Cancun was lovely and we had a great time. I was ready to come home and see my babies but sooo not ready to go back to work. Oh, well. Here's some pics:
This was the view out our livingroom windows:
The water is even bluer than this picture shows. It was gorgeous! The hotel we stayed at, The Royal Cancun, had the world's best lemonade and they had fantastic nachos grande. So very yummy:
I could have eaten these every night for dinner... and lunch, they were that good. I might even go so far as to say they were the best nachos I've ever had.
On Thursday, my dad and I hopped on a tour bus for the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. The ruins were amazing but they got us there at the absolute hottest part of the day. It was 90 in the shade and 90% humidity. The only thing that kept me from melting in a puddle was the occasional cloud that blew by and an intermittent breeze. I quickly abandoned the tour portion, which is too bad because it was fascinating, and wandered around taking pictures. I never would have made it had I stayed with the tour. Heat exhaustion was a concern although I made it back to the Maya Land Hotel sweaty but okay.
One of the first things you see is El Castillo (there's a Mayan name for the structure but for the life of me, I can't remember what it is - the Spaniards named it El Castillo and that's the one I remember). It's rather impressive:
You used to be able to climb everything but they closed them a few years ago. Apparently, people would climb to the top and then chisel off the carvings to take as souvenirs. It blows my mind how stupid and selfish people can be and how it never occurred to them that taking away carvings nearly 2000 years old might be a bad thing. These people ruined it for the rest of us. It would have been cool to climb to the top and look out, seeing things the way the Mayan people saw them so long ago.
This is one of the detail carvings from the Ball Court:
I don't know what it means but it's pretty cool.
On the way to Chichen Itza, we stopped at a rest area that doubled as a spot to buy lots of tourist stuff (I bought a t-shirt). There was a young guy working a loom like a pro:
He had this system set up that shot the shuttle back and forth while he worked the foot pedals that moved the __________ up and down (sorry, can't remember the word...). Naturally, I forgot to take a picture of some of his finished work. Oh, wait, I've got another pic of him, I just need to go find it...
It's a better shot of the loom and you can see some of his blankets behind him. I'm assuming he wove them but I'm not a weaver myself and I can't tell if the blankets are possible with this loom. They're gorgeous regardless. Sorry I don't have a better picture of the blankets for those of you who are interested in such things.
I managed to finish sewing the binding on the green/copper quilt - picture later this week - and it got a bath today. Yes, it fit just fine in my suitcase since it isn't that big a quilt. And I got about 3/4 of an inch knitted on one of my pairs of socks, mostly on airplanes. The socks will be coming to work with me so I can work on them during breaks and lunch.
Now I have to scrounge up something for dinner. I wish I had some nachos...
welcome back Beck!...great pics too..that young lads weaving is absolutely amazing!!..he is very talented :-) i would kill for one of those blankets!
mmmmm nachos..now i want some too :-)
Posted by: val | April 25, 2011 at 01:59 AM
Now you've got me craving nachos, too. For breakfast...
Glad you had fun!
Posted by: gayle | April 26, 2011 at 08:39 AM