This morning, we're up at seven. I had a big omlette for breakfast. Okay, maybe that;s not exactly something that I couldn't eat at home (remember my vow to only eat authentic Mexican food on this trip), but it WAS Mexican, and it WAS good, it was mad by a Mexican, and I had salsa on it... so there! At 9:15 we picked up our box lunches at the front desk (since it's all inclusive, if you're going to miss a meal, they'll pack you one - kewl!) and boarded our bus to Chichen Itza.
The bus first stopped at Plaza La Fiesta for 1/2 n hour and we were forces to walk around a huge overpriced warehouse of tacky souvenirs, but at 10:15 boarding began again, and we got outta there without spending anything.
Chichen Itza is in another state, so we had to go through a border checkpoint between Quintana Roo and Yukatan state - interesting... a border crossing just going from one state to the next? There was also a fairly expensive toll booth - $190 pesos for a bus. After two hours of driving, we stopped at a tribal gift shop, where everything was still too expensive. Well, everything except the tacos and beer... I got 3 tacos, a beer, and two bottles of water for 50p, so that was a pretty good deal! About half an hour after that, we were at Chichen Itza.
Oh - I didn't mention the storm on the way in! Rain like you wouldn't believe... almost all the way - but when we got to the ruins, it was HOT (38 degrees) and MUGGY. Humidity was 100%, and even the Mexicans were dripping. No, seriously - our tour guide said "It's only 36 to 38 today - that's typical for the spring - we'll see 45 to 50 degrees in a couple of months - but what we're feeling right now is not the heat, it's the humidity. This is absolutely unbearable humidity - even for us Mexicans. Because of the rain earlier, which is never supposed to happen in the hot season - if this were ancient times, this would be a sign that the gods were angry, and someone would be sacrificed for sure!"
The runis were amazing. We were very fortunate to be able to (mostly) stay in the shade all day, but it was still a very sweaty, drippy, sticky day... we had over 30 square miles of ancient city to check out... big city, long day!
We climbed the pyramid, both outside and inside, and in all, spent about four full hours on the grounds before going for dinner.
We had what they 'said' was cochinita pibil and pollo pibil, but they didn't even taste remotely like waht I made... either I'm a great cook, or I'm a terrible one... or we were just eating at a really bad restaurant, or maybe they just lied about it being pibil. Well, it was good - hell, all Mexican food is good! I just wish it was what I expected. During dinner, four kids (maybe aged 8 to 11?) came in, wearing traditional costumes, and did a bunch of traditional dances for us. The most impressive was probably when they repeated a previously furious dance with half full bottles of Corona on their heads - great balance!!! We gave them a couple 'o' bucks, then it was back on the bus and heading back to see the Chichen Itza night time light show, which was supposed to start at 8. We were there 15 minutes early. Carole bought two carvings of Mayan gods for two bucks, from one of the vendors outside who was just packing up for the night and trying to get out of there... helluva deal!
About 10 minutes to eight, the thunder and lightning started ... and then the RAIN - WHOOOOOWEEEE, the rain! We had to wait until 8:10 to see if the show was going to go on, and since the rain was tapering off, they went ahead - unfortunately though, the translator headphones that we were looking forward to getting don't work in the rain (the 1 hour show is in spanish, but you can get headphones that translate to english) so we couldn't get any. We ended up watching the 45 minute show in the pouring rain, in spanish - but at least all the thunder and lightning really added to the show!
At 9 PM we all loaded back on to the bus, and had a bit of a snooze before getting back to the hotel at 11:30. Our fullest day so far!
Posted by Calvin at April 28, 2004 04:57 PM