We ventured into the unknown, leaving the familiar terrain we had traveled many times. With only so many hours of daylight and not knowing the conditions of the roads nor the frequency of or where the bothersome topes would pop up, which half seem to be placed in the middle of nowhere with no rhyme or reason. I think we were all nervous but tried to hide it and did so well.
The first city we arrived at was Chichimilá, a small town whose annual celebration was carefully packed away alongside the streets.These carts filled with toys, games and candy caused an issue for parking near the church. We began to hunt for an open side street that was not barricaded for the festivities and would allow us to cross the main street to gain access through the rear of the church.
We sat a few blocks away, looking at a map, when the flood of school children was released from their daily prison – school. They ranged in age from 5 to 13 or so, some walked with their mothers, others strolled with pals eating orange colored flatbreads. Several boys wrestled around as they meandered home, until they noticed my daughters pink hair in the back seat. Smiles graced their faces as their eyes widened and whispers quickly flowed from their lips about this unusual foreigner. They gawked from behind the car, making sure to inform any of their classmates who passed of the girl with the pink hair. It was pretty cute, though I often worry that if we were to return in a few months that there would be Maya girls across the Yucatan with pink hair, since even the oldest of ladies faces beamed with smiles when they saw her – even the grouchiest of them.
After much finagling, we finally found a road that we were able to access the church from, Nuestra Señora de la Asunción – Chichimilá, a 17th century convent. We walked a few blocks and reached the beautiful church and began taking pictures. As we began to enter the courtyard to go into the structure itself, the grounds man close the churches door and began to exit the grounds, he was leaving and he was not waiting for us. We ran to exit and unfortunately we never able to see the interior of it.
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