Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Roam with me! Mexico, October-November 2023

 Hola. I have sadly neglected this blog, even though I love it and its concept, due to focusing on my own novel writing, promoting those books, and starting and maintaining two Substack publications -- Cognate Cognizance and Tomes and Topics. I'm going to write a long overdue post now.


I'm in the Yucatan part of Mexico. The above photo is of me at the beach in Progreso and sporting the cool cap that I bought at La Isla mall in Merida. Merida is where I've spent the bulk of my time since arriving on October 22nd because my friend, Silvia, lives there. She's the reason I came to Mexico, but I also chose this particular time, so I could see some of the things they do for Day of the Dead. Even though I taught Spanish for 30 long years, I never got to Mexico during the annual Day of the Dead celebration because I was always smack in the middle of the school year and my obligations for it. 

Thus, it's been on my very long list of things I want to see and do for far too long, and I can finally cross it off. Since Merida is in the Yucatan, most of the things they did to celebrate the holiday were steeped in Mayan culture, and even the 10-day celebration was often referred to by its Mayan name of Hanal Pixan.

Due to time constraints, my friend's dialysis that she has to do four times a day, the location of events, and other things, we certainly didn't get to every event that was available -- all free of charge -- during that time, but we attended enough to satisfy my desire to see part of the celebrations. 

The first thing we did was attend one of the nighttime tours of the oldest cemetery in Merida, the General Cemetery, which is located near the international airport. Our Didi driver dropped us off on the wrong side of the huge walled cemetery, though, so we began walking. Fortunately, a young man passing by on the other side of the street in his car saw us walking and assured us we were going in the right direction, but we weren't sure how to traverse a very large and deep rain puddle that covered the entire intersection. Plus, it was still quite a trek, so Silvia asked if he'd take us and we could pay him -- he did! He also returned after we were done with our tour and took us to the main square for the next event we did -- he was very nice, and of course we paid him for his time because he was also an off-duty Uber driver. 

Anyway, back to the cemetery. When we arrived, the first tours were beginning. Each tour was only supposed to have 50 people in it, and we could see right away that there were way more than 50 people there, but suddenly a smaller group broke away from the large group, and Silvia heard the guide saying that it was the English group, so we just walked over to it. A man looked at me and asked if I was on the list. "List? What list?" I asked, certain that we were about to be asked to wait until the next tour started in two hours, but he just said, "Let me get it." He came back with a clipboard and paper, and had me put my name on it, party of two; so I did, and Silvia and I joined the English group for the very first tour of the cemetery.

It really only constituted a small portion of a very extensive cemetery, and I don't recall all the things the guide told us. I wasn't really there for the history lesson anyway -- I have a strange fascination for cemeteries, especially old, large ones. Thus, I mostly just took a lot of photos. A return trip in the daylight would be beneficial, but I don't think it's going to happen on this trip.

So, here are a few of the photos I took in the General Cemetery of Merida.






 After our kind young driver named Manuel returned for us, he took us to the main plaza where the opening ceremony for Hanal Pixan was about to begin. There was a very long line, so we browsed in the Dante bookstore until the line began to move, and then we joined it. Once inside the theater, though, it was hot and crowded and full of copal, a type of incense, that got to both of us, so we didn't stay for the whole thing. Additionally, the speakers were cranked to the highest volume, I think, and it echoed badly in there to the extent that I couldn't understand anything being said anyway. I got enough of the procession, though, to appreciate what was taking place.



A couple nights later, we returned to the street leading to the General Cemetery to view the passing of the 700 รกnimas, or reanimated souls, as they came out of the cemetery and reentered the world during the time of the Day of the Dead celebration. The procession was very cool, and the mayor of Merida led it, but afterwards, we had a heck of time getting through the throngs of people to a place where we could arrange a car to come get us. In fact, Silvia's phone battery was exhausted, and my phone wouldn't pick up any service to allow me to arrange a driver, so we had to call her daughter who then sent a Didi driver to get us, but we had to walk a long ways to a spot that the driver could even get to because so many roads were closed for the event. It was crazy and chaotic, and Silvia really needed to do her dialysis, and she was exhausted, so I was on the cusp of panic, but it all worked out as things tend to do.

