Sweet Days

Ek Chuah, the Mayan God of Chocolate.

The last few weeks have been so sweet. We've been busy -- going places, seeing people -- and in the background remarking to each other about what we love about being here, how much we'll miss it, how wonderful our friends and neighbors are, how lucky we feel to have had this experience.

This week's little visitor reminded us
that time moves on. 

(It's possible I'm manifesting all of these emotions in ways other than the overproduction of superlatives here on this humble web page -- Wilhelmina was recently overheard to remark, "Mom's acting tripolar" -- but I'm not alone, I swear; I think we're all trying hard to make the most of these last days here.)

We went to the Mayan ruin Toninå, in a
Zapatista-governed area. You can see the
pyramids at right in the background.

Toninå was massive, beautiful, and almost deserted.
We poked around in the labyrinths near the
base of the 7 (?) levels of pyramids. 

Then we started climbing. Guess which child
 uses her asthma inhaler regularly?

Up we went... 

...and out we looked...

And here we are, at the top.

We've also explored some depths...we went to the Grutas de Mamut (Mammoth Caves) nearby. We went with a goodly portion of Doña Lesvia's family.

The mamut turned out to be a vaguely mamut-like mineral
deposit of some kind. Our guide also pointed out
a glob (stalagmite? stalactite?) that supposedly
looked like the hero of Mexican independence,
Miguel Hildalgo. (Like we would know.)

Here's Daniela the zombie!

We spent the whole day in the campo near the caves
with the Zuñiga-Aguilar family. We played futbol and
ultimate frisbee and paddle ball -- and ate at least
3 meals by my last count -- and had a wonderful day.

Sweet days -- and here's the snail again (in blue).