Eclectic Parent

Chichen Itza: ancient Mayan city in the Yucatan Peninsula. Known for it’s large amazing Mayan pyramids and temples, we will probably best remember Chichen Itza for the people we met while staying nearby.

Poor C evidently caught his brother’s illness and started vomiting in the night. The difference between the two is that one is rarely sick and, if he is, recovers quickly; the other gets sick – especially stomach – quickly and keeps it going. So by ‘started vomiting in the night’ I mean about once an hour all night long. Having traveled all the way to Chichen Itza, we decided to split up. Daddy stayed with C and I took D and B to the ruins. Somehow the ruins that seemed so amazing to visit as a family seemed almost silly with only a seven and three year old, but we had a good time.

You can no longer climb any of the structures but you can get very close – about 3 ft - which is wonderful especially in the smaller building, which have amazing carvings all the way to the ground, which is wonderful when your traveling companions are 3 and 4 feet tall. I think many people tend to either drag children around culture discussing it amongst themselves and assuming the kids won’t be interested or try to cram every piece of data in like a collage professor. Anything can be boring if you know nothing about it or stay too long, but children, even young children can get something from any experience. From carvings of skulls and jaguars that our 3 yo called faces and cats to our 7 yo coming up with scenarios about why they found skeletons in the cenote (sunken water holes . . . and because I was reading all of the signs out loud) - his theory by the way was they were probably the bodies of people who made the king and queen mad and they got tossed in. Basically there is something for everyone. My favorite observation from D was asking me if they were one of the cultures that combines animals. I hadn’t noticed but the very next sign described some carvings on top of the of the buildings, where we couldn’t see it, as a combination of jaguar, eagle, serpent and a few I can’t remember. Brilliant observation, loved it. We didn’t stay long and we didn’t see all of the structures, but we saw enough to get hot, tire our legs, understand a little bit of history and expand our minds. It is much, much easier to understand concepts of culture and history when it is right in front of you.

The rest of the day was spent swimming and rocking in hammocks. While daddy tried to put the kids to bed, I was outside trying to get on the internet. There was a family swinging in the hammocks with a little girl. I decided to go in and get B since I knew she had napped and wasn’t tired. Sofia was from Slovakia and was almost two. Neither girl understood a word the other was saying but “I have a doll” “I have a doll too!” is pretty universal. So two girls and two dolls played ring-around-the roses. Had a wonderful chat with the parents about travel, who were very patient with my uni-lingual skills and American understanding of central European geography. The girls laughed and squealed and had a wonderful time.

After the parents had taken Sofia to bed and I had finally gotten B to sleep, I went back to trying to get the internet. Another couple also had a laptop so I walked over to ask if they were able to get online. Another wonderful conversation ensued. The couple lived in Norway, although she was from the US, and also had to speak to me in English. [I have always wanted the children to learn another language and this trip has really convinced me to work on it with them and for myself.] Another long discussion with nice people with interesting things to discuss.

I had the epiphany at this hotel in Chichen Itza as we kept meeting people we really enjoyed talking to, that we usually go to the very popular destination. Popular for a reason, but in being so commonly traveled by Americans, we tend to only run into other Americans. Canadians, Europeans, Australians tend to travel a little more off the beaten path. By taking a bus only a couple of hours away, we ran into people from all over the world. It helped, of course, that it was a small hotel and people gathered around the pool in a central location. None the less this epiphany will definitely affect my planning of future travels.