Yucatan & Mexico | Carol Chapman

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Maya Actors Used in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto

A blog post by Erick Laseca who works for Burson-Marsteller as public relations liaison for the Mexico Tourism Board in Chicago begins with:

The height of Mayan civilization may have ended some 1600 years ago, but this enigmatic empire seems to be making a come-back. This past Friday, December 8th, movie theaters across North America released Mel Gibson’s much-anticipated feature, Apocalypto, filmed in Mexico, bringing the late, great Mayan civilization to life on the big screen.

Mexican Mayans Descendant Make Debut in Apocalypto

Although I disagree with Laseca’s calling the Maya, “Mayans,” nonetheless, I found his comprehensive article on the Maya informative, entertaining and interesting. After all, it might be that Laseca uses the term “Mayans” since it works better as a keyword search phrase, “Maya” more often bringing up Maya Angelou.

During filming of the Yucatan Travel Movie, we visited the ruins at Edzna, which is supposed to be the ruin Mel Gibson chose as the model for his Mayan ruin set in the movie Apocalypto. We loved Edzna. The Palace of the Five Stories is gorgeous.

Scary, Powerful Creatures Scream in the Yucatan Jungle

When filming the Yucatan Travel Movie, we had an encounter with some of these creatures in Palenque . . . just as the mist was rising at the site at the end of the day . . . definitely spooky.

In the pitch black night, deep in the verdant rainforest of the Yucatan Peninsula, a furry creature swings swiftly from branch to branch, calling so loud, you can hear it from five kilometers away through deep jungle growth. The question is though, what is it coming from? Wait, it sounds like a jaguar. No, it cannot be, it’s a monkey?

Yucatan Peninsula – Screams of the Mayan God

Touring a Beer Factory in Guatemala

If you’ve ever hankered to tour a beer distillery in Guatemala as a field trip when learning a Spanish language intensive, take a look at today’s blog post from Miriam Balsley who is the narrator and hostess of the Yucatan Travel Movie. She writes:

Next we headed to the actual factory where the bottles are cleaned, filled, topped, and labeled. The above is a photo of one of our teachers, Miguel, who has a nickname of Gato, or Cat. He is one of the handful of Guatemalans who have intense green eyes, hence his nickname. He’s hanging out with one of the old bottling machines.

Beer

I didn’t know that there are a handful of Guatemalans who have intense green eyes. Did you? How do you like that!

Sea Turtles at Akumal

Yesterday I referred to the sea turtles coming ashore along the Caribbean Coast of the Riviera Maya between June and October. That reminded me that in the Yucatan Travel Movie, we visit Akumal, a lovely vacation location. Akumal also hosts a number of dive shops and a center for studying sea turtles.

Yucatan Caribbean Sea Turtles Nest in the Summer

I knew that sea turtles laid their eggs in the sand along the Riviera Maya Caribbean coast but I did not know when. According to this 1 Person Tent blog, the time to see the nesting turtles is from June to October. The sea turtles come onto shore from the sea at night. However, it is important that you not use a regular flashlight if you want to see them laying their eggs, and no flash photography:

There are a few factors to consider when searching for nesting turtles. The foremost is never disturb them throughout the nesting process. That includes no flash photography and you will want to have a red lens or film paper over your ordinary flashlight. Regular light can disorient the turtles, but they cannot see the red filtered light. If you choose to go turtle searching, under the radiance of a full moon, a flashlight is not required.

Travel to the Yucatan and Step Back in Time

Carol Chapman

In the UK, they call it a Fly-drive

How interesting. In the United Kingdom, they have a type of vacation called a “fly-drive.” My guess is that this means that certain fly-drive travel companies book both your flight and your rental car and your lodgings and provide you an itinerary of where to go. Am I right? Here’s their listing for an exotic fly-drive in Yucatan.

Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula is the location for a new fly-drive this year from Journey Latin America (020-8747 8315; journeylatinamerica.co.uk). The itinerary weaves through Tulum, Chichen Itza and the lesser-known, jungle-enveloped ruins of Coba.

Hit the open road with a new breed of exotic fly-drives

From reading the article by Mark Rowe, it seems as if your rental car in a “fly-drive” is an exotic sports car. That makes me wonder because, on one of our filmmaking trips for shooting the Yucatan Travel Movie, we had the opportunity to rent an Alpha Romeo sports car. However, when we saw it did not have license plates, we declined. We didn’t want to be blamed for the missing license plates when we returned the car to the car rental agency.

“Behind the Scenes” Special Feature Completed

On May 6th, I wrote:

Last night I had three dreams telling me to work on the “Behind the Scenes” Bonus Feature of the Yucatan Travel Movie.

Behind the Scenes Yucatan Travel Movie Dream

So, that’s what I did. Today, I am happy to say that I finished “Behind the Scenes” of the Yucatan Travel Movie. I really enjoyed making this short video because it shows how we coped with the roads being ripped up on our second shooting trip to Izamal.

Chichen Itza Guide Possibly Written up in TimesOnline

Could this be our tour guide Victor Olalde, proprietor of Posada Olalde, the budget guest house close to the Mayan ruins in Chichen Itza? It sounds like Victor. Meera Dattani writes in the timesonline:

My tour guide Victor has Mayan roots and is worth every peso for his desire to inform, elaborate and entertain.

Mayan maths and eco-chic at Chichén Itzá

It sure sounds like Victor for his vast storehouse of knowledge and his willingness to share it with us. He also took us to a Maya home where I shot footage for the Yucatan Travel Movie.

Behind the Scenes Yucatan Travel Movie Dream

Last night I had three dreams telling me to work on the “Behind the Scenes” Bonus Feature of the Yucatan Travel Movie.

In one dream, I had a long 60 minute path to walk back to the beginning and was given a knife to take back to the beginning. I realized this dream meant I needed to cut the 60-minute-long feature down to a smaller size. I had just been throwing clips onto that timeline and, even though I had sorted through some of them, that had been about a week ago. I am amazed that my subconscious remembered that the “Behind the Scenes” feature presently was 60 minutes long. I consciously was not aware of it at all.

In another dream, technicians took me “behind the scenes” (that was the clincher that my dream night was about the “Behind the Scenes” feature) to show me a cluster of electric chords. I said that it would be too much work to fix them. But, the friendliest technician told me that it would not because they only needed a light dusting.

Well, my dream technician’s encouragement helped me to dive right into editing the feature and it was must easier than I expected. I’m not finished with it yet but it is cut down to only about 15 minutes now.

Teaching English in Yucatan

As a way of enjoying Yucatan travel, you may want to teach English in Yucatan, for example, in the Mayan city of Tulum.

The Mayan city of Tulum has come second in the TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice 2010 awards, which were decided on holidaymakers’ destination comments, favourite places and overall popularity.

“A rare mix of beach, archaeology and village, Tulum is a romantic getaway like no other,” the judges concluded.

Teach English in Mexico and enjoy Tulum’s beautiful beaches

We included Tulum in the Yucatan Travel Movie and can attest to the beautiful white-sand beaches in the area. In fact, many people visit the Mayan ruins at Tulum to swim rather than to tour the ruins.

However, you should be aware that if you want to stay overnight in one of the rustic cabins on the Maya Riviera coast south of the town of Tulum, most of the places, including campgrounds, do not have a regular source of electricity and instead depend on generators, wind power, solar power, and, as Miriam Balsley, the narrator of the Yucatan Travel Movie says, “the dancing light of candles.”

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