Cancun-Day 2: Chichen Itza

Sunday morning had us up early to get ready for our adventure to Chichen Itza--who can complain when you wake up to sunrises like this one--Thank you God for sunrises!
Terri had arranged for us to be taken to Chichen Itza in a private van with a tour guide that spoke English. Milton was his name and he was a true joy all day--answering our many questions about life in Mexico and even helping us bartor and shop at a market at the end of the day--here is our day at Chichen Itza!

Waking up to a beautiful sunrise!

Here we all are in front of Milton's van ready to take off on a 2 hour journey.

Our first view of Chichen Itza--the Maya ruins.
We had another tour guide here who met us and took us on a 2 1/2 hour tour--we
had no idea the place was so big--he told us to see the whole thing, it would
take you 3 days. Well, the ruins were very impressive, but 2 1/2 hours in the hot, humid sun
was enough for all of us--luckily there were many shade trees.
This is one of the 7 wonders of the world, so we can say we have seen it!

This is what welcomes you to Chichen Itza!

Down the side of this temple was the body of a snake with the head of
the snake being at the bottom by the grass.

Listening to our tour guide.

Layne and I at Chichen Itza.

More sculpture work.

There were 2 of these big walls and in the middle is where the Maya's played a game.
In the middle of the wall close to the top is a ring in which the players had to get a ball through. The kicker is that the winner got beheaded--which of course was a great honor!

Where's iguana at?????

Jacob taking an upclose shot of this cool piece.

Our family at Chichen Itza.

Another part of the ruins.

This circle building was the last stop on our tour--we left around 12:30 and there were
tons of people just coming in--with the hot sun pouring down, we
were thankful that we had come in the early morning!

Lunch was by far the most unusual part of our whole trip--Milton had
encouraged us to try Mexican food for lunch--sounded great to us--he took us someplace where he knew the food was good and safe for us Americans to eat--also very important.
It was a Mexican buffet--we got to the restarunt around 1:00 and we were the only ones there--very weird, but we had great service--we could barely take the last bite before they were swiping our plates away to get us a new one. This was a buffet, but the waiters all served you the food--and they all wore masks--so that was a little different as well.
While we were eating, several of the staff got on stage and did some dancing for us.

The dancing was fun to watch--but again a little weird since we were the only ones
in the restaruant--and then of course after they had finished their dance, they held up a
sign for "Tips for the Dancers"--we saw this several times throughout our vacation in Cancun--despite the strange environment, the food was good!

After lunch, Milton took us back to Cancun--right as we got to Cancun, Kristi and I had to
use the bathroom, so Milton found something similar to a gas station for us to go--he went with us to the door to talk to the owners in Spanish to see if we could use the bathroom--they let us--it was very dirty--almost like an outhouse and it cost 5 pesos for each of us to use the bathroom--what a wonderful memory!
Once back in Cancun--Milton took us to a Market that was safe for us to shop and bartor and we had fun looking at all the items in the many stores and bargaining our way to good prices for the items we wanted--Brynn got one pretty dress for $13 that we talked down from $19!

That evening when we returned we just relaxed in our room
and around the pools and Layne and I took these pictures on our way
back to our room that night--above is the fountains at our hotel and below is the strip mall
that was across the street from our hotel!