Yucatán Road Trip: Façades of Mérida (and the tricky morality of tourist economics)

It was already late afternoon by the time we escaped Balankanché, prompting us to once again skip the cenote on the day's itinerary and drive straight to our next hotel. This time we were headed to Mérida, the capital and largest city of the state of Yucatán.

Driving and parking in central Mérida is not fun—the roads are narrow, mostly one-way, and frequently filled with cars as well as pedestrians spilling over from the equally crowded sidewalks. Many hotels will have special deals worked out with specific lots, and it helps to know ahead of time which parking lot is affiliated with your hotel. Otherwise, look for the estacionamento signs (sometimes simply indicated by an E in a red circle), find one near where you will be staying, and just know that you will pay for an hour or so before you can come back and move your car to the appropriate lot.

Once you're settled-in, the city will reward your effort to be there. At least for a day or two. Mérida is home to good shopping, numerous restaurants, a few solid museums, and faded glories of colonial architecture. It also lies in proximity to a number of Maya ruins (day trips to the World Heritage sites of Chichén Itzá and Uxmal are available from the city) as well as to the sea. As a result, the city is a popular stop for cruise lines, and during the day many tourists will come ashore to acquire relatively inexpensive, locally made goods, including jewelry, masks, wide-brimmed hats, embroidery, and other textiles. Even Josh and I, who had not planned on shopping at all, ended up contributing a fair amount to the local economy.

I should probably note here that Americans and Europeans often feel taken advantage of in Mexico, especially in larger cities like Cancún and Mérida. Sometimes such feelings are the result of misunderstandings born out of overlapping but ultimately very different cultural economics. Sometimes they are the result of one person actually taking advantage of another. As a foreigner, you are certainly a target for vendors and guides who rely on the money of tourists for their own survival. That can get very old very fast, especially as you hear the same lines again and again. For instance, nearly everyone claims that what they sell is "authentic" and that everything sold everywhere else is "fake." Without being an expert myself on Maya goods, I can only advise that whatever you hear—from angry tourists and hungry vendors alike—take it with a grain of salt.

After finally checking-in to the hotel, the friendly guy attending the front desk pointed us towards a nearby collective, where, he claimed, proceeds from sales were redistributed to all of the participating artists in an effort to support the local communities as a whole. True? Nope. That is, not according to the many fuming reviews I have since read on TripAdvisor. But at the time, trusting both our hotel and the seemingly sincere man we met at the store itself, we ended up purchasing a few pieces of opal jewelry (mostly as gifts) for decent prices. Were the stones authentic? I fear the answer to that is also nope, despite the certificates accompanying each piece. One of these days I will screw up my courage and have mine appraised, but in the meantime I've decided to just enjoy them both as the pretty trinkets they are and as the gentle reminders of the fallibility of my own judgement they have become.

On our second night, we allowed another man to draw us into his store for jipijapas (aka, Panama hats, made from jipijapa palm leaves), hammocks, and clothing woven with sisal. In addition to being light, strong, flexible, and breathable, the fibers of both the palm and sisal are supposed to possess properties of a natural bug repellant—all highly desirable features during a Yucatán spring. Unlike most touristy items, such products are actually popular with locals, and the hats especially were essential wearing for anyone working in the sun.

We chatted with the owner for a while, and as we tried on items he showed us pictures of himself and his associate as a child and young man, respectively, working in the caves where jipijapas are made. He explained that manipulating the fibers requires the damp, warm environment of the caves, just as the finest weaving on the top of the hat requires the small hands of children and women. Because of the poor air quality, hat makers can only remain underground for a few hours a day.

I think he told us all of this to illustrate the communal nature of his store, to convince us of the specialness of the hats, and to illustrate why they were worth the amount he was asking for them (the equivalent of about $40 each). Outwardly, we tried not to disappoint him with our reactions. Inwardly, the actual effect of his story was somewhat different. Having just spent an hour ourselves in a Yucatán cave, the idea of anyone, especially children, working in such conditions was wrenching. The realization that by purchasing the hats we would be supporting such a system was horrifying. And yet, if we didn't buy anything, those same people would be that much worse off due to the lack of income from their labor.

Intellectually, of course, I know that we all participate in similarly fraught economic situations everyday. But as an American, it is rare to have the system laid so bare before you, to see so clearly how inescapable it is, or to be so close to the people most affected by the terrible dichotomy of life saving/life endangering work. I am still not sure what the right thing to do actually was.

In the moment, however, we chose the easier path of the more immediate good, and are now the (conflicted) owners of two very nice jipi hats.

Since returning home, I have come across a few reviews by scorned tourists challenging the notion that jipijapas are constructed in caves. I would love for that to be true. Unfortunately, as documented here, the practice seems to be alive and well, although in Becal such caverns may be man-made and not nearly so deep as the likes of Balankanché. Perhaps that makes all the difference? Or is that idea just another scam, one we try to sell to ourselves to make our own lives a little more comfortable?

