Day 21

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Day 21
26/05/2019
Tulum (Mayan Ruins)

Up early for our amazing beach buffet breakfast and back to the front of the lobby for the tour of the Mayan ruins. The coach picked us up and we had about a 50 minute drive down to the site. Once we arrived we met our guide who is from Mayan decent that would be taking us around and explaining the history and important information. Everywhere we went there were iguanas and they choose either the top of a rock or fence up high or in the sun next to a rock. The Mayan people can be traced back to 15,000 years ago and came from Mongolia and they were a highly intelligent race. They used astronomy to create calendars in which they used to plant crops and track the seasons. The Mayans had the 3 key things to create a civilisation which was numeracy, agriculture and language. Their buildings did not have any windows but had small holes (like where a brick had been left out) in the walls that would allow the sunlight to come in. When the sunlight reached a certain mark inside the building that was when they knew it was time to sew their crops. They were clever enough to have designed a hole in the external wall that would provide a warning of an approaching hurricane. As the winds became stronger a warning sound was made. This alerted them to move inland to safer, higher ground. We were told of the self-sacrifices that were made by both men and women. They had built the city on a high coastal area where they could track the sun and also the stars at night. They had their own government. It was such an amazing experience to walk around these ruins and to take in the history. Next visit to Mexico will definitely include a trip to Chichen Itza where they built the temple which is their calendar. After a free walk around the ruins we hit the shops to buy some trinkets. We arrived back at the resort just after lunch and decided that we needed to hit the pool. So the rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around the pool with a few drinks. Ron then gave us our first snorkelling lesson in the pool .We had so much fun, although I couldn’t stay down on the bottom as I seem to be too buoyant! I suppose it isn’t really a problem. Dinner as at the buffet again as we have found that the food is really good. After dinner we sat and watched the late night entertainment and had a few drinks and a chat.

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Comments

[Tracey Gaffney]

Striking a balance
It sounds like you found a good balance between sightseeing and relaxing. A morning out learning about the ancient culture nicely balanced with an afternoon by the pool. Sounds like a perfect holiday to me! ??T