William Lawson
And there was the cenote…
And there was the cenote…
William Lawson
Ni Chac - A Yucatan Bourdain Moment
Ni Chac - A Yucatan Bourdain Moment
William Lawson
Hacienda Chochoh, a Dog, and some Flowers

Doggies, hacienda and flowers

Hacienda Chochoh, a Dog, and some Flowers
Destinations
William Lawson
Wild Lunch at Codornejo - Akil, Yucatan

…wild lunch in Akil Yucatan…

Wild Lunch at Codornejo - Akil, Yucatan
William Lawson
Los Chocantes Caves - Revisited
Los Chocantes Caves - Revisited

It's the Hottest Time of the Year and Yet...

When asked about the weather, us locals always love to mention that April and May are the hottest months of the year, which surprises people who expect you to say July or August. In fact April and May are the culmination of several months of normally continuous dry weather. There are brush fires along the sides of roads and in the countryside, both from carelessly tossed cigarette butts and from campesinos doing annual burns to prepare fields for planting in the coming rainy season. The landscape goes from multi-hued green to dry, grey, crispy. The rocks everywhere are evident and previously hidden vestiges of ancient monuments emerge from their hiding places in the Yucatan’s dry tropical forest.

And yet, in spite of this rather stark landscape, nature is alive and well and really active at this time of the year. The mangos are coming. Ciruela or abal, as they are known here, are ripening. Grosellas are popping on scrubby trees. Caimito, limón indio and mamey. And flowers! At no other time of the year are there so many flowers, from wild vines in fluorescent purple, yellow and fuschia to more domesticated varieties like flor de mayo (frangipani or plumeria), bougainvillea, flamboyan, lluvia de oro, and others.

The frangipani with their velvet-like colors and sweet vanilla scent are stunning and you can find them in shades of creamy white to almost shocking purple and fuschia. The photos below are from the town of Dzitya, taken at 11 AM on a scorching 41-degree day. They are beautiful, are they not?

Give us this day... traditional bread making in the Yucatan

Introduction

If you have spent any time in and around the Yucatan, you will have heard the term “francés” usually associated with the word “caliente” Now this may come as a surprise, but when someone talks about having a francés caliente they are not talking about assaulting a hot Frenchman. No, it refers to a long-ish individual loaf of bread, baked daily in bakeries throughout the region and enjoyed as an evening snack with pieces of Edam from that hollowed out queso de bola (unfortunately and unappetizingly translated as ball cheese) or in the morning stuffed with juicy, greasy and delectable cochinita pibil.

And while these and other bread products are nowadays finished in ovens for the most part, the traditional way is to find them baked in gigantic wood-fired ovens, very similar to the brick pizza ovens that can reach very high temperatures and whose delectable crusts are charred and crisp and ash-sprinkled from real pieces of wood crackling inside the baking space.

The Process

In the case of the francés, the dough is shaped by a combination of pounding, elbow thumping (the actual elbow is used) and shaping by hand. A sliver of palm (not banana leaf as some would have you believe) is laid along the length of the shaped loaf which is then set in trays placed on racks where they await, rising slowly in the local heat, to be baked in the afore-mentioned oven. Why the sliver of palm? I was told that it is to maintain the shape of the bread, not that it imparts any special flavor to the final product as I had previously been told.

Loaves are laid onto the hot bricks in the oven, having been previously swept clean with a moist rag to remove excess ash and coals. This is done with a very large wooden spatula with a handle that will cross the entire room, so as to keep the operator from contracting heatstroke in the face of the very caliente oven. A few moments in the oven and they are removed, fresh and ready to be delivered to points of sale around the village or prepared in bags for orders from the vendedores who will be selling tortas and tacos early the next day.

Juan Sabido (left)

Juan Sabido is one of these bakers and has generously shown us around the operation where he works, in an unmarked and unremarkable house that you would not even suspect of being a bakery when driving by.

This, and other experiences like it, are some of the things we offer our guests when they come to visit the Yucatan giving them a true glimpse into traditional life, customs and its people.

And there was the cenote…

don Gonzalo

It is a massive cenote one and a half kilometers into the jungle near Cobá. Its “off the beaten track” location means that you can enjoy it without the hordes of screaming and splashing masses of humanity normally found at cenotes in the area around the archeological site. On a recent visit to the area, I learned about how it had been discovered.

For our rapt audience of two, with a local caretaker looking on, our guide Rene explained that the cenote was only discovered some 17 years before when a group of villagers hunting game came upon a hole in the ground just big enough to fit a man into. Long roots from an overhead alamo tree led into the darkness. Three of these hunters clambered down and discovered the massive cave that was directly below their feet. And, dramatically pointing at the caretaker, Rene exclaimed "and this is one of those three!"