Yucatán Road Trip: Chichén Itzá

The Post-classic Maya city of Chichén Itzá ["beside the well of the Itza"] is not only a UNESCO World Heritage site but also, since 2007, one of the "new" seven wonders of the world. It is also a fairly easy day trip from either Cancún or Mérida, and is thus one of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico, if not the world. 

Although it is often referred to as a Maya-Toltec settlement, the history of the city and its associated architecture is still contested. The more traditional view, and the one presented on the associated UNESCO webpage, is that the original Classic period settlement was conquered by the Toltecs, and that most of the major buildings now associated with the city represent a fusion of the two cultures. This narrative dovetails nicely with a Maya legend of the arrival of a king from Central Mexico, identified as Kukulkan (Feathered Serpent), and goes some way in explaining the predominance of plumed snakes in Chichén Itzá's architecture, as well as the inclusion of other features more associated with central Mexican cultures, including images of death and sacrifice.   

Detail of the relief along Chichén Itzá's Great Ball Court. The kneeling figure on the left depicts the game's decapitated loser; the snakes springing from his neck represent blood spurting from the wound. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 20, 2015. 

There are, however, problems with this theory. The most significant issue is a matter of timing—namely, archaeologists now believe that the buildings once thought to represent Toltec features actually pre-date the civilization which supposedly influenced them [Drew 1999, 371]. If true, this might point to a reversal of influence, in which the Toltecs incorporated imagery from the Maya, not the other way around. Indeed, many of the supposedly "Toltec" aspects of Chichén Itzá are in fact present in other, earlier Maya settlements. The feathered serpent, for instance, was already a common motif in Maya culture centuries before the establishment of the great centers of the Yucatán, and can be traced to even earlier origins within the Olmec civilization. Likewise, clear evidence of the importance of war and the practice of human sacrifice at Classic period settlements, such as the murals of Bonampak, have long since forced archaeologists to set aside more romantic notions of the Maya as an idilic civilization of peaceful scholars corrupted by blood-thirsty outside conquerers. 

Regardless of who was responsible, the great architecture of Chichén Itzá is both physically imposing and iconographically impressive. Since the site's inclusion as one of the wonders of the world, however, access has become increasingly restricted. Visitors can no longer climb the stairs of El Castillo or enter its interior chambers, nor can they walk among the many columns of the Temple of the Warriors. 

360-panorama of the Temple of the Warriors and El Castillo, Chichén Itzá, by Joshua Albers, May 20, 2015.

Back in 1999, I had the opportunity to climb the pyramid and chose not to. This time, I promised myself I would brave the heat and precarious steps in order to take a peek at the inner chamber. To this end, we arrived early and made a beeline from the entrance directly to El Castillo. After months of anticipation, it took me a while and multiple laps around the foot of the pyramid to accept the eventual realization that I had forever missed my chance to see the temple interior. Putting aside my personal disappointment, however, these new measures are clearly important precautions for preserving the heavily visited ruins, and ones the government has been wise to undertake.

That being said, missing this opportunity definitely increased the pressure to do everything we could at the subsequent, less regulated, sites we visited.

Another consequence of being a popular tourist destination is the inclusion of many artisans and souvenir sellers scattered amongst the shaded areas of the grounds. This feature is somewhat unique to Chichén Itzá, as other sites either require such stalls to be outside of the grounds—as at Tulum—or simply don't draw enough people to have more than one or two merchants present, if there are any at all.

Artist Efrain Cetz beside his masks and other carvings, Chichén Itzá. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 20, 2015.

The wares on offer vary greatly, from mass-produced or poorly made souvenirs to unique objects crafted by skilled artists. If you are interested in making a purchase, it's probably best not to buy the first thing that catches your eye, as many vendors will have similar—and possibly better-constructed—items for sale. But if, after looking around, you do find something you like, buy it. We ended up purchasing a mask by Efrain Cetz there, and although it took at least a half hour and the last of our energy to find him again, I'm glad we did. For while we later saw other, vaguely similar, masks elsewhere, they never appealed as much as the one we already had. In addition, buying directly from the artist allowed us to speak with him about his ideas and practice, which in turn gave us a better appreciation of not only what we were taking home, but of how traditional Maya stories and concepts are being reinterpreted by contemporary people.

Masks of the rain god, Chaac [Chac, Chaahk], adorning the Puuc-style "Church," Chichén Itzá. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 20, 2015.

Finally, as a heavily visited, imminently photogenic location, Chichén Itzá is also one of the most photographed places on the planet. There is almost no angle of the extensive grounds that has not already been captured multiple times, and no shortage of images available in publications and on the web. Not that the futility of trying to take an original picture stopped us from spending hours snapping hundreds of our own photos. But because images of the major buildings are so common, we mostly focused on framing our own impressions, using our telephoto lenses to better see the details we couldn't approach, and documenting the many iguanas chilling at the site like giant, scaly squirrels. 

She knows she's beautiful.

For more on the site's layout, history, and visiting information, see the INAH website, which has text in both English and Spanish.

Highly subjective personal rating: 9/10 [Bucket-list worthy]