Sunday, 27 February 2021: Hacienda Peón and Merida

The open last night on Saturday Night Live was a Ukrainian choir.  The whole world is taking a stance against the Russian aggression.  Trump still thinks Putin is a good guy.  Oh my!

Our outing today was to a hacienda where they once made henequen — Hacienda Sosuta dePeón.  It was a bit over an hour drive from our house.  

Built in the mid-nineteenth century, this hacienda began operating in 1858 and saw the hay-days of the “green gold”, henequen.  After maybe 100 years of prosperity, and 30 years of abandonment, the buildings and grounds have now been restored.  We were able to see the plants growing and the steps of the process to produce sisal in the traditional manner.  We were also able to visit a cenote but we didn’t choose to jump in.  We did visit the restaurant and were quite pleased with their take on traditional Maya foods. 

  

After checking in at the Hacienda Inn, chosen because of proximity to the airport and because Gemma wasn’t with us, I called Luis to turn in our rental car.  He came just as we were sitting down to dinner, oh well.  I handed over fistfuls of pesos with not much of a receipt coming back... sure do hope he’s honest.

Somewhere around 9:30, bill knocked on our door to let us know he couldn’t find his passport.  We looked through everything...twice.  Justin and Bill took a taxi back to Bill’s hotel in Merida thinking he might have left items there.  Finding no success, they came back to the hotel where I was trying to contact Abraham or Jona to look in Bill’s room at our house.  Abraham was home from Tetiz but he was a wreck, still dealing from his dads death.  

Jonathan sent a note ...he said Abraham was back in the house, he was already asleep, he was a little bit sad and a little bit drunk.  Jona went back to the house and found not only Bills passport but also a swim suit, a shirt and about $500.  Bill got a cab to go to Celestún. Yes, all the way back.  Better that he found out about it now, right?  He said the cab took about an hour and a half to get there and just over an hour to get back.  Admittedly, I was snoozing while he made this run.