We were warned. Everyone said we were mad to be driving around the Yucatán peninsula in a rental car but our family just doesn’t do organized tours, no matter where we travel. How difficult could it be?
We’d had many a memorable stay in Mexico City as I used to go there frequently on business from Buenos Aires, and often took Sabrina and our daughter with me. On one side trip we’d visited the ancient ruins of Teotihuacán with its magnificently preserved pyramids of the Sun and the Moon and from that moment on we’d all agreed that we had to make a pilgrimage to some of the fabled Mayan ruins in the Yucatán.
We’d planned it carefully to be there for the fabled spring equinox sunrise at the Temple of the Seven Dolls, so designed and constructed that it shines precisely through the windows at the front and rear of the temple structure, and even more dramatically, for the sunset at the Temple of Quetzalcoatl at Chichén Itzá where the corner of the pyramid casts a shadow in the shape of a plumed serpent.
We also visited the ruins at Uxmal, where from atop the Great Pyramid the mounds of scores of unexcavated pyramids peek out above the jungle foliage for as far as the eye can see.
When the heat got too much for exploring ruins we cooled down with swims in the cool darkness of underground cenotes (caves), and had long lunches on the shady verandahs of huge crumbling haciendas, some of which have been converted into boutique hotels. The region is dotted with these magnificent properties, which were built from the fortunes made harvesting agave for sisal; woven for an industrializing world hungry for rope and twine, before man made fibres largely took over.
We explored Mayan villages where the culture and cuisine, long suppressed in post- Columbian times, now happily thrive once again. Cochinita Pibil, a pit barbecued Mayan classic, was the most memorable dish of the entire trip.
Cochinita Pibil (Pork baked in Banana leaves): Serves Six to Eight
In the Mayan language, a ‘pibe’ is a stone-lined underground pit where this dish is traditionally smoked, but you can make the same dish at home in a baking tin.
4 lbs of Pork butt/shoulder, cut into 2-inch pieces
3ozs Achiote paste
Half cup lime juice
1 cup freshly squeezed orange Juice
2 tsp salt
2 large banana leaves
2 tbsp olive oil
Achiote paste:
1 tbsp Annato seeds
Half tsp ground cumin
Quarter tsp dried oregano
8 black peppercorns
Half tsp ground allspice
1 whole clove
Quarter tsp ground chili
Half tsp salt
2 cloves garlic
3 tbsp sour orange juice or 2 tsp orange juice and 1tsp white vinegar
To make the Achiote paste, grind the first 8 ingredients together in a coffee grinder. Smash the garlic into a paste in a mortar and pestle; add the spice mixture and orange juice, forming a paste. Store in a glass jar with a lid in the fridge until ready to use.
Place the pork in a dish with the Achiote paste that has been dissolved in the juices, sprinkle with the salt. Combine all the ingredients together; making sure that the pork is well coated. Cover and leave to marinate for at least 3 hours, or preferably overnight. Pre-heat an oven to 325 F/160 C . Leave the cover on and bake for 4 hours, test for doneness by using two forks to pull the meat apart, ( it should do so easily).
Garnish with red onions, freshly squeezed lime juice and a pinch of salt and serve in soft tortillas.
Best of all we’d done all of this exploring under our own steam, in our own time and without obligatory rest stops for guided souvenir shopping or a running commentary. It was all wonderful, that is until our luck finally ran out.
We’d been told never to refuel the car outside of a major city, and then only with the most expensive type of gas, or risk the car breaking down from a fuel blockage. As there are only two cities of any size in the vastness of the Yucatán- Mérida, where we happened to be staying and Cancún which we were avoiding visiting as it was overrun with hormone and alcohol fuelled ‘Spring breakers’, this was pretty limiting. It all worked fine until we took a really long drive into the depths of the Mayan countryside near the end of our trip and had no option but to refuel at the one pump in a tiny one horse town over a hundred miles from our hotel.
I can laugh about it now but at the time it wasn’t funny at all. Every few miles the car ground to a halt at the side of the road as dirty gas kept on clogging the fuel line, and we grew more and more desperate about our chances of getting home safely to Mérida, as there was no prospect whatever of roadside assistance; it was the Easter Holiday, and everything was closed.
After countless breakdowns, we finally made it back to our hotel long after dark and a couple of days later I was negotiating my way out of trouble with the car hire company about their newly temperamental vehicle!
What a great sounding recipe! I loved Merida and the Yucatan. And oh the mariachi bands!
Wow you certainly have had some adventures. I seem to have so much yet to see of the world. Keep the stories coming. Love Reading them xx