Chichen Itza

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Hola,
We got up early, but didnt leave the hostel until late (after the previous entry and many other things we had to do). about 10am we wandered down to the bus terminal, but on the way found a colectivo (minibus) that goes to chichen itza for only 20pesos each instead of the 60 we would hae paid on the bus.
we had to wait half an hour for it to leave but we didnt mind. It was a full colectivo but the man next to us, Manuel gave us entertainment. he works at chichen itza selling books and told us all about how the site used to be owned by one family who were forced to sell it to the government recently for around $20 million US. I didnt catch all the info but Dario relayed most of it to me :)

We got to Itza around 11.30 as allll the tour buses full of mostly french and american tourists arrived. We bought the tickets and there is free luggage storage (we brought our rucksacks) which we used. The ruins themselves are pretty damn amazing! the first one you see as you walk up the pathway lined with artisans selling you anything for a literal dollar was the famous Chichen Itza pyramid you see on postcards.... and it looke the same! beautiful with a blue sky background! The rest of the ruins are cool woth a whole wall having heiroglyphs of skulls and a lot of the rest of the ruins had decorations including warriors, jaguars eating human hearts and scary skulls and eagles. There was a particular building we got excited about, called the observatory, a big round area on top that had significance withj the mayan calendar (we didnt have a guide so only had the info from the tablets there for us to read). There was also a giant cenote that has been expolred that has many offerings that the mayans threw in, including bones of young children and adult men (sacrifices). All in all a great 3 hours and many ''no gracias, no gracias'' to all the artisan seler who were all enthused to sell us anything!

We bought our bus tickets to Merida and ended up sleeping most of the 2.5 hour trip, arriving at dusk. THe walk to our planned hostel was about 15 mins, but my feet are so sore unfortunately... i have a giant blister on each of my pinky toes which i somehow got while wearing my boots, and a giant blood blister between my big toe and next toe on one foot from my thongs! i cant win! but they all seem to be turning into callouses so soon i should be able to walk as far as i like! Dario has no pain at all... im very jealous! The hostel we are at is called Nomads. We got a private room again because a dorm bed each costs the same all up. plus we noticed the noisy guy from the tulum hostel is here... dont want to do that again.
DInner was great, walked to the night markets about 4 blocks away and had $5 peso tacos! we walndered around and found a lady selling jewellary etc but also some scarab beetles with beautiful decorations on their backs in gold and beads, they were all wandering around and she said they were broches, you pin the end of the chain that is glued to them onto your shirt and they tend to sit still!

Off to a shower and bed, buenas noches. x

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