Prior to the procession, since we'd arrived plenty early, we were able to see many of the altars erected along the route. Afterwards, there were so many people that it was impossible to see anything other than the crush of people around us.










In that last photo, you can see the sign that says "Marquesitas" on it. Prior to this trip, I'd never had one. Now, I've had two, including the one I had from that stand. Here is Silvia with hers before the procession began. It's basically a large, warm ice cream cone type of crust that is wrapped around the filling you want in it. Silvia always just gets shredded cheese in hers, so that's what I got, too, and it was surprisingly delicious.


The next event that we went to was a Mayan circus in which they enacted folkloric stories and legends. Prior to it, a local comedian named Tia Chayo performed for an hour. I enjoyed her show because it was funny and because I understood most of it, which says a lot for someone who is listening to something in a second language. The only parts that went over my head were the ones where she and another comic verbally sparred and used Yucatecan colloquialisms that I don't know. The Mayan show was good, but it should have been longer because it was the main show yet it ran shorter than Tia Chayo's performance. Prior to the show, I had that second marquesita.



Tia Chayo



The most uncomfortable chairs in the world for viewing a two-hour performance.

The final thing we attended was the Vaqueria de las Animas, which was a dance performance on a stage that was set up near the main plaza. Prior to it, we visited the main altar of Merida and the Camino de las Flores which was installed in the art corridor that runs alongside the main cathedral of Merida. I had to sit on the same uncomfortable chairs that they'd used a couple nights prior in a different part of the city. Merida, take note -- you need different chairs; in fact, one that my friend's daughter initially sat on was completely broken, and if I'd had the misfortune of sitting on it, I would have ended up on the ground.

Crappy chairs notwithstanding, though, the show was wonderful, the plants and flowers were beautiful, and the main altar for the Day of the Dead was reverent. 







Those are the main things I did for Day of the Dead. I don't know if I'll ever be back to Mexico for another one, but I hope so. I would like to see how they celebrate it in other parts of the country, too. I also had my first pan de muertos, bread of the dead, at Silvia's sister's house one evening -- actually, it was the evening only hours after I heard of Matthew Perry's passing. 

A cookie decorated for Day of the Dead that I bought for myself.

Yucatecan food is very delicious, but my favorite is and will always be lime soup. Silvia took me and her daughter to an amazing restaurant in the Centro that serves some of the best lime soup I've ever had the pleasure of eating.


If you're ever in Merida, be sure to go to this restaurant. The service is excellent, the food is delicious, and the ambiance is incredible.


I love Mexican beer. In my opinion, it is much better than American beer. My favorite by far is Sol. It's somewhat hard to find, though. A common way to order beer here is to have it served chelada, which means they add lemon and salt to a glass and then pour the beer into it. It's wonderful, and I usually get my beer that way; however, on this trip I learned something from Silvia's cousin one night. She ordered her beer served ojo rojo, which translates to "red eye." It's the same as the chelada, essentially, but with tomato juice added to it. Since I'm a big fan of Bloody Marys, it made sense for me to give it a try. Well, let's just say that's the only way I'm ordering a beer here from now on. 


While seeing some of the Day of the Dead events and eating good food and drinking good beer are all great things, the main reason I came and have stayed so long was to see Silvia. It had been three years since I'd last seen her, and at that time, I feared greatly for her because she was very ill from her kidneys failing her. That transpired while she was living in Nebraska and working to complete an associate's degree in business. Fortunately, the college allowed her to get her degree even though she didn't quite finish the classes due to being in the hospital for a month before returning to Merida. It's a long story, but after her return, she was on hemodialysis until she managed to have a kidney transplant. Unfortunately, despite medication to prevent it, her body rejected the kidney. Hemodialysis didn't work well for her and was very hard on her heart, so she's now on peritoneal dialysis, which she must do 4 times a day from home. 

She's been in and out of the hospital often these past three years, and covid restrictions prevented a visit from me earlier. With time, things have stabilized for her and for our world, so it was time for me to visit. Thus, I'm finally here. Even though three years went by without seeing her in person, once we reconnected, it was like no time had passed at all because that's how it is for true friends. While I don't want to leave her because I don't know when I'll be able to return, I also am ready to get back to my own routine at home. 

