Winning Isn't Everything It's Cracked Up To Be

Most of the hotels and well-to-do houses around here are built on the Spanish principal of having an internal, open courtyard in the middle of the house, about the size of half a basketball court, with all the rooms opening off this open space. The courtyard enables a breeze to flow through the house and up through the middle which keeps it nice and cool. They plant trees, palms and vines in the courtyard which provides shade, and a pleasant space to hang out.

All of our hotels in Mexico and Cuba have used this principal, which works well, until it rains. Normally it's not a problem. The plants like it and the people retreat. The drain in the middle takes the water away. That is, unless it's blocked. Then it's like a bath. Even worse is when the pipes underneath block, and the waste water flows back into the middle of things. This what happened here this morning.

As we went to breakfast there was a staff member warning us not to step in the ever increasing puddle of waste water coming up the drain. By the time we finished breakfast, the shower water from 150 rooms was bubbling up from the grate into the paved courtyard. There was security tape roping off the area, supervisors supervising the supervisors, and one poor maintenance man in gumboots bailing out the entire drain with a plastic ice-cream container.

Now, management did try to make his life easier. They could have given a second maintenance guy a plastic ice cream container to help him. But no. They could have got him a bigger bucket. But no. They could have got an electric pump to do it automatically. But no. We killed ourselves laughing. They got a chair. They got a housekeeper in uniform to sit on the chair. They gave the housekeeper sitting in the chair a can of air freshener, and got her to squirt it in his direction once a minute. That'll do it.

Our guide picked us up quite late for our day tour of Uxmal and Kabah, and when we walked around the corner with him, there was a mini bus sitting there full of passengers for our tour. We'll never know, but I rather suspect that the local tour company who got the gig to do our tour in this city decided to make good use of the guide they were paying, and sold extra tickets. During the day we got everything for free, but the others had to pay their own admissions.

All the others on the tour spoke Spanish, so the explanation tended to be a lot of Spanish, and the highlights repeated in English. Not really a problem, as we've heard most of it before.

Now Uxmal and Kabah are two more Mayan archaeological sites. I'm sure that to the archaeologists, they are very significant sites, but it's a bit like including Iowa in a list of American states you should visit. Kind of nice, but you won't be heartbroken if you miss it, so I'll spare you most of the details. In a nutshell, think of a civilisation in northern Mexico which existed from 1000 BC to 600 AD (an impressive feat), built a stone city, was eventually abandoned, overgrown, and dug out of the forest in the 1940s and 1950. There are hundreds of similar Mayan sites. These ones had as their major deity Chaac, the rain god. We climbed up, down and over the partially restored ruins.

At home, the boys and I have probably had a go at playing almost every ball sport there is. However the Mayans major sport was a ball game I've never seen. Think of a basketball court with the rings mounted vertically on the side walls at the halfway line. The rings are only about 25cm diameter, so that's certainly smaller than a basketball ring, and the rubber-like ball was about 22cm, so it's a tight fit. The teams line up on each side of the half way line, and the purpose of the game is for a team to get the ball through the ring. Think Curry nailing a three pointer from half court, but with a twist. You can't use your hands or feet. You can only hit the ball with your hip or elbow.

Don't know what the sport was called, but it was the rage all over the Mayan empire well before the Romans perfected a new sport that consisted of kicking the heads of their enemies into a goal net.

Now I don't know about you, but I generally prefer winning. I've seen enough of Ron Barassi's sprays to his losing teams to know that winning is the way to go. But I'm not so sure in the Mayan empire. You see, after holding the winner's cup aloft and being swamped by exultant teammates, the winning captain was summarily sacrificed to the gods. Different ways in different cities. In some cities you were beheaded, sometimes you were thrown off the highest pyramid, and other times you were thrown down a well. But the result was still the same. You only savoured one victory. I think I'd just prefer to have my number retired, and take up a job as a commentator. But it would have some compensations. At least we wouldn't have to ever hear that phrase again - 'Bobby Skilton the triple brownlow medalist'. Maybe it was just the league's attempt at an equalisation policy. Would have worked with Hawthorn. We'd hardly have anybody left on the team.

After turning down the offer to be next year's number one draft pick, we headed off to a local Mexican cafe for lunch. More pollo and re-fried beans, but nice.

Arrived home late afternoon, and wandered out for a very light tea when it cooled down.