A Visit to Yucatán’s Pre-Columbian Showpiece: Chichén-Itzá

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Archaeology, Built Environment, Regional History, Science and society, Society & Culture, Sports history, Travel
Onsite site map

An exploration of the archaeological sites of Mexíco’s Yucatán Peninsula cannot be said to be complete unless it includes a trip to Chichén-Itzá (see footnote for etymology) – essential even for those with only the barest of interest in the archaeological significance embodied in its stepped pyramids and celestial-viewing platforms…according to UNESCO Chichén-Itzá represents “one of the most important examples of (the blend of) Mayan-Toltec civilizations”. An outcome of the Toltec invasion of Yucatán (and of Chichén-Itzá) in the late 10th century is that visitors to the ruins of the city can see in the city’s ancient structures a fusion of icons and styles from the two Pre-Hispanic cultures✱.

Zona arqueología

In relation to Mérida (where we were based), Chichén-Itzá is in San Felipe Nuevo, a drive of 115km along Highway 180. Predictably for somewhere lionised as a “modern wonder of the world”, the place was brimming with tourists when we arrived. Our guide for the day, Enrique, took us through the complex’s turnstiles and we made our way from the entrance through a phalanx of clamouring vendors hawking their memorabilia merchandise. After an obligatory baños stop, we headed for the large temple in the centre of the site, the Temple of Kukulcán. “El Castillo” as it is known, is 25 metres high and decorated with carvings of plumed serpents and Toltec warriors. The pyramid was roped off to prevent visitors climbing it (the consequence of a female tourist falling to her death from it in 2006).

The Kuk

The chirping bird phenomenon
Whilst we were taking in the ambience of the eleven hundred-year-old El Castillo temple, guides leading other groups of tourists would demonstrate the acoustics of the pyramid by standing at the base of the stairway and clapping their hands loudly (we were already familiar with this stage show, having first seen the clapping trick performed at Teotihuacán on the outskirts of Mexico City). It seemed a bit gimmicky to me but some pyramid researchers and acoustical engineers apparently believe that the echo effect that this generates from the ancient structure replicates the chirping noise made by the sacred Quetzal bird (the kuk), native to Central America [‘Was Maya Pyramid Designed to Chirp Like a Bird?’ (Bijal P Trivedi)
National Geographic Today, 6-Dec-2002, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/]

Templo de Kukulcán

Measuring the scientific achievements of the Maya
Chirping Quetzals aside, the Temple of Kukulcán at the height of the Mayan empire power was salient to how Mayans lived their everyday lives and planned their future endeavours. The 365◘ step pyramid demonstrates how important astronomy was to the Maya and how remarkably accurately they were able to measure mathematically (eg, the 365-day Maya calendar devised centuries before the West!). The alignment of structures like El Castillo affirms the advanced understanding the Maya had of astronomical phenomena such as solstices and equinoxes.

El Caracol

Observing the clear blue sky
Walking around the ruins we discovered from our guide that the Maya put to use different buildings to make serious astronomical observations (without the aid of telescopes) of the sky above…the Plataforma de Venus (near the Temple of Kukulcán) is a platform used by the Maya elite to track the transit of Venus. The planet Venus was important to the Maya both theologically, as a deity (god of war), and practically, to use its movements to decide when to make raids and engage in battles with enemies. On the southern axis of the city is the Observatory or El Caracol (“the snail”), a small building with a circular viewing tower in a crumbling condition, also integral to studying planetary movements [‘ChichenItzaRuins’, www.chichenitzaruins.org].

Spot the iguana!

We spent a very liberal and leisurely amount of time wandering around the various excavated remnants of the site…off to the sides were several smaller and apparently less important temples and a couple of cénotes (unlike the others in the Peninsula we swam in, these were sans hoods, fully exposed). In another minor temple (in a poor state of repair) we were able to observe that some of the native non-human locals had made a home in the crumbling stone structure, in this case a well-camouflaged iguana (above)!

