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Published: November 26th 2008
We flew into Cancun to clear skies and sunshine (which came with the obligatory heat and humidity). After going through customs, and Mom and Dad's first stamp on their passports we were on our way. I was super excited to see my parents as they experienced another country, especially Mexico! We headed towards Chichen Itza on the toll road and stopped at Valladolid to get gas. The attendent filled up the tank and the total came to $285 pesos, we gave him $300 and he said the total was $385. We looked at the meter but he had already started another vehicle... hmmm. So, our first transaction in Mexico was us getting ripped off by the gas station attendent. Great!
We arrived at the Dolores Alba Hotel and had a delicious Yucatan dinner. The next morning, after a delicious breakfast of fruit we took a dip in their famous cenote swimming pool which had uneven limestone all over the bottom. Super cool. Chichen Itza was of course amazing. We walked in to see the Pyramid of Kukulcan magnificently rising up. I was really bummed to learn that we could no longer climb the Pyramid- it is so amazing on the
Doloras Alba
This is the cenote swimming pool at the Dolores Alba with the profession models I hired.top. There are 365 steps, and on the Spring and Fall equinoxes it creates a shadow effect of the snake crawling down the Pyramid. We admired the Pyramid from the ground and heard the echoes, you could clap at the bottom of the Pyramid and hear a poingy clap come back to you. The ball court and some of the other buildings also had amazing acoustics. To realize that these were made so long ago and yet they had such a good understanding of astronomy and acoustics. The Ball Court was beautiful with many steles and again amazing acoustics. You could hear what was being said on the other end of the field.
My parents, each toting expensive cameras proved to be highly sought after clients from the vendors in the ruins. Before we had reached the Sacred Cenote were already had a small load of souvenirs. We continued on past the Temple of the Warriors (which is our temple - Creager means warrior) and awed at the columns. Each square colulmn is carved differently for each warrior- beautiful. At the Marketplace we witnessed a guy doing a handstand in the middle of the courtyard, hmmm. His friends thought
it extremely funny that we were taking his picture. There was a sign for the Bano de Vapor, we speculated what the Vapor meant. We thought maybe it meant an outhouse (no running water) so we went to go to the bathroom. Well, it was an ancient steam bath- ah- bano de vapor- hehe. We made our way to the Caracol (due to the spiral staircase) aka the Observatory, Dad was really excited to see this building and the windows that are aligned to the equinoxes. It really is a beautiful and huge building. Then we moved onto The Nunnery and the Church, both amazingly beautiful buildings with intracate carvings. I really liked to see the different building stages of the Nunnery.
In all Chichen Itza was amazing and awe inspiring as I remembered it, but the large crowds were a little annoying. When constantly surrounded by people it's hard to feel some of the spiritual awe of it. And the vendors were distracting and annoying as well. It was cool to see one of the Wonders of the World with my parents! Tired and hungry we stopped in Piste for dinner and the restaurant had murals of the
Chichen Itza dragon fly!
Very hard to get a shot of. Mayan gods! As we drove to Merida on the free road we saw the small villages up close, cemetaries and wildlife, which was mainly dogs. We developed a Darwinian theory of dogs that only the ones smart enough to avoid being hit by cars are allowed to reproduce. Hmm...
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Andrew
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I love you
I finally checked my old e-mail account and found your blog very cool pics and glad you had another fun out of country experience.