Playa del Carmen, Day 5

Our tour today was long, but we were able to see some amazing things.  Our guide was Jose, and he took us to Chichen Itza and to Ek Balam.  The public is no longer allowed to climb the pyramid at Chichen Itza, which is a bummer, but understandable.  Jose told us that they have had problems with graffiti, so they no longer allow the public to go inside of the pyramid and see the inner chamber either.  Basically you can just walk around and look at things from behind ropes.  While we were there today, the ball court was having restoration done, so we couldn’t see that either.  But Chichen Itza is phenomenal.  You can seriously look around and just imagine the Mayan people carrying on their lives there.  Today was the equinox (September 21), and so this afternoon, something like 15,000-20,000 people were there to witness the phenomenon that occurs when the light hits the pyramid just right and it makes a design similar to a diamond-back rattlesnake because of all the angles on the pyramid.  We were there in the morning, however, so we didn’t have to deal with all the crowds – just 15,000-20,000 vendors trying to sell us silver necklaces for one dollar.  I wish we’d had more time there.  We didn’t even get to see the astronomy tower or the palace.  But what we did see was amazing.

After Chichen Itza, we went to Xkeken, which is one of a zillion cenotes around here.  A cenote is basically a sinkhole.  The entire Yucatan peninsula is a flat bed of limestone, and wherever caves or pockets have formed, and water has filled the bottom, you have a cenote.  Xkeken is underground, and you can see stalactites hanging from the ceiling – some nearly touching the water.  It was beautiful.  Several people were there snorkeling or swimming, but we just got our feet wet, saw some blind fish that bumped into our feet, and shopped in the stands up above ground.  Jeff and I got some dresses for Faith and Lauren.

There were some girls there selling handkerchiefs and Mayan dresses for Barbies.  After we walked away, one girl was hit by a boy who we assumed was her brother and started screaming.  While everyone was taking a restroom break, I started talking to the girl and said that I had brothers too, so I knew how it was. She told me it was just a crazy neighborhood boy from her village. Well, we bought one of the Barbie dresses, and had a friend in her the rest the time we were there.  She followed our group for the next hour, helping the other kids down the steps into the cenote, offering to take pictures for us, and then (of course) trying to convince us we wanted to buy some bottled water before we left, too.

Then on to Valladolid, which is a colonial-era city.  Jose really just showed us the church there and then we ate in a restaurant.  I don’t know about what the rest of the group had but my food was delicious.  It was pork baked in a sauce of paprika, salt, and pepper, and served with pickled onions.  I don’t even like pork, but I would eat that every day.  I wish I could remember what it was called.

There was a plaza just across the street from the church, and in it, there were these cool seats where two people could sit and face each other.

Our last stop of the day was Ek Balam.  This is another Mayan site, but it hasn’t been fully restored yet like Chichen Itza has.  We could climb anything we wanted.  There is a pyramid there which we climbed.  The steps were much easier than Coba, because they weren’t so crumbled.  This pyramid is 40 meters high – the second highest in the Yucatan.  (Chichen Itza is 38 meters.)  Ek Balam might just have been my favorite of the Mayan sites – mostly because of an area on the pyramid where the carvings are just phenomenal.  This part has been restored, and the carvings are larger and more pronounced than in other sites.  They were beautiful.  And because the pyramid is so close to all the other buildings there, you can almost imagine how it would be to be a priest or other leader of the people, stand on top of that pyramid, and look over daily life there.  It really was incredible.  Unfortunately, we were kind of late getting to Ek Balam, so we only had an hour total at the site before it closed and we had to leave.

View from the top of the pyramid:

View of the pyramid:

Michael loved climbing everything he could:

Some of the carvings partway up the pyramid:

Our family at the top:

Highlights of the day: Authentic Mayan food for lunch; the little girl at the cenote; Faith and Lauren in their Mexican dresses for dinner; Faith letting Lauren hold her Barbie dress, and pointing out where Barbie’s head, arms, and legs would stick out from it; the kids singing in the back seat of the van; Kari and Emily singing songs they used to when they were growing up; Jeff throwing in his own goofy accompaniment; Michael, Faith and Amanda sleeping in the back seat.