La Iglesia

An elaborate multi-layered “jigsaw puzzle” in Chichén Viejó
Of those we saw, I found La Iglesia (The Church) the most interesting building, architecturally and visually. One of the oldest buildings at Chichén-Itzá (and it looks it!), the building is oddly asymmetrical with an elaborately decorative upper part sitting incongruously atop an untidy foundation “made up of hundreds of smaller stones fit(ted) together like a huge jigsaw puzzle” [Chris Reeves, ‘La Iglesia’, American Egypt (All about Chichen Itzá and Mexico’s Mayan Yucatan), www.americanegypt.com ]. The upper section is dazzlingly and elaborately decorated with bas-relief carvings comprising a composite pattern of animal symbols – armadillos, crabs, snails, tortoises (representing the four bacabs who in Maya mythology are thought to hold up the sky). The other dominant sculptural feature of La Iglesia’s facade are masks of the Rain God Chac [‘Chichén Itzá – The Church’, Mexíco Archeology, www.mexicoarcheology.com].

The Great ball court
The final highlight of the ancient city that we got to see on our visit to Chichén-Itzá was the Great (or Grand) Ball Court. The Gran cancha de pelotá, one of thirteen ball courts unearthed at Chichén-Itzá, is the best preserved and most impressive of all such ancient sports stadia in Mexíco. It is known that, from as early as 1,400 BCE, Mesoamericans played a game involving the propulsion of a rubber ball which may have incorporated features of or partly resembled football and/or handball. I will talk about what the Chichén-Itzá ball court reveals about this indigenous Mexícan game and its significance to native Pre-Columbian society in a follow-up blog.

Footnote: Nomenclature
“Chichen Itza”, a Maya word, means “at the mouth of the well of the Itza.” The Itzá were a dominant ethnic-lineage group in Yucatán’s northern peninsula. The word ‘well’ probably refers to the nearby cénote sagrado – the sacred limestone sinkhole around which the Maya city was constructed.

Chichén-Itzá vendors hard at it! Sombreros for a hot day.

␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣
✱ Yucatán’s “most important archaeological vestige”, ‘Pre-Hispanic City of Chichen-Itza’, www.whc.unesco.org
◘ one for each day of the calendar year

Souvenir-Lite Travel in the Global Age of Consumer Goods Smuggling, Counterfeit Copies and Knock-offs

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Popular Culture, Travel

❝When counterfeiting was artisanal,
It didn’t bother us much,
Now it’s become industrial,
And we’re frankly very worried❞.

~ Adrian de Flers, Comité Colbert
(An association of French couturiers and perfumers dedicated to “promoting the concept of luxury”)

⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖ ⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖⌖

Go to any of the world’s tourist hotspots today, anywhere on the international tourist trail in fact, and check out, say, the historical centre of that city and it’s inevitable that you will run into a tsunami of vendors with stalls and shops chock full of knock-offs of designer goods…everywhere you go locals flogging pirated copies of fashion label textiles, shoes, bags, electronic goods, homewares, you name it. And of course there will always be a plethora of takers among the ranks of Western tourists, eager to take advantage of the “great deals”. For some the shopping bonanza may even supersede the profoundly more meaningful chance to engage with different cultures, histories and cuisines around the globe.

The therapeutic springs of the limestone Travertines
Many shopkeepers and retailers in tourist areas no longer bother trying to conceal the faux nature of their merchandise. At the beginning of this year while in Mexico City I was strolling through the Chinatown section of town and came upon a shady looking electronics kiosk pop-up that was selling digital devices labelled as “Clon Samsung”, openly heralding the cloned nature of the product! In Turkey at a small roadside market set up on the outskirts of the famous and unique natural wonder, the Pamukkale Travertines, a prominent banner proclaims in unmissable bold, large, capitalised letters: GENUINE FAKE ROLEX WATCHES FOR SALE!✱ In the less developed world knock-offs are a way of life and a way of commerce – part of what is sometimes blandly described in official television news circles as the “informal economy”, or in old-speak, the black market!

