3 posts from December 2007

Now, to be honest, the first trip wasn't all work. We visited Isla Mujeres [1] and Isla Holbox [3] in part to check out the beaches. (Beaches are ecosystems too!) Isla Mujeres is a much, much more laid -back version of Cancun (which we have avoided at all costs) - with snorkeling, beaches, and a friendly town with shops and restaurants.

Map - 2005 trip

Isla Holbox [3] was more laid-back yet - a sleepy Mexican fishing village, way off the beaten track, with just a few (really, really nice) "eco" resorts. (The entrance to our resort, the Villas Delphines, is depicted below.) It takes some effort to get to (three to four hours of driving from Cancun, followed by a ferry ride)  but it is truly idyllic. We certainly plan to return but, unfortunately, not with the students - it's simply to inaccessible given the other things we hope to accomplish. 

Villas Delfines, Isla Holbox

But we also had a job to do. We needed to check out the various biological field stations in the region to see which would suit our purposes and we needed to find a language institute where we could begin the semester with homestays and language instructions. The former goals took us into the back country, visiting field stations at El Eden [2], Hobonil [6], and Kiuic [7] . The latter brought us to the largest city in the peninsula: Merida [5], the capital of Yucatan, on the west coast. El Eden [2] was a fascinating site, but its remote location (only 30 miles as the crow flies but four hours as the pickup crawls) forced us to pass it up for this program. The director of Rancho Hobonil  [6] (the field station of UADY) was gracious and very helpful as he showed us around, but the forested areas of the station were quite a distance from the habitations, so again we decided it was not for us.

A tamandua (anteater) at El Eden

So far we were 0 for 2, but at Kiuic [7] we found what we were looking for: the richest forest we'de seen so far (and would see until we reached the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve) combined with a small ancient Maya city and new living and research quarters built by Millsaps College. Since we returned to Kiuic on our second exploratory trip, I'll wait until then to describe it. Ditto for the language institute (CIS) that we discovered in Merida.

Meanwhile, we saw our first Maya city: Chichen Itza, near Valladoild [4]. This is the site most familiar to tourists because buses continuously ship them in from Cancun for an afternoon, giving the site a bit of a theme-park feel entirely lacking in the more remote sites. But it is still a magnificent and unforgettable experience, particularly when it is one's first.

El Castillo, from the Group of the Thousand Columns

It's been over three years now since Ellen and I decided that tropical Mexico was the best place to bring UC students for a full semester mix of biological and cultural studies. (Actually, it was Doug Cameron's idea – thanks Doug!) But, since we never actually had been to Mexico – our prior experience had been taking students to Costa Rica for a three-week course over winter break – we had some serious homework to do. So we began planning the first of our three trips to Mexico to lay the foundation of the semester program.

Doug had suggested the Yucatán, because it combines the tropical habitats we wanted to visit with numerous remains of one of the great ancient civilizations – the Classic Maya – in a safe and friendly environment. Sounded great to us!

How do you plan a semester program in a country that you’ve never been to? For us – since we’re profs – the obvious first step was to start reading. A bit of research at amazon.com suggested that the best travel guide for the Yucatán was Yucatan and Mayan Mexico by British travel writer Nick Rider.

Yucatan & Mayan Mexico

And so it proved. As I’ll explain in my next post, Nick’s book has been invaluable in introducing us to the region and in helping us plan our first three-week visit, traveling throughout the region on our own, safely and productively, with only the most rudimentary Spanish at our disposal.

So, students, we've decided to use VOX for our blogging platform. We'll get started at the Tuesday meeting, but if you have time, register yourself and start setting up your blog.