Mar 11 Saturday night Pelota on the Main Plaza

Pelota is the death ball game played by the Mayans in earnest. Very competitive, it requires players to only hit the ball with their hips. Amazing athletes. And modern teas play in a league with equal enthusiasm. Well, maybe not quite, because the losers don’t lose their heads. Every Mayan set of ruins has a ball park and the stone ring is very high up, so very challenging for the players. 

  The modern version packs the plaza every Saturday. There is much fanfare before the game, incense, supplications to the gods, displaying all the brawn of athletic young men in top physical shape. After the game proper, they then play a similar game but using a ball which is set on fire and using only their hands. You can bet they get rid of that sucker as fast as their fingers touch it. Like Pelota, once the ball touches the ground it is game over. 

  The players dress in full Mayan regalia, war paint, etc. and with the chanting and shouting, it’s an impressive display of their cultural heritage.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mar10 Museum of Gastronomy in Merida?

Yup, there is an interesting little museum attached to a great outdoor/indoor restaurant downtown. It’s interesting to see and read about the staples of Mayan food. Basically peasant fare with lots of meat, hardly any fish or seafood even this close to the seafront, beans, corn and squash.       Some of the restaurants have ladies sitting hand rolling all the tacos for all the diners. They arrive characteristically wrapped in a napkin in a gourd.      We went several times to the restaurant and it was busy all the time.     We have not spent as much time afternoons at the pool, so hot when we get back, we shower and pass out in our room for a few hours, catching up with news, mail and washing clothes. We have not needed to get laundry done, most stuff washed by hand has dried next day.      It’s a competition to see whose Sopa de Limon (lime chicken/turkey soup) is best. They area l good and go down well in this hot climate
Read more

Mar 29: Clock winding down…

It’s our last full day in Mexico and we are determined to enjoy every little minute of it. Another lovely breakfast of fresh orange, tropical fruits, a basket of home made pan dulces (breakfast breads), eggs how you like it (usually Mexican with veggies and cheese and sometimes ham too).    We take a trip to the nearby village eof Piste to top up the gas tank, buy some snacks for the journey home then back to spend the afternoon at the pool, with a few other quiet guests!    We finally have to repack after a. Month on the road with a car when we just threw stuff in bags and drove off. It all seems to go back in the two suitcases. But we have a couple of loose bags and beautiful handmade hots in addition now. We have acquired very little here.    At 5:30 it’s a nice walk back to Mayaland hotel for simple dinner of sopa de lemon (lime chicken soup which I love, chicken fajitas, and their home-made lime, Pina and passionfruit sorbets. 
Read more

Mar30: The day of reckoning has dawned..

We have a big day ahead of us today. Temperature goes from over 30 to +11 from the tropics to snow. Sill lots of it in our yard. I Am up early to sit at the pool listening one last time to all the birds waking up. Its a fairly leisurely start as we don’t fly until after 5pm We walk over for a last lovely breakfast by the pool at the ayaland hotel, say goodbye to our new friends there (with hugs from them!) It’s a bit cloudy which is better for driving in the heat. There are few construction holdups today but about half an hour from the airport total mayhem on the roads around Cancun lets loose. Ted is cool as usual and nobody hits us even though it looks possible several times! We drop the car at a jam packed Europecar depot. There are no lines at Preferred checkin with Westjet, our local airline that flies direct from Cancun to Calgary in 5.5 hours. The 28 premium economy seats are wide and comfortable and they serve us a mot bad deal of Thai veggie curry en route, and lots of snacks ...
Read more