place felt magical and peaceful. Even as the storm clouds rolled in, stemming the heat of the afternoon, the air didn’t feel oppressive; it felt serene. I had walked to the far end of the ruins to take some photos with fewer tourists in them. The raindrops started to fall; I was so far from everyone else that the plops of water were the only sounds I could hear. The Mayans consider the rain a great blessing. Rain brings life. The water was truly magical.
Suffice it to say the Mayans blessed me that day. I received so many blessings that rain ran down my face in rivulets, sluiced off my nose, and filled up my shoes. Waterproof shoes – check! I watched all the tourists bolt for the covered area, which was nearly a mile away. I had to laugh. There really wasn’t any way I could get any wetter. It was a warm rain that soaked me to the skin. The only worry was my Dad’s camera, which I wrapped in my hat, leaving my locks to soak up the monsoon. I’ve always wanted a dread-locked/braided look, and I finally achieved it that day with my blessings courtesy of the Mayan gods.
While most of the tourists sprinted for a small roofed in area where they packed themselves in like sardines, a vendor family working the ruins invited me to stand under their sheet of plastic with them. We held it over our heads and tried conversing in the little Spanish I know. I think there is a universal sound for, “Ugh, the water just ran down my wrists all the way to my armpits.” It sounds something like, “Yack!” It was clear after a few minutes that the cloudburst was in no mood to cease and desist. I walked slowly back to the bus, sad to leave such a miraculous, mysterious place.
As we all arrived at our tour buses, clearly no one had escaped the continuing torrential rain. Rain was pouring down in sheets, bouncing back up at least two feet into the air. Puddles ankle-deep were everywhere. Men pulled off their t-shirts and wrung them out before boarding, many women with long hair tried to wring that out, too. We anticipated our three hour bus ride and weren’t shy about removing wet things, whether or not there were dry things to replace them. My white pants were completely see-through, except from the knee down, where all the sand had bounced back up with the force of the deluge. The opacity on the bottom didn’t exactly cover my lovely lime green underpants. I pulled off my t-shirt to wring it out and found that my bra (keep in mind here that I’m a tad to the under-endowed side and tend to gravitate toward some padded bras) held about a half-gallon of rain per cup. Gives a whole new meaning to the term “water bra,” let me tell ya. I might have been able to win the wet t-shirt contest that day! Everyone participated, whether they wanted to or not! I decided there was no reason to be shy and removed the prize winning bra, too, to squeeze out the water. Only decorum kept one young vendor from staring outright…hmm, I wonder if I could have gotten a discount on the dry t-shirts he was selling?
Ah, well, the Mayan gods had their fun, as did all of us. The rain did little to dampen our enthusiasm for the trip and we all seemed to bond over squishy socks and sodden undergarments. The couple from the U.K. found it to be just like home, minus the Mayan ruins, of course. The Magicians of the Water treated us all to an unforgettable experience.
So, my advice to you is that if you ever find yourself in Cancun, sign up for the three hour bus ride. Go to Chichen Itza -- you won’t be sorry you did.
Please, just remember not to stare when women are doffing their sopping clothes, or at least toss ‘em a dollar to pay for your peep.
Peace, love, and magical water!
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