Chicken pizza
Trip Start
Dec 16, 2010
1
12
21
Trip End
Jan 01, 2011
Chichén Itzá, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
OK. Chichen Itza is kinda like the White House, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty. It's very famous. We've all seen pictures of it. You can't go to Mexico & drive right by Chichen Itza without stopping to see it. You'll have to explain yourself to everyone who asks about your vacation for the rest of your life. So we went to see it.
I will say that the grounds are vast. I even got lost a few times. The big pyrimad is nice. The rows of columns are cool. Other than that it's the Disney World of Mexico. There must have been 20 tour buses there. There are 100's & 100's of locals selling their wares - outside the park, on the way into the park, and all over inside the park. Even if you find a relatively tourist free zone, some local is playing the jaguar screaming instrument, or a drum, or saying "one dollar, one dollar". I couldn't wait to get out of the place. Unfortunately we were lost, so it took awhile. The one thing I did want to see was a big let down. There is a sacred cenote there that they used to throw sacrificial victims & valuable offerings into. Supposedly bones of men, women, & children are in there. It just looked like a little sinkhole you might see in Bedford. No biggie. I guess there were lots of valuables in there, but some Harvard professor bought Chichen Itza back in 1915, dug all the good stuff out of the cenote & now it's in a museum at Harvard. The locals aren't to thrilled about that.
When we finally made it out of Chichen Itza, we continued on back on our way. Next we stopped at a famous cenote. We agreed to pay 3 little boys 15 pesos to watch our car while we swam. The cenote is down in a cave. Once you hit those stairs, you would swear you were caving in Southern Indiana. Limestone caves in the Yucatan, who'd thought? I was a little nervous about jumping in the water, afraid it would be ice cold. Aren't caves supposed to be 52 degrees? But the water was great! It was cool, but a refreshing cool. The kind of cool you want after a hot day of ignoring tourists & locals alike at Mexican Disney World. The water is crystal clear. You can see stalactites & stalagmites. Don't ask me which is which cause I forgot. I am sure I saw some of both though. Now I really want a cenote! I think most of the pictures we took there turned out badly, but I'll try to put up whatever's decent. We gave the 3 little boys 30 pesos for the whole car watching thing. Then they tried to say we owed them more! Cute, but devious little guys.
Now back to Playa del Carmen to catch the ferry to Cozumel. Russ is all stressed out about where we are going to park the car while we are there. I am stressed out about making the ferry on time. The website says the last ferry leaves at 10, but in Mexico, things are subject to change.
Russell:
I just wrote for Dec 23. Let us see what I remember about the 22. I woke up lay naked on the floor. OK that was a lie but I did get your attention. Not to mention grossed many of you out. We needed to leave Merida today. We got up and had breakfast. Julie being Julie tacked on going back to a store and an old church on the square. The old church had beggars we gave money too and the store just took our money. We did have an issue with our Credit card; Julie had to take care of when we went back to the hotel. The card company got scared of all the Mexican charges. When we were about to leave the hotel, the man we meet at Uzmal was just finishing his breakfast. He is pretty cool and Julie was working on the card so we talked for about an hour. He was deciding to fly to Cuba. We left to go to Chizan Itza and we had a little over quarter of a tank of gas. I was going to get gas on the edge of town. I missed it! I ass u me that we would pass one and continued on to Chiza Itza. I was wrong and sweated it out for over 110 kilometers. By the time we got to Chiza Itza the gas light had been on for awhile and I was wondering what I would do to get gas. We did find one and got to Chiza Itza. We did a little shopping but then went into Chiza Itza. This Maya ruin is considered a must see and is about 2.6 square miles. We stayed about 45 minutes. Every trail had sellers that where very aggressive and you could climb on nothing. Compared to Ek Balam and Uzmal it was a let down. It did have some nice features. Big Jaguars in stone and areas with just huge amounts of columns. It also had areas you could see the archeologist excavation techniques. That was enlightening on how things looked as they dug. We left to go to a Cenote. It was late and getting dark when got there. We paid to have our car watched by three little greedy boys, who agreed on 15 pesos to watch the card. We swam for a few minutes in the Cenote. It had some nice formations of Stalactites. When we went back to the care I paid each 10 pesos and the head guy wanted 15 for himself. I reminded him we had agreed on 15 for all and I paid 30. We left in peace. Then the hell drive at night for over two hours. We got back to Playa De Carmen and had to find a place to store the car. It took a couple hours. We got tickets for the 10pm trip to Cozumel and waited. I had a subway and Julie had a yard of Margarita(really). We made it over and to the hotel Playa Azul around 11pm. Night Night.
Comments
Pictures are stunning. I have never seen this before. WOW!!!!
Could you be a little more specific in your captions?