"What a week. It is a good thing I have been climbing stairs at lunch for quite a while before the trip to Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico from 14-18 March 2006. I really had no idea what Luis was getting me into when I agreed to go to this conference with him. The conference was titled "Plays y Yacimientos de Aceite y Gas en Rocas Carbonatadas," which roughly translates as "Hydrocarbon Oil and Gas Plays in Carbonate Rocks." Of course, I speak no Spanish, and so it doesn't make any sense for me to have attended a Pemex Conference in Mexico focused on Pemex geology and all conducted in Spanish. However, I have this baggage I carry around, baggage called a reputation. And so I guess it goes with the baggage to be a company spokesman at conferences like this one in Mexico.
I have no notes on what happened on Monday. I think this was the day Andrea and I flew from Houston to Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico, and I think we used a couple of days of vacation from last year, since my start date and vacation reset date is the first of April. I don't have the tickets, and I don't recall for sure. I know we went to Mexico with a rough idea of what we were interested in doing and no real definite plans. I had made a composite image of where the city was, and what it looked like, which you can review at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/060315-18_Ciudad_del_Carmen/Ciudad_Del_Carmen.jpg. Once we got there, we found there were no tour groups, no busses, no tour guides, and so we ended up following Luis' advice and renting a car. I was really nervous about renting a car in Mexico, and once we did it we went forward with no hesitation and it turned out very nice. The little car we rented was from Hertz. Tuesday, the 15th of March we went to Palenque and Agua Azil. This involved driving to Villahermosa, then to Palenque. It took at least 4 hours to make this drive one way, sort of like driving from Houston to Dallas. After this drive I was beginning to understand what Dr. John Sorenson meant when he told me members of the church have no comprehension of the distances involved in crossing the narrow neck of land in MesoAmerica.
There is a page of thumbnails summarizing our trip to Palenque at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/060315-18_Ciudad_del_Carmen/Palenque_thumbnails.jpg. The buildings are fantastic. There was a tremendous amount of work involved in moving the big stones they used as building material. Climbing up the buildings was enough to wear me out. Looking down was enough to give me vertigo. Thinking about all of the work which went into the construction was awe inspiring. And it is obvious there are a lot of alignments which have lost meanings. For instances, there were T shaped crosses which formed windows aligning between different buildings. The trail down off of the hill goes past other sets of ruins. There are springs, lakes, and it is easy to imagine the daughters of the Lamanites bathing in some of these beautiful pools. The site just looked like it was jumping out of the pages of The Book of Mormon. We bought a Mayan ceramic and leather calendar at Palenque. We were too late getting off of the ruins to see the museum. Oh well!
Even though it was late, we still decided to drive to Agua Azil, the blue waterfalls. We got there just before dark, and I got a few photos. What a beautiful place. Certainly looks like it could have been the Waters of Mormon to me. There was a funny sign in English that said "Danger not to swim." It was obvious from the height of the falls, and the amount of water coming down the river, that it was various dangerous to swim at the falls. It was surprising how fast it got dark, and how narrow and up and down the roads were going back to Ciudad del Carmen. It was especially scary when we would go around a corner and there would be people walking along the side of the road in the pitch black dark of night. We came to a couple of military check points on the way back. They did not check us too thoroughly. Later we found out the military have been known to put things like marijuana in your trunk at the first checkpoint, and then to lock put you in jail when they "find" it at the second checkpoint. We did not have anything like this happen to us. However, it was well after midnight by the time we made it back to the Hotel.
It turned out the conference did not start until the evening of Wednesday, the 16th of March. So during the day Luis went with us to Edzna. Again it was about a four hour drive to get to the ruins, and another four hours back. Luis drove, and he drove very fast along the coast highway. The coast highway is beautiful. There are several places listed for sale along the highway right along the beautiful waters of the Caribbean Sea. When we finally got to Edzna, it looked like there was not much to see. We walked way back along to the end of a trail, where we saw a big pile of dirt with trees on it. When we came to the opening, we could see where they had reconstructed part of the hill to show the steps as the originally occurred. Climbing part way up this monument you could see a much larger monument through the tops of the trees. When we got to the other buildings, it was a giant plaza with large temples on both sides and a giant building overlooking the plaza. I put together a panorama digital photo ( http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/060315-18_Ciudad_del_Carmen/060316_Edzna/Edzna_Panorama.jpg, which gives a feel for how powerful the leaders must have felt as they performed their ceremonies at the top of their buildings. Thumbnail photos of our trip to Edzna with Luis are at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/060315-18_Ciudad_del_Carmen/Edzna_thumbnails.jpg. It was another great day and more contemplation about the relationship of The Book of Mormon to these ruins. We got back to Ciudad Del Carmen in time for the opening speeches and the loud Mexican music icebreaker. It was noisy, and a good evening. I had several very interesting conversations, and although Andrea kept leaving the noisy room, I think she enjoyed herself.
