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The Daily Blog

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Cancun update

It's hotter than hell here... something like 98 degrees with 80%
humidity. It is a jungle after all.

There are people that are good on tours, and people that don't enjoy
guided tours at all. I have to admit, I'm the latter. I hate being
led around by the nose and told when and where to be... I was really
just hoping to book transportation the 200 km or so to the Mayan
ruins at Chichen Itza but we decided to book this tour. What should
have been 2 hours or so there, turned in 6 hours by the time we
picked up all the rest of the people going along, and stopped at the
shopping centers that our tour guide, Jorge, got a commission
from... then we stopped at one of the 'cenotes' at Ik Kil today...
they are giant sinkholes, basically the roof of a cavern over an
underground river that has collapsed on itself. There were lots of
people swimming and jumping in from a high platform carved into the
wall. And after a rather unappetizing buffet lunch, we FINALLY made
it to the site.

Our guide was very knowledgeable about the site, though we had to
hear every fact at least three times, usually because he repeated
himself twice, and then some moron would ask him to answer a question
that he had just answered. Makes me absolutely crazy... and you know
there always has to be at least one mother on the bus that complains
about everything, and asks people to move so she can have a more
comfortable seat, and then blabs the entire trip... she sat a couple
of rows behind us.

UncleMonkeyBoi says that he had waited 20 years to go to Chichen
Itza, and had read everything he could about it in high school. He
was very excited about getting to go. After a lengthy lesson from
Jorge, Michael and I climbed that gigantic pyramid whose narrow steps
are almost completely straight up. That nearly killed me in the
heat... and THEN... we decided to go inside the pyramid, which
involved climbing up these EXTREMELY narrow stairs in a VERY SMALL
hallway. It was like climbing into a coffin attic. If you ever find
yourself there, I recommend avoiding the inside staircase. Though
our tour guide told us that at the end of the month they will be
closing the Kukulcan temple to the public and it's likely you won't
have that problem.

The site is over run with monitor lizards and grey iguanas. It was
really quite amusing to see them running free everywhere. I played
with one in a tree while Jorge was rambling on. There was a
relatively cute guy on our tour with his girlfriend who turned out to
be quite skittish when I pointed out the bats that were hanging in
the ceiling of one of the ruins. She gave a nice startled screech and
ran out... her doting boyfriend right behind her. I think they are
actually staying in the Flamingo Hotel with us, but we hadn't seen
them before or since. They weren't exactly friendly, so whatever.

I will be putting pictures up once I get home and can properly edit
these posts. I'm sending everything via email at the moment because
access to webpages is rather spotty. We have booked ourselves on
another tour (oh boy) to Xel-Ha and Tulum for first thing in the
morning. This should be a bit more up my alley, because we get to go
snorkeling in an underground river, and we are promised more wildlife.

Until next time.

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