Blogging, WHA-style + Scope vs Schedule vs Resources

I'm a bit backed up on my blogging, especially from the first few days when our schedules were pretty packed. I've been catching up by transcribing and posting my notes in the moring, back dating the posting stamp so the entry follows the chronology. This means if you've already been reading the blog and you scroll down you might find something new.

Our schedules have been pretty busy, and it looks like Megan and I can expect to be much busier in the up coming days. I'd originally hoped to develope UI and a visual design that CTSK's web staff could execute on, but since they don't exactly have a web staff it looks, and since the end goal is to hook them up with a new site, it looks like I'll be coding, too. There are a couple people working in the CTSK office who do have some basic HTML proficiency, and they'll be managing content updates, so the final deliverable will have to match their level of experience–just simple, static HTML pages. This is a good thing for me, since I don't code much these days, so I won't get bogged down in the weeds of debuggery. Given our schedule and looming deadline (just over 7 days away), delivering even a static site will be a feat.

I striked the above paragraph rather than delete it to give a sense of how we're putting things together as we go. Ramping up and trying to contribute at the same time is a special kind of challenge, and changes in direction are par for the course.
For example:

After a check in call with Laura and Erika (from the UN), Megan and I are a bit more comfortable with the limitations of what we can do here in the time allowed. Rather than try to give CTSK the budget version of an Extreme Makeover, we're going to spend more time on developing requirements for a site redesign. Trying to do more pitted the usual suspects–scope, schedule and resources–against each other, with us caught in the middle. I do think I can spend a bit of time tidying up CTSK's current site, and fixing broken links, but a full redesign will follow a more disciplined process. When we get back, I'm sure we'll also be trying to enlist time and creativity from talented fellow co-workers.

And the deadline just gets closer…

Josh and I have been meeting with the folks at CTSK each morning to review the previous day's work and discuss next steps.  They've been incredibly responsive in collecting the information we need for the site and sharing it with us.

One of the struggles we're having is what exactly success looks like.  I think Josh mentions this in one of his posts, but it's quite a lot for the two of us to create an entirely new website for them in two weeks.  At the moment we're tossing around the idea of instead providing them with a complete design and implementation plan rather than the entire website…more to come as that discussion progresses.

Today after our meeting at the CTSK office we went to eat at a Yucatecan restaurant they recommended to us.  I had relleno negro, which is turkey filled with ground pork and hard boiled egg in some sort of bean soup (i think).  Dustin and Josh had queso relleno which is cheese stuffed with ground beef, olives and…some other stuff.  Then we went across the street for dessert and had elote (corn) ice cream, which was quite tasty.  After that we headed back to the hotel for more work on the website.

 megan

Futbol break (JDW)

Megan and I are at the CTSK offices this morning to rough out a work schedule. We are taking a short break at the moment while a couple of the guys run across the street to the house where the rest of the neighborhood is watching Mexico vs Portugal. It's a close game, with Portugal currently ahead. Fernando told me it'll be a national tragedy if they lose today.

Another beautiful day in Tulum

As I write this, Josh and I are sitting under the palm roof at the open air restaurant in our hotel.  They graciously setup wireless access for us so we're able to work out here with a beautiful view of the ocean and the pool.  They also set up an office for us, but unless the weather turns bad or the wireless stops working, I can't see myself moving indoors anytime soon. 

 Last night Josh and I went to dinner in Tulum with Laura and Kate at a place called El Mariachi.  They were super nice and the food was good (and Mexican, which is a plus!)  We had guacamole, queso fundido, tacos al pastor, ceviche de camarones, arrachera enchilada (grilled pork marinated in a chile marinade or rub) and un poco de tequila con sangrita, which is a mix of lime juice, tomato sauce and chile.  It was all good and there was a mariachi band too (though they were charging ten dollars per song, so we passed…and contemplated becoming mariachis.

Yesterday morning we went to the Community Tours Sian Ka'an (CTSK) office in Tulum and met with all of our counterparts there.  Josh and I started work on the website and will be going back each morning to meet with our counterparts, present what we've done and get feedback.

The overwhelming impression I've had so far is that this is a place of incredible natural beauty.  It's no wonder there have been civilizations here for thousands of years.

Anyway, all the other groups have headed in various directions (many to do the tour in Punta Allen, Laura to Cancun, Kate to Belize with Art).  We go in a few minutes to meet with our counterparts at CTSK, then it's back to the hotel to make some good progress on the website for CTSK.

 megan

Facing windward in the Maya Tankah restaurant (JDW)

The last couple days have been so tranquil that often, seeing the empty sun chairs, quiet pools, and the skeleton crew sitting at the beach cantina, I wonder what exactly it is about the weather that makes June the low season. My shoulders and knees and the tops of my feet are fried from yesterday's sun (poor sunscreen coverage, not to be repeated), and except for a few tall, narrow castle-looking clouds, we had a tremendous helping of blue skies. But just a few minutes ago I heard some thunder, the sky is hazy, and the trees don't cast shadows any more. I can still see pretty far into the horizon, towards the sea, the direction the wind's coming from, and it doesn't look like a storm yet, but when I'm done writing this I'm going to re-roof the rental Jeeps, because, even if it doesn't look like it yet, it definitely feels like rain.