I especially want to get back, so I can begin doing my appearances for my latest novel -- the copies arrived at home during my absence. 


The fifth novel, though, was the one that I dedicated to Silvia. I sent her a copy a year ago after I released it, so once I was here, I was able to take a photo with her holding the book that I both dedicated to her and signed for her -- "Trouble on Tybee." 



If I ever hit it big as a writer, I will do more to help my friend. Until then, I will just try to get back here for another visit as soon as possible.

Author website  -- visit my website if you are interested in learning more about what I write.








Saturday, August 13, 2022

Roam With Me! Paleontological Nebraska and a bit of Iowa).

 My daughter is about to start her final year of the Master's Degree that will allow her to be a full-fledged paleontologist -- a dream she's had since she was in junior high. It began on the day we visited Ashfall Fossil Beds, which is in Northeastern Nebraska. We'd visited it a few times prior because it's not too far from our home, but on this particular visit there were interns from the University of Nebraska Lincoln working in the rhino barn -- the active dig site -- and I struck up a conversation with one of them. While the intern and I visited, my daughter was listening, quite attentively as it turned out. When we left, she said to me that she wanted to do that when she grew up.

She never wavered. She attended UNL and majored in biology (she preferred that to geology, which is the other undergrad major a future paleontologist can choose). While at UNL, she spent two summers interning at Ashfall and also worked for the collections department of UNL's museum and learned how to become a preparator in a laboratory, which is what she wants to do. Now, she is in her master's program majoring in paleontology.

She recently came home for a short visit, and in that time, she and I revisited Ashfall and we made a fast trip to western Nebraska to visit three sites in two days. Her trip culminated in Cherokee, Iowa, at the Sanford Museum, which houses an assortment of fossils found in Turin, Iowa, years ago. Her thesis is about these fossils, so she spent two days photographing and measuring a lot of fossils. Now, she can work to finish her thesis, so she can graduate and become the paleontologist she's always wanted to be.

I, myself, never had a huge interest in fossils, but that has definitely changed over the years in which she has been studying them. I don't pretend to know a lick about them, though, but I will share here some of the interesting places in Nebraska that you can visit if you want to see them and/or learn more about them.

Let's start where her journey began.

Ashfall Fossil Beds is located north of the tiny town of Royal, Nebraska. It's been open since 1991, and the site contains a large collection of rhinos that have been left preserved in-situ. You can visit this link to learn more about it: Ashfall Fossil Bed. On that page, you will see the following photo of my daughter working there a few years ago. If you visit the site, you can even buy a magnet of this same photo!


When she and I visited Ashfall a couple weeks ago, she had a pleasant talk with her former boss, Rick Otto, who has been the caretaker of Ashfall ever since it opened. 

Naturally, I had to take a photo of her where it all started for her. I think she wanted to climb back down into the rhino pit and start digging like she did for those two summers.


Her professors in Tennessee have asked her many times if she'd been to Agate Fossil Beds, which is in Nebraska, too. She said that she hadn't because it is on the opposite side of the state and a good six hour drive away, but while she was home, we decided to make a fast trip out there. To make even more use of the drive out, we also planned two other important stops.

The first was to Trailside Museum, which is located inside Fort Robinson State Park. Trailside Museum belongs to the University of Nebraska, just as Ashfall Fossil Beds does. Trailside is famous for the mammoth display it contains. It's called "Clash of the Mammoths," which is a fossil display that features two bull mammoths who died with their tusks locked together -- most likely while battling. The fossil was found a few miles from where the museum that now houses it is located.



The two mammoths were named Cope and Marsh for two dueling paleontologists who were at the heart of the Bone Wars. Here's a little video about them if you are interested: Cope and Marsh

There are other interesting displays in the museum, and it's a very small museum, too, so it doesn't take long to visit it. There is a gift shop in the basement, too, that has a lot to offer. 