Thursday I spent all day at the conference. Andrea spent the day reading at the hotel and in the pool. In the evening we took the leader of Vetra and his wife and colleagues out to dinner. Luis does a very good job with these folks. Little did we know that this leader was going to visit his brother who works for Schlumberger, and that Schlumberger would win the bid for the Vetra project. So the overbooked flight (0609.html), the second trip to Monterrey, and this trip ended up being of no immediate business benefit to GDC. Oh well!
Friday, Andrea and I rented another car from Hertz and dove to Calakmul. The first third of the way was up the same coast highway we went on to get to Edzna. Then we turned and went due west. This was our longest day of driving, which means each way was farther than driving from Houston to Dallas. When we left the main road, to drive into the ruins, the road just kept on going and going and going and going and kept on getting smaller and smaller and smaller. There were big beautiful peacocks crossing the road. It was a forest, with the trees almost touching over our heads. It was not as dry as Edzna nor as wet as Palenque. However, despite all of the tropical vegetation, I would classify all three sites as pretty close to a desert environment. Certainly all were very dry places. And certainly, after all of the step climbing we did, we ended up drinking a lot of water (88 swallows on Tuesday, 69 swallows on Wednesday, and 56 swallows on Friday). Maybe I did more ruin climbing the first day, and thus drank more water. Or maybe I just lost track of my swallows count because the numbers were so large.
The Calakmul thumbnails are at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/060315-18_Ciudad_del_Carmen/Calakmul_thumbnails.jpg. The site is so remote and was discovered so recently that it has been built to handle tourists year round. Based on how they have water runoff ditches, it must rain an awful lot at some times of the year. As we went along the trails, it seemed like the ruins were very small and there was not going to be much to see. There were interesting signs about how this site had been used as a prison for many many years, and I could not help but think about the prison that Ammon's brethren were put in, and the earthquake that freed them. Then I was exploring one of the large plazas, and I heard Andrea gasp and say 'Roice, you need to see this.' So I climbed up the large structure, only to see in the distances two other large structures sticking up out of the forest. I went and climbed both of the other towers. They were giant! Climbing these towers and looking over at the other towers ( http://www.walden3d.com/photos/Trips/060315-18_Ciudad_del_Carmen/060317_Calakmul/DSC04169.JPG) made words from The Book of Mormon come alive:
It was hard to leave Calakmul. Probably because we knew it was our last adventure this trip. And partly because we were just about out of gas by the time we got back to the main road. I talked to some truck drivers at the junction, calculated how far we had gone and how far we had yet to go, and determined we could not make it back to the main town of Escarcega, where we know there was a service station. So we went in the opposite direction to the way back to the hotel in order to get to the nearest gasoline station. It was in the middle of nowhere. There were some other ruins by the town the gasoline station was five miles outside of. There was also a new sustainable city being built buy a bunch of hippies, which I had read about, and which we did not have time to visit. By the time we drove past it, it was pitch black dark, and we were both getting very tired. Again it was well after midnight when we finally made it back to Cuidad del Carmen, Mexico.
Saturday morning we turned in the car. We gave the lady who rented us a Book of Mormon, and explained it in some detail. Then we had time before our flight to walk back past the LDS Church which we had found earlier in the week. We had talked to one missionary pair the first time we visited, and had listened to some young women singing one of the hymns in Spanish. This time as we arrived, another missionary pair were filling the font for a baptism with a hose used to water the lawn. We had a nice discussion with these Elders. Elder Ence was the son of Debbie and Kevin Ence from St. George. He told us about an experience he had when one of the hurricanes went through, and I wrote it down and e-mailed it to his parents. It is very special:
As important as Luis felt the Pemex Conference was, and as neat as visiting the three major ruins was, the highlight of our trip to Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico was the simple testimony of a young missionary Elder from St. George, Utah. This was emphasized Sunday, when we went to choir practice and I wrote a possible stanza for Prime Words from the words we were singing:
While we were gone we got an e-mail from Audrey with the following poem, which is so true:
All in all it was a wonderful week. A time to make new friends with folks working for Pemex and Vetra. A time to see a few of the wonderful archaeological sites of Meso-America. A time to reflect on the history in The Book of Mormon. And a time to hear the wonderful testimonies of young missionaries serving in Ciuad del Carmen, Mexico."