The other guests all seem to be families or couples, and when we were sitting by the bar earlier this afternoon, excitedly brainstorming ideas for our projects, I'm pretty sure they didn't know what to make of us. Work is the furthest thing from their minds; I'm sure we seem depraved. But after the meeting at the Community Tours Sian Ka'an office this afternoon, we definitely were fired up. There's a lot to do, and it seems like a new idea or detail comes up every time we take up the topic, and personally I have to remind myself that even though I'm home in less than two weeks the project work is expected to go on beyond that. As Megan and I dig into the details and determine what exactly needs to be done, I'm sure it will help to think in terms of steps towards a goal, rather than attempting to do it all in a single step.

(Postscript: Didn't rain afterall… Low season? Bah! & I actually wouldn't mind some tropical showers.)

Wow! On the first day…and electrical fire!

Our first full day at Sian Ka’an was full of adventure! We started the day with a 2 hour hike through the jungle. Incredible. I was immediately struck by the overwhelming sound of birds. There are hundreds of species. I felt like I was at the zoo where they pipe in the sound…except it was real! The mosquitoes were also in abundance but bug spray came to our rescue.

Throughout the jungle we came upon several Maya ruins. One was a tall castle to observe the stars. We climbed to the top and the view over the jungle was spectacular. Next we came to a large lake…but they call it a lagoon. We boarded boats and cruised across the lagoon to a narrow canal that was craved by the Maya hundreds of years ago. The canal opened into another larger lagoon. Simply beautiful. At one point, we all got out of the boats and floated down the canal in our life jackets. There are many, many ways to where a life jacket in
Mexico. Most of us choose to wear them with our legs through the arm holes like a diaper. Not attractive but effective. J

We got back in the boats and headed toward the ocean. Then we stopped for lunch and then headed to a cenote for some snorkeling and swimming. Most of us avoided getting sunburned…except for a few shoulders here and there.

We returned to the hotel for a shower and then headed off to dinner with the members of the Sian Ka’an community and other participants in the program. There were roughly 40 of us at dinner. The night was capped by an electrical fire in the building next door and a power outage. No worries! We all just walked outside, watched the emergency vehicles and continued our conversations. When in
Mexico!

Today we’re headed to the Sian Ka’an offices for an orientation and then off to Punta Allen about 3 hours south of Tulum. Punta Allen is known for its fly fishing and wild dolphins.

I wonder what is going to happen today…

Into Sian Ka’an, or A Sky Is Born (JDW)

Since we've traveled towards 2 hours closer to GMT, I expected waking up at a productive hour here to be a challenge, but I was already an hour out of bed before CTSK's van arrival at 8am. Today was the Muyil trip, the only trip we were scheduled to do as a group, so the 5 Expedians, the 2 United Nationals, and this one Hotwire-guy (what's a good derivation for Hotwire?) all piled into the van together. Props to CTSK for operating with a clean, spacious and (most importantly) air-conditioned van. The heat here hasn't been nearly as bad I expected, but I think we're all going to be trying to view our experiences through the eyes of CTSK's customers, and their customers will definitely appreciate A/C.

The ride out to Muyil took us along the same highway that brought us from Cancun airport to Maya Tankah; two lanes with a wide shoulder that slower drivers bare to when impatient drivers want to pass. We didn't drive long, maybe 30 minutes? When we turned off the highway I was expecting the ride to continue down a more remote road, but the park entrance was right there off the highway.

 

Our guide, Pastor, advised us to put on bug spray before moving on, so for the next few minutes we made ourselves exceptionally slick and smelly with various brands of bug repellant. Good thing, too, because the mosquitoes we later found (or that found us) were big bullies, some of which couldn't have cared less about our repellant and bit us anyway.

  

The first part of the tour took included the jungle, cenotes (holes in the ground sometimes filled with water, sometimes dry), and ruins; Pastor said it would run about 2hrs, which seemed like a very long time, and I pictured us at the end of the day, exhausted and weary from hacking our way through jungle with machetes. Actually, the walk could probably have been completed in 30 minutes if one were to walk straight through, but we were strolling, stopping frequently when Pastor would draw our attention to the tree used to harvest resin for chewing gum, or a berry with natural bug repelling properties, or to invite us up the stairs of a temple ruin.

We were heading east, towards a lagoon, and as we got closer the jungle floor turned swampy, and the dirt path was replaced by a raised wood walkway that snaked around vines, ficus trees and ojos de agua ("eyes of water", great places for young mosquitoes to grow up). We walked a little faster at this point; another tour group had caught up to us at the temple ruins, and stayed on our heels until we got to the observation tower.