In 2011 the president of Mexico’s Confederation of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism stated that the yield from the sale of counterfeit consumer goods in the country each year is US$75 million, greater than the combined income earned by Mexico from oil, remittances and tourism! (and growing at an exponential rate since that date) [Cheryl Santos, ‘a look at the colors and styles of Mexico City’s bootleg fashion markets’ (7 May 2016), www.i-d.vice.com].

Resisting everything including temptation
It does seem, from the standpoint of your average “Joe or Jill” Western tourist, that the impulse to turn the overseas travel excursion into a shopping junket, the chance to replenish that flagging winter wardrobe with a raft of cut-price bargains, is increasingly the fashion de jour when O/S. Third World imitations of high quality Western merchandise are sold at a fraction of the price and increasingly look passably (or at least remotely) like the real thing. So, who doesn’t want to end up back at his or her home airport knee-deep in inexpensive knock-offs?

Who? Well, me for one! Frankly for one thing I’ve never seen the sense of collecting a whole bunch of extra garments and accessories on route that I’ll have to squeeze into my already bulging luggage and then lug around to every single hotel, coach and airport for the entire duration of the trip, it flies in the face of my simple and practical philosophy of “always travelling as light as possible”. Besides, with the “El Cheapo” stuff you’re not buying quality that’s going to last any decent amount of time!

So, I definitely don’t contribute to the slim profit-margins of the purveyors of fake consumer goods in Third World tourist traps… but souvenirs are another matter, but even there I chart a moderate course. From the first time I ventured overseas (thank you CC!), my ambitions went no further than picking up a few souvenirs or trinkets when I got the chance, something that I would in years hence associate positively with the exotic places I had visited. Occasionally I have bought a T-shirt or a cap perhaps (small items, easy to pack and carry) and of course, out of necessity a few little gifts for the people back home. For me, the odd souvenir is merely an auxiliary memento, something tangible to connect with the mass of photos I would invariably take in each place I visited.

Fridgelandia
Fridge magnet overload!
In the past I admit to having had a bit of a mania for collecting fridge magnets on my travels…yes the proverbial, ultra-kitschy humble fridge magnet! But eventually every available space on the magnetic part of our fridge got consumed, so rather than buying a bigger fridge (a real admission of fridge magnet OCD!), I simply switched to buying other small transportable items in the markets. Paintings, attachable plates and small, decorative wall satchels, easily filled the souvenir void (and eventually the lounge room walls too!)

Sometimes when on the lookout for a token souvenir or two on a trip, I did enjoy the ‘theatre’ of pitting my negotiating skills (such as they are!) against a seasoned vendor with “home ground” advantage in the markets…trying to haggle them down a few shekels did produce a momentary thrill in me. The money saved was absolutely inconsequential in the context of the relative luxury of the First World from which I come – I was simply engaging in the tourism game (when in Egypt, do as the Egyptians, etc). I’m can happily say that over the years of travelling I grew out of this self-indulgent urge to barter, that fleeting and insignificant élan I used to get has well and truly worn off.

Henpecked!
On the trail of the fabulous “pecking hens” of…Cairo, Bogotá, Cancun, Zanzibar, Kolkata, etc.
Thirty years ago a friend brought me back a gift from Columbia or Venezuela (I forget which)…I really appreciated the object’s simplicity and understated charm. It was a plain wooden toy, a little haphazardly made, in the form of a bunch♠ of pecking hens attached by string to a sort of ping-pong bat. They were made simply by (no doubt peasant) hand, unadorned, without any pretensions to being anything like factory-finished and polished to perfection. Basic but guaranteed to capture the attention of a restless two-year-old for hours. I was so taken with the pecking hens I have in turn bought them myself as gifts for friends on subsequent tours where I have seen them (Egypt, Mexico, etc)◙.

