The Yucatecan  JARANA (har-a-na) is the folk music of the state and the Yucatan Peninsula, it is characterized for being the result of a mixture between of the indigenous and  Spanish folk dances.

I’m not sure about the origins of the Janara, I’ve heard a few different stories about its creation. Some say that the Jarana was the dance form that became characteristic of the Vaquerías, celebration that the cattle tenders organized  to make the count of cattle, that today is the traditional festival for each village in the Yucatan peninsula.

Others say that the mestizos ( people of mixed racial ancestry; especially mixed European and Native American ancestry) initiated the tradition of Vaquerias because they were not admitted in the celebrations of the Spaniards and much less in the Mayan rituals. And that’s why they created the JARANA, at first this celebrations: to make fun of both the Spaniards and the Mayans

The music is mainly instrumental, at first it was executed with only with stringed instruments, nevertheless went increasing the instrumentation until arriving to be executed by breath instruments. There is a pause every once in a while during the dance, right after that someone shouts BOMBA! and one of the executants recites verses, most of them picaresque.

Now days every different town has its own Vaquería, it has become into a yearly celebration for most of the Mayan villages, each of them is devoted to a christian saint and regularly the  Vaquería festival is done in the day of their saint, and people from other surrounding towns attend to the party.

In Mérida this spectacle is offered at the main plaza every Sunday. The main reason is  to foment the respect to the Mayan traditions, showing  to our children and the others, national and foreign visitors, this beautiful  part of our folklore, which they enjoy much and it makes us feel proud of our roots.

Early in the morning before going Cenote Hunting we went TACO HUNTING, at my friend’s tacos place: “TACOS TONY”

Here you may find a great variety of  excellent seafood!! Tacos Tony has been in business for more than 20 years, so it had became a tradition for the locals, and for us foreigners a bit of heaven in our mouths!  

TORTAS: Vinaigrete Shrimp (left) and Breaded Fish (Right)

All what they serve is fresh, every night fish arrive from Progreso and other important fishing ports in the Yucatan Peninsula, my very good friend Tony wakes up at 4 am every morning to start all the cooking that must be done, business starts running at 7 am and closes when everything is finished, mostly after 10 am you wont find much, it’s the perfect break fast, at least for many of us! 

Great variety of seafood tacos, all of them in the real tortilla, the soft tortilla

This place is not where a regular tourist would eat, this is a Mexican secret taco place, and foreigners aren’t allowed.. buuuuut, if you come with me I may ask my good friend Tony a special favor  

Tony's famous breaded shrimp tacos IN SOFT TORTILLA!

Tacos Tony’s personalized  atention and kindness is, besides it’s magnificent flavour,  why most of their clients come back, and keep coming back.

If you are ready to discover the magic of the Mayan land, you have to remember some stuff, because you will be entering a dense forest in a hot climate, and probably its completely different from where you usually go hiking: the jungle, in it are very thin and very close to each other, but not very tall, entering the jungle is hard, and if  unfortunately something happens to you finding your way out is even harder, so you must be careful and enter this wonderful lands with experienced people who know around.

In the Yucatan peninsula we will find one of the world’s most important ecosystems: the tropical rainforest, even it’s trees length is shorter than in other places, is characterized by being just as full of life, as said before by The Regents of the University of Michigan in their book The Tropical Rain Forest: “Rainforests are home to half of all the living animal and plant species on the planet.”, About 57% of all species live in jungle environments, just as some studies from the BBC had said. Also its important to mention the importance to health care, Tropical rain forests are considered the “world’s largest pharmacy” because over one-quarter of modern medicines originate from its plants, just as the Rainforest Concern organization states.

By its geological and physiographic features as well as by its human inhabitants the Yucatan Peninsula is very different from the rest of Mexico, even the interests and welfare of the Yucatecans have so little in common with central Mexico that on several occasions it has been proposed seriously that Yucatan should become an independent country. Indeed, the state sometimes has functioned as a practically independent country.