 

We stepped out from under the jungle canopy next to a wide, freshwater lagoon, and we took a break at picnic tables where CTSK had set out some snacks and a cooler of drinks.

 

After, it was time for bathing suits and sunscreen. The group of us divided into the two small boats, and we crossed the lagoon, navigating to the entrance of the narrow canal, man-made, we were told, by the Mayans for commerce. Canals connect a series of lagoons and eventually touching the sea, and the steady current ensures that the canals are not overgrown by the mangroves and saw grass that line them.

 

The first canal let out into another lagoon of brackish, darker water, and again we crossed. And in the middle of the next canal we docked at small clearing to get a closer look at the ruins of a Mayan trading post and toll both.

The toll booth marked the beginning of my favorite part of the trip. Floating. Standing on the dock, Pastor first demonstrated how to properly wear a life jacket, then demonstrated a variety of improper methods including The Diaper-vest, The Lounge Chair-vest, The Swing, and another whose name I will censor (but with one of the arm openings placed under the tush, it looked a bit like sitting on the toilet). We grabbed our vests, adopted our preferred method of flotation (I'm all about The Lounge Chair), and relaxed into 80-ish degree bathwater for about 45 minutes ("Five Mexican minutes," said Pastor). When I get back, I'm supposed to go on a float down the Russian River for the 4th of July, and I'm sure that the whole way down I'll go on about how magical the Muyil float is, until someone pops has to sink my raft.

After the float, we boated to the end of the canals, where they meet the sea. It might've been a more inspiring sight without all the trash that littered the beach. Art (from the UN) told me that the pollution didn't come from the local communities; a study had determined that the garbage from cities above and below the area, and garbage from cruise ships gets picked up in currents and carried to the Sian Ka'an coast.

We boated back along the maze of canals and lagoons, docking for the last time at the visitor center for my 2nd favorite activity of the day–lunch. We ate Mayan chicken tamales and salsa, freshly made by women in the co-op for each tour group. Lunch was followed by a food coma. When we came to, Fernando from CTSK gave a more detailed description of the history of the local communities, and told us how, by working together on guidelines for sustainable growth and commerce, they hoped to protect this World Heritage site from the sort of unchecked development that could eventually ruin it.

At this point, I was expecting the tour to be over. It was only early afternoon, but it had already been a long day. But we had one more stop on our itinerary. We rode in the van to the edge of the Sian Ka'an reserve, grabbed our masks and snorkels, and when for a swim in dark, quiet cenote–a big hole filled with water from an underground stream. Before we jumped in, Olger's sunglasses slipped off his neck and disappeared into the water. A few of us tried diving for them, but the water was pretty deep, maybe 18 feet, and the warm layer near the surface the water was turned cold. I think Olger had pretty much written them off, but then Marco, a guide with rescue diving experience, came up with them right before it was time to go.

Then it really was the end of the tour. It was all fantastic, but it was a little longer than I think most people would have patience for, especially if they have kids in tow, and it seems like they could consider 1/2 day tours with shorter walks through the jungle and a float. Olger and Janice will be talking all about that in their entries, though, no doubt.

Tomorrow's agenda includes a half-day orientation with members of CTSK and the co-ops it supports, followed by breakouts with the 3 teams.

All packed and ready to go!

Well, it's 11:30 pm on Saturday night and I'm finally all packed.  I'm sure I've forgotten something, but hopefully nothing important.  I'm really excited to be leaving tomorrow for the Yucatan!  Guess I better get some sleep before my ride to the airport shows up at 4am (yes, 4am).  Hasta pronto!

2 Weeks = 1 Suitcase, 1 Timbuk2 laptop bag, 1 Backpack (JDW)

I spent the day with my wife – I packed, and she reminded me of things I forgot to pack. Items I'm bringing include: Lots of t-shirts (including 5 Hotwire shirts for my fellow team members from Expedia, and Kate from the UN — thanks, Lindsay!), a swimsuit, shorts, pants (for the formal dinners), books (The Name of the Rose, Collapse: Why Choose to Fail and Sometimes Succeed, Little Scarlet, and a Spanish-English Dictionary), my iPod, a 4 mega pixel Canon Elf (last year's last year's model), a BlackBerry to keep me connected to my homies at Hotwire, multiple bug sprays and salves, a laptop (currently in-use), and other miscellany. I'm going to bed early, so hopefully I'll catch a bit of rest before my 3:50am Supershuttle appointment.

Last day in the office (JDW)

Leading up to the trip it seems like there are a million things to do, I've given myself plenty of homework. I've been auditing tourism sites, trying to get a sense of best design practices; I've been trying to learn a bit more Spanish with the Foreign Correspondent Language series; collecting items on our 'to-bring' list. To help prepare me for the trip, my Hotwire team took me for lunch at a Mexican taqueria in the Ferry Building on my last day.

HW's UI Team — I'm the hansome fellow, 3rd from the left.