Chico Senõr Potter
Finding ‘Choló’ Potter but where is ‘Falsò’ Tintin?
Finding myself in Lima one time and jaded from having done all the main historic hotspots like the creepy monastery catacombs and Huaca Pucliana, I made for Miraflores (tourism central) and checked out the various souvenir markets. One that caught my attention was called the Indian Market (strange that it was called that, I thought the term ‘Indian’ wasn’t considered PC here any more!). The market’s stalls were packed with arts and crafts items and other merchandise like knitted “V for Vendetta” masks and knock-off T-shirts which appropriated and ‘Peruvianised’ symbols of Western popular culture (eg, ‘Cholo’ Potter working his juvenile wizardry in the Andes and that “All-Peruvian” dysfunctional family, the ‘Cholisimpsons’!).

Where is Tintin’s Inca prisoners T-shirt?
Seeing these made me think of the Tintin character…on earlier overseas trips I had discovered Tintin T-shirts which related to a number of Herge’s cartoon books about the sandy-haired boy reporter’s adventures all over the world (in China I found Tintin in Tibet and Les Adventure de Tintin, and in Turkey, Tintin in Istanbul. I knew one of the stories in the famous series was set in Peru (Tintin and the Prisoners of the Sun), so I asked some of the vendors if they had the Tintin T-shirt for Peru…this mainly met with uncomprehending expressions of bewilderment…one guy however was curious enough to quiz me about this ‘mysterious’ Tintin person. After I explained how world-famous the fictional character was and showed the stall-holder what he looked like, the guy confidently predicted that if I come back in six months time he would have the Peru Tintin T-shirt in stock. I didn’t for a moment doubt that he probably would, considering we were in Peru! And I thought, I bet he wouldn’t be concerned by the trifling matter of copyright, it would be the least of things encumbering him in making it happen!

0nly a fiver! Not worth the effort to copy!
Brother, can you knock me up a $100 note?
Lima is one of my favourite cities for counterfeiters. The first time I went into the city centre I was puzzled why there was so many backyard style, old-fashioned printing presses, especially concentrated it seemed in one particular street that runs off Plaza San Martin. It all made more sense when I found out some time later (when back home) that Lima was “the centre of the universe” when it comes to the meticulous painstaking, serious art of counterfeiting – particularly adept at churning out fake US$100 bills, known locally as a “Peruvian note”. Peru tourist tip stating the “bleeding obvious”: check your change very, very carefully!

⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋

PostScript: Dodgy Juliaca – from brand piracy to smuggling
The epidemic proportions of counterfeiting is bad enough, then there’s out-and-out robbery! Standing in the woefully small and threadbare Aeropuerto Juliaca one day (southern Peru), I observed how many Peruvians, catching the domestic flight to Lima (and points further north), were checking in TV sets and computer hardware as luggage. On board one guy in the seat across the aisle from me had a new 33″ LED flat-screen (in its box) which he had brought with him as carry-on luggage…somehow he managed to jemmy it into the overhead compartment! He, like so many other Limeños, had made the 1,680 km round trip to Juliaca and back to buy consumer goods at a price you wouldn’t dream about getting them for in Lima.

The reason why Juliaca lures (long-distance) shoppers in droves is that the dusty, smoggy southern city is the hub of a prosperous smuggling trade…every year over a billion dollars worth of illicit goods including cocaine and other substances, gold, cigarettes, petrol, clothing, home and electronic appliances reaches Juliava predominantly via Lake Titicaca border with neighbouring Bolivia.

