Mas o Menos

Correction: In my last entry, I stated that cola de gato means "jaw of the cat". I was wrong, it means cat´s tail. Now you can all see what a confusing process learning Spanish is for me.

It´s actually not raining in Campeche but it looks like it might. It´s sunset and the sky is streaked in pìnk and purple with large dark clouds looming. Today was a full day, Julie got up early for a run, I slept in and then ate breakfast in a fancy restaurant over looking the centro. We met up and took a collectivo to the Edzna ruins, about 40 kilometers from here. The only seats left were all the way in the back of the van and it was incredibly hot with no air condition. At first I was disturbed and felt claustrophobic, but then I kind of got into it, enjoying the view of the country side as we whizzed along with over modulated pop music blaring in our ears.

The Edzna ruins are way more impressive than the previous ones I have visited. There were nearly 10 structures, many of them formidable. I immediately climbed to the top of the largest pyramid, which was extremely steep and seriously high! I was out of breath when I got up top. There was a dude already up there who started chatting me up about my tattoo. My tattoos are of never ending fascination for people here. Children will openly stare at me because of them, like they aren´t sure what they are seeing. Yesterday an indigenous woman I was buying a banana from wanted me to translated the writing on my arm into Spanish. I told her I couldn´t but that it meant something about the sea, that got the usual "are you kidding?" look that most people give me after reading my arms. Oh well.

The best was the other day though, when I went into a Catholic store to buy some important gift items. I wearing a tank top and shorts so that almost all of my tattoos were visible and the women behind the counter were staring at me and Julie like they weren´t sure where the hell we had come from. Then when I went up to purchase my items they looked at each other like "Oh god, can we sell pictures of the Virgin Mary to an obvious Satan worshipper?" It was excellent.

So anyway, back up on the ruins, that dude wanted to show me around the top of the temple "...this is where the slaves were kept," and "...this is where they made the human sacrifices." He kept asking me if I had a boyfriend or kids and when I said no he asked why and how old I was. I didn´t feel safe coming out to him on the top of the ancient ruins with a violent past, but I probably should have because then he wanted to make out with me in the human sacrifice area, which was awkward. I stayed up awhile after he had left, admiring the view, but later when I got down I saw him walking around with his wife and pushing a baby stroller--sleazy! I hiked around a bit more and saw the field where they played an early version of soccer and then we walked back out to the road and took another collectivo back to town.

It was hot and still early so we decided to go to a nearby beach called "playa bonita". I was skeptical that anything on the Gulf of Mexico would be bonita and I was right. The water was a muddy brown, the swimming area was too shallow to swim, I had to crouch and splash water on my arms instead, and there was a gross amount of seaweed. The beach itself had little huts for shelter from the relentless sun which was nice, but the sand was a bunch of broken shells that hurt to sit on. We decided a more accurate name would be "playa mas o menos". Once we left the beach we were as hot as when we had started out, and there were no collectivos for miles. So we took a taxi back to town and went to the vegetarian restaurant where we have been taking many meals. I am proud to report that I ate vegetables with every meal today, a first since starting the vacation. I even had beet juice with dinner which felt like it revived some brain cells that had withered from lack of nutrients.

Tomorrow we leave for Merida and from there we will go to Chitchen Itza, a grand finish to our ruins expedition tour. I don´t have high hopes for our last night in Campeche as far as dancing and entertainment in concerned. Last night, I asked the guy who works in our hotel where we could get a beer because there are very few bars, mostly just restaurant bars, and he said there was no bars near us. I asked if there were bars in other parts of town and he said no, there were not bars that would be acceptable for mujeres. So apparently only fallen women care to drink publicly in this town. This would be the part where my Lonely Planet guide would come in handy, too bad its sitting on my bed in San Francisco.