Astonishingly, Gonzalo (the man in question) then recounted how he and his compañeros had descended into the relative darkness and that while getting into the cenote was not so difficult, the getting back up to the surface proved much more challenging! When you are the third person trying to pull yourself up on tree roots that are soaking wet from the others who have clambered up ahead of you, it is very hard indeed.

“Pero, ni modo” he added “habia que salir!”

And salir he did, to tell the tale.

It is not every day that you get to meet someone who actually discovered a cenote and this was a perfect ending to an amazing cenote experience.

If you would like to experience this cenote, along with authentic Mayan experiences in the jungles around Coba, drop us a line and we can discuss a multi-day Mayan adventure that will create memories to last a lifetime, as well as benefitting local Mayan communities.

A civilized spiral staircase has replaced the more dramatic root access method. Even us older folks can now access the place.

Kohunlich - Magical, Archeological, Mayan

I write this from the Explorean Kohunlich, a fancy hotel I was invited to by my generous partner in crime, also known as the Better Half on the LawsonsYucatan (no tourism there) website.

This morning we took the 2 km drive from the hotel to the ruins of the same name (Kohunlich), skirting some nasty potholes on the way and driving into some of the most Jurassic jungle I have yet seen in the area. Very similar to a visit a few years back to the Lamanai Mayan site in Belize.

Giant cohune (or cohoon) palms are everywhere; from these is extracted cohune oil. Along with other products derived from this plant, cohune oil is believed to have been used by the Maya since pre-Columbian times as a lubricant, for cooking and soap making as well as lamp oil.

Not being a Mayan scholar, what I found fascinating - along with the actual site of course - is its strange name. It turns out that there once was a logging camp nearby by the name of Clarksville. Belize is just a few miles away, so I suppose some Engish speaking loggers set up camp to cut down what they could. One of them popped into what was the ancient Mayan city and seeing all the cohune palms, called the area Cohoon Ridge. This became what I believe is one of the first Mayanized English place names - Kohunlich!

Exploring the site during a pandemic, with not a single tourist about, and early enough in the morning that the man in charge of ticket sales hasn’t arrived yet, the experience is breath-taking. The imposing palms, the moss-covered Mayan stones, and the stillness of the forest with the occasional squawking of bright green parrots overhead make you feel truly an explorer.

KOHUNLICH is best visited from a base in the comfortable Explorean Kohunlich, where a stunning and refreshing pool await along with a nicely chilled cerveza. I would recommend two days here, so you could also visit Dzibanche and Kinichna. Then, another couple of days in Xpujil from where you will visit the mother of all Mayan sites: the majestic and once all-powerful city of Calakmul. That site I will write about next time.





La Casa del Monifato de Sisal / Sisal's Casa del Monifato

On a recent trip to Sisal, I noticed a stone-carved plaque on the corner of a reddish building as you enter the town. On your left, you will notice it - a sparse, severe building with a stone figure on the top which is another sign that something interesting and not your average “old building” is going on.

After spending a lot of time half-deciphering the plaque, which is written in the style I call “Old Spanish Sailor Illiterate” where the j’s and the g’s are, along with the c’s the s’s, and the z’s used indiscriminately, spacing is unheard of and letters are often doubled up to save space, I had enough to Google what I had made out and find the rest of the inscription. This further investigation - as often happens - of course led to some more interesting facts coming to light, in this case having to do with the figure on the top of the building who is the monifato in the name of this corner/bulding.

The plaque, on the corner of the building. Immediately the word ORTIZ (a surname) jumps out and also the date, 1585.

The plaque, on the corner of the building. Immediately the word ORTIZ (a surname) jumps out and also the date, 1585.

The text (above) says:

“ES DE EL ILUSTRE SENOR IOAN DE ORDVNA Y DE SV MVGER DONA GERONIMA ORTIZ Y DE SVS HEREDEROS MDLXXXV”

Translated to English, the plaque makes it known that the house belongs to one Señor Ioan (Juan) de Orduña and his woman (wife) Doña Geronima Ortiz and their heirs. Immediately following the text is the year: 1585.

The “ilustre” I got from the excellent article written on the subject by Angel Gutierrez (https://www.puntomedio.mx/el-monifato-de-sisal/) or I would have never guessed what that contraction meant.

In his article, he also states that the inscription shows that the building and the statue on its roof predate the Montejo house in Merida. The use of the barbarian figure, bearded, covered in hair and wearing a minimal amount of clothing and carrying a club, can also be found on the facade of our friend Montejo’s house on the formerly white city’s main square.

The theory is that the roof-top figure would serve as a focal point for the spy-glasses of arriving pirate or enemy ships whose captains would then direct their cannons to fire upon what was an apparent watchman, thereby sparing the more important buildings in Sisal.

On your visit to Sisal, keep an eye out for this and other interesting details. Like the strange remains of a well on the sidewalk nearby, that definitely looks old, Its mere existence indicates that it is historically significant. I’ll look into that also, in another post on this blog!