Not too far from this museum is Toadstool Geological Park. If you visit, prepare yourself for fifteen miles of gravel roads to get to it. I wasn't expecting that, so it was a surprise to me -- thought I'd forewarn anyone reading this. I think I'll be cleaning dust from those roads out of places on my car for years to come! Because of how dry it's been this summer, there was a veritable dust storm behind me as I drove out there and back.

We also visited on one of the hottest days of the summer with temperatures over 100 degrees. It couldn't be helped because we only had a small window of time in which to visit, but the heat did make it a bit unpleasant -- at least for me. However, we still walked and hiked around a good part of it -- naturally, on a cooler day and with more time, we would have done more (or at least my daughter would have if she hadn't had her old mom dragging her down!).

Toadstool is smack dab in the middle of nowhere. In fact, having not met a single car on those 15 miles of graveled road, I was actually surprised to find others at the site, and more arrived after us. We took our water bottles and headed down the trail. First we attempted to do the hard part, but then we backtracked and took the flatter trail around the backside and up into the formation.




Proof that I actually did go into the park.




We spent the night in the tiny town of Harrison, which is only a few miles from the Wyoming border. Even though it has fewer than 300 inhabitants, the town has everything you need -- a couple motels, a gas station, a saloon/restaurant that serves excellent pizza burgers and is definitely the social hub of the town, the county courthouse, and the county school. There's also a general store and a museum as well as a library and other things I'm sure I missed.






We had to visit Wyoming while we were that close, of course.

The next day, we drove to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, which is about twenty miles south of Harrison. Remember that I said that Toadstool is smack dab in the middle of nowhere? So is Agate!

It was another hot day when we went there, but at least there was an air-conditioned building staffed by friendly park rangers to visit and escape the heat for a while. Agate preserves the Miocene mammals that were found in the area as well as the relationship that was fostered between a rancher named James Cook and Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota.

Through the window you can see the raised area where the fossils were discovered and to which we hiked after touring the museum.

My future paleontologist in her element.

There is an interesting book by this that explains every image depicted on this.


Before going outside on our hike, we viewed the twelve-minute movie about the site. My daughter knew three of the people in it because she worked with or met them while studying and working at UNL in the collections department. The movie is a bit dated, but it is still very informative and well done.

There is a two-mile loop walkway that takes you up to the two peaks where the fossils were discovered years ago. Once again, lucky us, it was 100 degrees out, but we did the trek anyway. We had our water and the couple shaded benches that are located along the way to cool us a bit as needed. The hike is well worth it, in my opinion. 

From the top, you can see forever it feels like. The Niobrara River valley stretches as far as the eye can see, and the view is spectacular. My photos don't do it justice, but I will post some. I enjoyed knowing that same Niobrara River that runs not far from where I live was responsible for the magnificent views.

We begin the long walk.

See those peaks behind us? That's where we're going!

A tiny bit of wetlands in a vast expanse of dry area.


At the top. Checking out the original discovery site.

One of the two peaks.



There are also signs that say there are active rattlesnakes, so I was on high alert for the sound of any rattles. Unfortunately, there are the noisiest grasshoppers I've heard that abound here, and they make this crazy rattling sound every time they take off. It's really loud, and I realized that I wouldn't even have been able to hear a rattlesnake's warning anyway! Thankfully, we didn't see any snakes, and thankfully the entire trail up is paved and well maintained.

After driving back across the state, we had a few days of rest before heading to Cherokee, Iowa, for two days prior to her return to Tennessee.

She spent those two days in the basement collections area of Sanford Museum where she photographed and catalogued a bulk of the Turin fossils. I spent that time in the Cherokee Public Library and in the independent bookstore there called The Book Vine -- it sells books and wine.

The museum is a nice small museum that also has a small planetarium. 




One of the many oddities that are housed in the basement of the Sanford Museum. 

So, if you are interested in fossils and you live in or will visit Nebraska, be sure to visit Morrill Hall at UNL, but also go to the far-flung parts of the state and see Ashfall Fossil Beds, Agate Fossil Beds, Trailside Museum, and Toadstool Geological Park. Be prepared for a lot of driving, and take lots of water with you for the hikes.

If possible, take along a paleontologist, too. It makes the trips a lot more interesting!