Simple unpretentious craftsmanship from the developing world

⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯
✱ at least these bootleggers get credit for candidly exhibiting a sense of humour, a self-effacing one moreover
♠ a peep, a brood?
◙ a second Columbian second gift from my friend was similarly imbued with charmingly simple inventiveness – a Velcro cloth- clown with a weighted head allowing it to tumble head over apex down a sofa whilst clinging to the material

Yucatán’s Not So Insular Peninsula, Mérida 3: A Subterranean Plunge in the Cénotes

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Coastal geology & environment, Regional History, Travel
Tecoh cénote

Our last day at Mérida was more or less entirely given over to exploring a local geological feature in the region that Yucatán is world-famous for – the cénote✳ (Pron: say-NO-tay). Cénotes are natural pits, large sinkholes in the ground formed when limestone bedrock on the surface collapses exposing groundwater underneath. The ones we visited on that day were subterranean, deep down below ground level in cave formations in sites sheltered by overhanging cliff-faces. The cénotes in Southern Mexico are very popular with divers and snorkellers and the more accessible ones usually require the payment of an entry fee (from about 50 to 100 Pesos each). To get into the water at many cénotes you need to make a steep descent on rickety old ladders, although not all cenotes are sunk deep into the earth’s surface…some other cénotes like the one we saw in the Bay of Pigs in Cuba are located just below the ground and just look like natural pools surrounded by worryingly jagged rocky ledges.

Guía José conducts a cartography class in the field!

It was a decent old drive to reach our first Yucatán cénote, it was located in a place called Tecoh, quite remote, dry-parched and harsh land, real sagebrush territory! Our sociable guide for the day, José, laid down a map of the Peninsula on the ground and explained a bit of the cénote story. The ancient Maya people apparently used the cénotes for both practical and religious purposes. In a landscape (Yucatán) with hardly any rivers to speak of and quite few lakes, the cénotes provided a much-needed source of fresh water. The Maya also used them, it is believed, for sacrificial offerings sometimes. José’s finger traced a circuitous line around much of the map, pointing out the location of cénotes which seemed to be dotted all over the place. After we had swam in the first cénote I asked José who clearly relished the whole cénote experience if he had swam in every cenote in the state. José chuckled and indicated that there was over 2,000 cénotes all over the Peninsula, and he might need another 20-30 years to reach that target!◊

The roof of something deep, dark & delightful…

Cénote Dive-and-Snorkle
The ladder going down to the water-level was a concentric spiralling contraption of wooden steps which were in far from mint condition (words like flimsy and haphazard come to mind), necessitating that we made sure we trod fairly cautiously on each rung. At the bottom was a pretty primitively constructed wooden platform with only a small recess in the wall of the cave where we crammed our clothes and bags into every possible crevice.

Being a hesitant auto-immerser in any deposit of water greater in scope than a domestic bathtub, an aquatic prevaricator who can hold his own and delay with the best of them, I coaxed and eased myself with glacial speed into the seemingly bottomless, blue-turquoise chasm. The water was a little cool at first but I soon accustomed to it. The water quality looked pristine despite it being in constant by visitors, I was attracted by the appearance of a myriad of tiny colourful fish visibly close to the surface. The pool looked very deep…José speculated at least forty metres deep. Above us small birds flitted around the cave, dipping and diving in and out of several holes in the roof that have formed over the millenniums. The light emanating from the holes through tufts of vegetation provided a kind of natural spotlight projecting on to the water, giving the entire cavern a magical glow.

The beautiful azure water!

After a half-hour or so’s frolicking in the cénote Jose coaxed us out with the promise of a visit to an even more spectacular cénote that was only a short distance away at Carretera tecoh-telchaquillo. To get to the second cénote site we had to travel on more bumpy dirt roads, passing through several gates taking us onto different land-holdings. As we approached each closed gate, two small chicos (boys) that José had brought on the trip, would alight on a signal from the driver and scamper up and open the gate for the mini-bus◘.

Aquanauts of an ancient cénote!

