Day 4

So on the fourth day we planned to go to this eco-park. Apparently this place had tons of animals and an underground river and snorkeling and fantastic night shows- all for only $135 a head. Okay, so that's pretty pricey for Mexico- but lots of people recommend it. By the time we got to the bus station though, we figured we wouldn't get to the park until almost noon. We didn't want to only spend half of the day for that much money, so we planed to start earlier the next morning. We decided to go shopping in downtown Cancun, Mercado 28, instead. Mercado 28 is this huge market where tons of people sell stuff. It was not as authentic as Chitza Nitza because most of the people selling the stuff hadn't actually made it, but it was still fun. We were there for about 4 hours and we still didn't see all of the shops. We kept getting confused about where we had been. We bought lots of stuff. I got a Nativity set, and we got lots of stuff for presents. Barbara was very excited because she bought a guitar for $50!
We ate lunch/breakfast at this restaurant in the market that did look a little questionable. Devon ate one of the not entirely cooked eggs that was on my breakfast- and lived to regret it for a few days. I guess that has to happen in Mexico!
This is us at the restaurant. There were some guys there playing a xylophone too. When Devon started taking a video one of they guys started dancing too.



So in the mid afternoon we went back to the hotel. Devon took a nap- and I tried to go to the beach. You couldn't swim in the ocean because it was a "red day" which means the ocean is too crazy to swim in. It was very pretty though. That is my one regret with this trip- I wish we could have spent more time on the beach. It was mostly to windy to enjoy it, but it was so pretty.
That night Devon and I went out on the town. At first we tried to find this museum of Mexican art. We always have to have one experience like this on every trip. We got off the bus way to early and ended up walking almost 2 Kilometers to get to the museum which of course had been closed down for some time. We got some good picture on the way though.



While were were waiting to catch the bus to downtown this bus came. It was the bus we wanted, but it was packed, and somehow about 10 more people got on. You can see how packed it was though because one guy got his backpack stuck in the door!

After there was no museum we caught the bus and went downtown. We just explored for a little while. We went to the tourist building and they were doing some kind of ceremony there. It was very interesting.



We also saw some teenager selling cigarettes.

Then we went to this restaurant called La Habichuela. Our book recommended it, but we didn't know it would be such a nice place. We ate in this garden. The waiter mixed up the dressing and our chef salad right in front of us.


After the salad they gave us something to cleanse our pallet- that's pretty swanky!

We ate Mole (Devon's favorite) and some kind of stuffed fish. It was all really good, but my favorite past was the grilled banana-it was so good. luckily it was about half of the price you would pay in the US for something like that.

Day 3

We didn't do a whole lot on the third day. It was Sunday. We traveled back to Cancun in the morning and found the church that our tour guide Carlos had told us about. It is interesting to sit through a whole church meeting in another language. After church these girls from the ward offered to drive us to our hotel. This was very nice because it was actually quite a bit further away than we thought. We decided to stay in a resort hotel so that Barbara would be safe and comfortable in her own room. Since it was the hurricane season there, the rooms were only about $60 a night. It was a pretty nice hotel- not as much character, but still nice.
In the late afternoon/evening Devon and I went to Isla Mujeres, a small island close to Cancun. We rode the ferry over to the Isla. Actually getting to the ferry was a lot harder than we thought it would be since a bus doesn't go there anymore.

After we got to the island we realized that the thing we wanted to see (a sculpture garden) closed at 5, and we got there at 4:45. We ended up just kind of exploring the island. It was nice to just relax and not be on a schedule. We really like the real-Mexico, and so there were a lot of fun things for us to see.


It was a little windy- okay it was really windy, so it wasn't exactly a good day for sitting on the beach. They had these giant sand bags to break the waves, I think so the island wouldn't just wash away- it was pretty small.



This is a courtyard at a hotel we saw. I tell you, Mexican hotels are amazing. There we hammocks swinging all over and all there beautiful plants, I could just hang out in a Mexican hotel for a few weeks!

These other pictures are just kind of random things that we saw.







After a few hours we rode the ferry back. We actually almost missed it because we were standing in the wrong ferry line- but we saw our ferry pull up. On the way back there was a guy playing a guitar and singing on the way back. I really wish you could actually make a living doing that in the US, because it's so nice to have live music wherever you go. Actually on the bus ride back to the hotel there was a guy singing and playing the guitar too. He was pretty talented, because there was only standing room on the bus, and he was standing up, playing the guitar and singing while the bus was jerking along. I can barely stand up when I'm holding on!
Anyway, this is a picture of the water lit up by the boat.

We sat on the top and listened to the music- it was very romantic! I just love being with Devon. That was my favorite part of the whole trip, not the ferry ride, just being with Devon (without any kids screaming).

Day 2

On the second day we went to another ruin called Chitza Nitza.
This was my favorite ruin. It was also built in the height of the classical period. Everything was so ornate. It seemed like every stone had a carving on it. They think it took about 53 years to build the big temple in the center.




One thing that was fun about Chitza Nitza was the shopping . There were tons of stands set up by the side of the walkways. Most of the things were made by the people who where selling them, which was kind of fun. The only bad thing was that you really couldn't just stop and look without someone hounding you. The sellers were not just lined up on the walkways, they actually were all over the ruins and they would yell out "One dollar, only one dollar!" they would actually be holding up something really nice, but then if you said, "I'll buy that for one dollar." They would either pull something else out of their pocket to sell for one dollar, or say it was one dollar off. It would have been ideal if they just stayed by the walkways so you could enjoy the ruins without being pounced on, but it was pretty fun to bargain. Devon actually got 2 masks and a wooden carving of a Mexican sleeping. The guy who made the carving started out at $114 dollars, but eventually sold it for about $28 dollars. Devon was very excited about that purchase.






We got so caught up in buying stuff that we saw very little of the ruins in the morning. We went inside the building to get lunch, and then it started pouring! We stayed inside for quite awhile, but it didn't look like it would clear up. We bought some ponchos and went out again. It was actually kind of fun to walk around in the rain. We were soaked, but it wasn't cold. A few times it let up a little so we felt okay about taking out our camera to take pictures.


One of the most amazing things in Chitza Nitza was the ball court. It was huge! My sister told us later that one person could stand at one end and talk in a normal voice, and could be hear very clearly by people at the other end because it is perfectly acoustic. The walls were so tall. So the short version-(the only one I know) of the Mayan ball game is that people had to get a rubber ball through the ring at the top of the wall using only their elbows, hips and knees, no hands. Some people say the loser was sacrificed at the end of the game, others say it was the winner, but the consensus is that someone died at the end of the ballgame, which could last for days.




The second and third nights we stayed in a little town called Valladolid. We stayed in a nice Mexican hotel. I love nice Mexican hotels. They are economy price (this on was about $60 a night for 3 of us) and they have so much character. I love the courtyards. I just love the atmosphere, it is so relaxing! This is the view from the balcony of our hotel.

These are some pictures in the courtyard, which also had a pretty good restaurant in it. We ate there the first night was stayed in Valladolid.




After we got back from Chitza Nitza we had some time to explore the town. We actually went to this restaurant that was recommended in our book. It was a very good food. Right by it was a park with lots of people selling stuff, and one of my favorite things about Mexico- people dancing and playing music.