Studies of the Yucatan flora confirm one’s expectations that it should prove radically different from that of other portions of Mexico and Central America. The prevailing limestone, the absence of surface streams, and the long dry season, something quite unusual along the eastern coast, are a sufficient guarantee that the Yucatan plants and fauna will be different from those of neighboring countries. You may find more scientific information in the book “Flora of Yucatan” by PAUL C. STANDLEY, here.

Because of the main source of water are the Cenotes and underground rivers, you will notice that the vegetation changes as we approach to the life giving holes, taller and more green trees come into the sight.

The jungle is the best demonstration of constant natural survivor, in an ecosystem in which, not only animals have a hard time because of their predators, but even the trees have to struggle for their lives, trying to reach the sun’s light, and the ones that don’t get it are going to become food for bugs and other trees, unless they are the mid-light sort.  You will not find this much variety of plants and animals in other ecosystems, and less if you compare it to cold areas, arctic or desert areas, and of course the sounds of the jungle are also vary from other types of ambient.

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7TH INTERNATIONAL ENCOUNTER OF CAVE DIVING

Couple of weeks ago I attended to The 7Th INTERNATIONAL ENCOUNTER OF CAVE DIVING 2008,   which took place in Mérida, Yucatán, México from November 14Th to 17Th, it was hosted by Yucatan State’s Urban Development and Environmental Care Department. Here, but in spanish

It was a great forum in which science men and professional cave divers showed their discoveries, advances, and research programs, such as the archaeological rescue of Cenote Zis-Há in Valladolid, where the archaeologist Sergio Grosgean working along Doctor Renan Gongora and the architect Carlos Cosgaya, and a large number of volunteers found a large number of carbines, swords and other Spanish armor equipment; and the presentation of the advances on the “Yucatan Peninsula Cenotes Underwater Archaeological Atlas” by the architect Octavio del Rio. 

I took the liberty of scanning the pamphlet of the encounter because it contains this amazing 3D images from some cenotes created by C. Bowen ADM.

Located near the Sotuta Municipality, this Cenote is considered as a free fall cenote because the access, diameter is 90 feet and 120 feet deep and its shape is cylindrical.

Located under an old factory near to Tecoh, the maximum depth is 103 feet.

Its located in private property, a ranch near Sotuta, the access to this Cenote its from a regular dwell, but it requires rappelling equipment to enter, the maximum depth is 210 feet.

This is a typical closed Cenote, the access is through an old waterwheel, the cavern is 300 feet wide and you may find countless shapes sculpted by nature after hundreds of years.

Pros & Cons:

Pros: Great opportunity to show the advances of the speleological investigators, also a great chance for divers world wide come visit our amazing cave diving zone. 

Cons: The conferences given where in spanish so the visitors were not unable to keep up, I suggest head phone sets and a translator. We have so many things to show to the cave diving lovers that we can not limit the audience, IMPORTANT: this is the best cave diving zone, yet undiscovered! 

Of course, I enjoyed the conferences and learned a lot; if you are interested on coming to next year’s encounter let me know, I can email you the information as soon as the organizers give it away. 

“A gift for your senses”, “The tropical forest’s jewelry”, “Nature’s magic act” Are some ways how people that had been to Cenotes refer to this special formation

Hey world! Let me tell you all about 3 out of lots of Cenotes that we’ve hunted. Everything started the night before, we agreed on going Cenote Hunting and didn’t took us long to decide where to go because we heard about thous Cenotes on our last Cenote Hunting trip, so the next day we waked up early, or well not that early, about at 10 am, just because it doesn’t take more than 2 hours to get to most of them, we gathered our stuff and got ready for one out of many amazing adventures.

We visited Cenote SABA-HA, Cenote YALUZIL, and Cenote KANKIRIXCHE, which are a miles away from each other. We had never actually gone to any of those, but it turned out to be as amazing as all the others: complete virgin huge fresh natural wells, in which we swam and spent the day enjoying nature’s most splendid gift to this area: Cenotes, our only source of water.

Final road to the Cenote SABA-HA

I speak for the rest of my companions when I say that we had a great day wondering around the Mayan soil and hopping into this fantastic natural pools. We went back home about 5 pm, yes, back to the city, noise and everything that a city implies, keeping in mind those magical places, new lifetime memories of the mayan sacred wells.