An idyllic natural swimming hole full of picturesque delights
Cénote número dos managed to meet the high expectations of Jose’s extravagant rhetoric, and then some! It was a wider, deeper cave and the pool had a considerably more expansive mass of water. When we got to the cliff overlooking the cénote there was already a quartet of scuba-divers equipped with underwater cameras foraging around below the surface (“Japanese tourists”, they looked like to me). The drop from the top to the base platform was longer than the first cénote but glad to say the ladder was in better state with one long, straight descent to a three-quarter way platform and then a shorter ladder to a lower platform where you enter the water. José as usual wasted no time in shedding his T-shirt and thongs and diving into the sparkling abyss, following swiftly by the two boys. With everyone else quickly into the water, I paused briefly to take a few shots of the vast cavern and its water-treading occupants, before doing likewise. The pool was many metres deep (hence the presence of the scuba-divers), so once in I treaded water for a bit before swimming out to the middle of the water where someone had helpfully anchored a red buoy to the bedrock floor.

With one arm securely clasping the floatation device I took a breather, and while I was there I was able to have a good look around the cavern roof above. Bright beams of light from the limestone roof illuminated the water surface like a spotlight and made it possible to make out the presence of a few hibernating Mexican bats suspended from various nooks and niches of the craggy rock. Our guide pointed out that the walls of the cave accommodated a host of other small creatures like iguanas and spiders. I liked how there were lots of long, long vines growing over the edge of the cliff and cascading down almost to the water✥…the vines looked sturdy but I wondered if they were strong enough for any daredevil adventurer brave (or stupid) enough to swing off them from the roof into the water?

A gate-opening chico & the word of Señor Jesuchristo

Community lunch with the family
The fee for the cénotes excursion included lunch in the casa of a local family that José took us to in nearby Pixyá. When we got there the niños were still hanging round so I wondered if this was José’s lugar. A number of the humble dwellings on that street had the identical message in Spanish painted on the front walls – a quote from Señor Jesuchristo (Ro. 6:23), something about paying fish when you die in order to ensure eternal life (my idiomatic interpretation anyway!).

A typical Yucatán Sunday spread!

As small livestock wandered around the yard inquisitively, we were guided to our seats at a long, outdoor table under a covered awning. José and the dama of the house brought out the food, in no time we were tucking into a delicious meal of meats (mainly pollo) and a smorgasbord of vegetable dishes. José produced jugs of a home-made lemon or limonáda drink to compliment the midday meal. The authentic, community “Sunday lunch” with the family capped off the day of subterranean cénote adventures to a tee!

Setting out again from Pixyá in José’s mini-bus, we bounced along the dusty dirt road towards Mérida, the further we went the better, and therefore the smoother, the road surface got. Back in town, having developed a craving for hot choc drinks after some early disappointing coffee experiences on the tour, I sought out a late afternoon caliente chocolate at the Italian Coffee Company (this seems to be a sizeable franchise business chain in different parts of Mexico, noticed they had several shops around where we stayed in Puebla).

Being our last night in Mérida, Hector took us to one of the liveliest and most crowded nightspots he knew in Mérida City Centre, Le Negrita Cantina (corner of Calles 49 and 62). We got a sensory dose of typically pulsating Mérida night-life here…wall-to-wall people seated cramped close together munching burritos (my non-appearing cerveza seemed to have been redirected back to the brewery – in a nearby town!) in an enclosed firetrap, wait-staff constantly circling round the tables with trays of margaritas, sangritas and micheladas looking for homes. Couldn’t really hear ourselves speak with the din going on, but the exciting buzz of the non-stop musical band and the dancing was great to experience!

≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡—≡-≡—≡—≡—≡
✳ the word derives from ts’onot, used by the low-land Yucatec Maya to refer to any location with accessible groundwater
◊ possibly José was being conservative with even that formidable number – other estimates (eg, www.aquaworld.com.mx) place the number of cénotes in the Yucatán Pen at in excess of 5,000
◘ the two small children doing the leg-work, I presumed, were José’s own niños
✥ some of the hanging vines in cénotes resemble the icicle-like stalactites often seen in caves

Yucatán’s Not So Insular Peninsula, Mérida 2: A Mexican Mega-Mercado and a Higgledy-Piggledy Street Grid

