Topography and Duality

This morning our road stretched ahead and towards a giant tall looming thing. 

S: "What's that? Do you see that?" 

J: "Is that a cloud? Is that a HILL?"

S: "It can't be a cloud. I see things on it!"

J: "Are we going to go OVER it?" 

And in this way, we encountered our first proper topography of this whole trip. Till now, the Yucatan has been a flat tortilla of a ride. 

A few moments later:

S: "I feel like I'm biking through mud."

J: "Ach! Me too." 

Later:

"Will we get a Downhill?" asked Jen with relish. "Downhills are rare here!" I responded, "rare like Cold, and Food Without Meat In Itq." 

I sang a song as I biked into the cool topographical morning: (to the tune from Oklahoma)

"Oh what a beautiful morning, 

Oh what a beautiful day, 

I've got an emptied out feeling, 

Everything's going right through..."

Thankfully I've gone a whole week and a half untouched by the Traveler's D. till now, so it's only fair.

We biked ourselves to the UNESCO site of Uxmal, happy to not pay the parking fee, but did pay the steepest ticket fee of them all so far (about $10....which feels steep around here until I remembered when I visited the MoMA in NYC and shelled out $25 for a ticket). Uxmal is one of the most intricate of all the ruins, with a huge pyramid, and geometric patterns gracing the walls. "Imagine building this," said Jen, "you spend hours and hours chipping away at a stone design, and say it falls off when you put it up and you have to make it again." 

Usually ruins are enticing to me for exploring the nooks, climbing the heinously steep stone stairs, walking the shaded paths between structures, pondering history. 

Instead, given my gut and the resulting exhaustion, I sat still. And it was the most engaging sitting, because there was so much to look at, all the carvings and shapes and symmetry and rock. 

And there's a wide flat grassy lawn, culminating in some trees. And you sit on your rock and feel very tired and look at this, and rising above out of the trees is something you can't take your eyes of off, as if it were an alien spaceship landing. A great intricate stone pyramid, all layers and levels. Just there. In mystical amazing ancient majesty.  

I overheard a guide explaining the complex decorations on one of the many intricate walls, a set of inverted pyramids and two-headed snakes. To the Mayans, the two-heads represented Duality. I overheard this and was like, hm, another cool forgettable fact. But then I thought more about that, Duality. The existence of opposed truths. Blistering heat and refreshing cold. Suffering and bliss. Hunger and fullness. Sickness and health. And this concept of Duality, and seeing it represented there as carved stone, gained so much meaning for me for this way of travelling. When you're in one state can you see the other, when you're feeling tired and ill can you believe in the recovery to come? Sometimes I struggle with this, and in that way comes the magnitude of Duality. 

Mystical and majestic at Uxmal

Two-headed snake of Duality

[I did write this post yesterday, but due to lack of helpful wifi, I am posting it now. And I can report: that a really great way to get over Traveler's D.--after you're all settled down after the blow-out--is to eat a huge bowl of chicken soup and ride a bike]