Hola, from Mexico

Made it to Mexico. I lived in Arizona for years, made trips to New Mexico and Texas repeatedly, and was born in California, but had never been south of the border until now. And coming from Japan makes it quite funny. It´s hard not to compare it to Japan, and even harder not to compare it to Thailand. I really like Mexico, and Merida was a great choice. This is a funny little town, whose main industry is NOT tourism. The streets are bustling all the time. The main plaza has quite a few people trying to hawk stuff at you, but not nearly as annoying as the hustlers in Phuket. And when comparing it to Japan all I can say is that it is much dirtier and yet much prettier. The first full day we went to see Chichinitza, through a tour through the hotel. We spent the whole day on this tour, but got less than two hours to actually visit the ruins. I had read that Chichinitza may be the most famous, but not the most interesting of the Maya/Toltec sites. It's not terribly photogenic, there are people selling souveniers along all the paths, and the numbers of people visiting it are huge. The tour guide was interesting, amusing and adorable...and very, very biased in his opinions (he stated them as facts). Once we were allowed to go wander unaccompanied it was actually a little more enjoyable. And once you got away from all the hordes it became a little more magical. Of course the two most interesting places on the site have been restricted. You used to be able to climb to the top of the Temple of the Warriors and see the chacmool up close, but people kept standing on it to get there pictures taken. And the other most fascinating place to see was inside El Castillo. But an 80 year old woman fell to her death earlier this year and now no one is allowed to climb it anymore. Inside is the Jaguar throne, and the temple that this temple was built over. Nonetheless, the The weather has been pretty good, and it´s wonderful to walk around in summer clothes in the middle of winter. Oh, and of course the food has been great. I like Mexico.