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Regional History, Travel
Mérida historico centre: Lucas de Gálvez market – the large mauve square next to the Post Office

The museums ticked off my list, the late afternoon/evening was freed up to explore more of the city. I had noticed on a tourist map of Mérida there were city markets somewhere on the south side of the green zócalo. I thought these might be worthwhile checking out. As I walked down Calle 56 towards the markets (named Mercado Lucas de Gálvez), I noticed how the streets were getting dirtier, the shops more basic and down-market and there were more pedestrians competing for space on the footpaths, and the people I passed tended to be not dressed in their best clobber to put it mildly! This was definitely not the big end of town, as we understand this term.

TripAdvisor pinpoints the address of Lucas de Gálvez market as being the corner of 56T Street and 67 Street, but when you are there its hard to, a) work out where it precisely starts, and b) gauge how big it actually is. I had in fact walked into the precinct of the markets without being aware I was in it! The markets seem to have spilled out of the original building or buildings into stalls lining the adjoining streets. I entered the markets building proper near where there were several stalls on a corner selling cheap clone versions of well-known American backpacks for paltry amounts, as little as MXN50 (less than AUD4)!

That well-known international fashion label “Tonny Halfmaker”!
Market Carnicería: Butchers’ fresh!

Multi-markets, Carnicerías, pescaderías, etc
Inside the markets it was a huge area and way too many vendor stalls to ever get your head around❈. There was row after row of narrow alleys stretching the length of the building, the whole place was pretty gritty and grimy (much like a market!) The market was divided into several separate sections including clothing and shoes, bags, fruit and veg, meat and fish, food seasonings, pots and baskets, records, etc. I didn’t fancy the look of the raw meat hanging up all day and the fish lying round, wasn’t sure about the refrigeration situation or the hygiene…if I had to cook in Mérida especially in summer, I’d think twice about getting my supplies of carne, pollo, jamon and pescado from this outlet. Outside in Calle 56T there were lines of street stalls flogging the standard souvenir stuff, and on the other side of the road the markets seemed to continue in another building✦…I noticed in this part that one whole aisle comprised mainly hairdressers’ shops. So many of the leather goods, merchandise and materials of any sort were “knock-offs”, transparently unlicensed Third World clones of famous First World brand name products.

The markets were of course abuzz with people coming and going every which way, these were locals mainly it seemed. I didn’t spot many overseas tourists while I was there, just swarming bunches of Meridians with that characteristic Mexican build, squat and solid forms busily stocking up on the weekly groceries, or perhaps there to find a special gift, some trinkets, or more practically, invest in a new pair of budget-priced shoes or a new pair of ‘threads’.

Lucas de Gálvez (continued!)

Feeling a bit peckish I scouted out the most reasonably clean looking of the markets’ food outlets and settled on a small snack to eat (some battered, fried zucchini croquette-shaped morsel) and a soda. After wolfing the food down I enjoyably wasted the best part of an hour roaming up and down every single aisle in the enormous market. I concluded that I had ‘done’ Mercado Lucas de Gálvez…all there was to see of the city’s famous central markets I has seen – or so I thought! Spotting an open doorway on the northern side of the building I exited through it into a narrow lane. To my surprise, I discovered another market building separated by the narrow lane-way, this one bustling with every bit as much commercial activity as the first!

Mercado especialidades: religioso y joyería
I ventured inside to find…more of the same merchandise, but also something a little different too. It was missing the comestibles, the meats, the fruits and vegetables and such of the first building, but it had a whole sub-section on items of religiosity, objects of (need I specify it?…Catholic) veneration and worship, some of it quite garish and kitschy stuff. Fortifying my atheistic senses against such a holy and pious assault on their sensibilities, I promptly quickstepped my way past its tempting arrays of ecclesiastical delights and necessities to explore what other merchandise the market had to offer. Away from the section catering for the fashionably devotional, a lot of the market seemed to be given over to yet more cloned items of clothing and accessories.

Joyerías galore!

I noticed that this section of the markets had more jewellery shops (joyerías) than the first building, each alley had at least one or two jewellers in it, displaying signs proclaiming their silver and gold carat wares…Joyería Lorena Oro, Oro y Plata, Joyería Anael, and so on.

My appetite for mega-markets well and truly satisfied, I stumbled out of the northern end of Lucas de Gálvez into the cooler night air. I made for Calle 60 which would take me back in the direction of my hotel. Halfway down Calle 60, not far from the Catedral Mayor I found a nice little corner restaurant, lively but not too crowded. The food was good quality if a little more expensive than the more modestly appointed eateries in ‘Marketland’. I tried a different type of tortilla dish, accompanied by the obligatory cerveza. A succulent postre put the finishing touches to the meal. An unexpected bonus about eight as I was tucking into my comida was the appearance of a three-piece musical group. As they had set up within touching distance of my table, I couldn’t miss hearing any of the standard Latino numbers that the female singer with an opera diva’s physique performed (including The Girl from Ipanema and a retinue of well-worn Mexican classics).

PostScript: Mérida street grid, confusion by numbers – Calle Sensenta y Seis where are you?
The original town planners of modern Mérida probably thought they were doing the sensible thing, arranging the city streets in numerical order to make it easy to navigate around and avoid getting lost in a sprawling metropolitan centre₪. It certainly makes sense…on paper. But when I tried to chart my way back to our hotel in Calle 66 after dinner, I discovered there was a gap between the theory and the practice! Setting off in a northerly direction my intention was turn at each intersection I came to and then head west until I reached Calle 66…simple! The flaw in the plan as it turned out was that the numbered streets didn’t run consistently, I’d find myself say passing Calle 54 and expecting to be at Calle 56 at the next cross-street but finding I was at Calle 58…Calle 56 with mathematical illogic had just disappeared! So I ended up in this increasingly frustrating “merry-go-round” situation going from street A to street B back to A again¤ (it also didn’t help that a lot of the street were quite dark and not all the corners had street signs!)

I had the presence of mind to bring the hotel’s business card with me but this proved of very limited value because the card, incredulously, had neither its address nor a street map pinpointing its location printed on it! I stopped a young local guy in the street and asked for assistance. The politely spoken Mexican boy didn’t know the hotel but kindly offered to ring the hotel for me so they could give me directions (my phone plan didn’t function in Mexico). But just to add insult to injury, the staff at the hotel were not answering the phone, even though he redialed the numbers several times! After another half-an-hour’s wandering around, through trial-and-error I eventually lucked-in and stumbled upon Calle 66 and the hotel, overcome by a feeling of both being relieved and pissed-off!

▆▅▄▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▃▄▅▆▆▆▆▆▆▅▄▃▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▃▄▅▆

❈ although I did later read that Lucas de Gálvez covered an area of 156,000 square feet and over 2,000 vendors operated at the markets
✦ on second thoughts it occurred to me later that this was conceivably an altogether separate market to Lucas de Gálvez on the other side of 56T
₪ the streets running east to west are named by odd numbers, starting at uno, tres, cinco, siete and so on…the streets running north to south are numbered by even numbers, dos, cuatro, seis, ocho, etc
¤ this asymmetrical formation replicates itself all over the supposed simplified grid pattern of the city! For instance, it starts off as it should sequentially, Calle 19 next to Calle 17 next to Calle 15, then instead of Calle 13 being next in sequence, we inexplicably have Calle 63E! (numbers and letters adds an extra layer of bewildering complexity to the task of finding your way round!) Calle 127 is initially on the west of Calle 129 and then it ends and restarts on the east of it! Calle 28, without changing its direction, suddenly becomes Calle 49, and so on. Now maybe all this criss-crossing, number-jumping imbroglio is perfectly fathomable to your average, local Méridian, but to state the bleeding obvious it was ultra-confusing for someone spending only 48 hours in the city!