Yucatan (Mexico)

The only thing better than an early morning start to a tour is when your allocated time passes and you're still waiting and waiting at the pick-up point. Luckily for me, one of the guys who works at the tour place turned up early for work and called the company to see where they were. They thought they were meeting me in Playacar, but somehow they were still there within 5 minutes which is weird since Playacar is further away than that. We set off ...
...couple and 3 Spanish families. First stop is barely an hour down the road in Tulum where we have a pit stop to use some lovely broken toilets with even more broken doors. I buy a fancy-ass Magnum (as eaten by Eva Longoria) and promptly drop half the chocolate down my top (the turquoise Tesco tank which exactly matches by fancy-ass rucksack).

2 hours and some interesting Mexican music later we are at Chichén Itzá. Gerry meets up with ... more

The only thing better than an early morning start to a tour is when your allocated time passes and you're still waiting and waiting at the pick-up point. Luckily for me, one of the guys who works at the tour place turned up early for work and called the company to see where they were. They thought they were meeting me in Playacar, but somehow they were still there within 5 minutes which is weird since Playacar is further away than that. We set off eventually about 8am with a guide called Gerry, a Dutch couple and 3 Spanish families. First stop is barely an hour down the road in Tulum where we have a pit stop to use some lovely broken toilets with even more broken doors. I buy a fancy-ass Magnum (as eaten by Eva Longoria) and promptly drop half the chocolate down my top (the turquoise Tesco tank which exactly matches by fancy-ass rucksack).

2 hours and some interesting Mexican music later we are at Chichén Itzá. Gerry meets up with another tour leader and the groups combine and then split up by language. Somehow I end up going with the Spanish speaking lot because "it will be good for me". Still, I assume I'll understand as much of that as I will of the English tour given my distinct lack of knowledge about all things archaeological. The tour turns out to be quite interesting -Gerry uses the minibus keys to draw us diagrams in the dirt, and we learn how everything (literally everything) about Chichén Itzá is precise - how many pillars over there? 7...like 7 days. How many walls? 2....because the Mayan people liked balance. How many levels to the pyramid? 9....like 9 months' gestation. What is 7+2? 9. It all seems a little too thought up after the event, but it's an interesting theory. We wander round in the baking sun for 2 hours. You can't climb El Castillo anymore, but it's the focal point and everyone has their picture taken in-front of it. I snap a few shots of some interesting fashion choices for visiting an ancient, supposedly sacred, ground. In the ball court we count headless bodies play tennis, baseball and basketball (don't ask) and like every other tour group there, we clap and listen to the echos.

The rain starts just as we are leaving. There are two main options to a tour like this - lunch first, culture second, or culture first, lunch second. We're doing the latter so now we're leaving for a lukewarm lunch while the groups who got the hot food are now going to get soaking wet exploring the site. Lunch is just up the road and is buffet style. The biggest of the Spanish families (who I take as parents, daughters and one daughter's Italian boyfriend) invite me to sit with them and buy me drinks, I tell myself in return for a little light lunch entertainment in the form of me speaking Spanish. We go up to the buffet which includes bilingual signs that include the food name and then a spicy / non-spicy label. I guess they've had some shocked taste-buds before, though you wonder why since this is Mexico. In between the refried beans and nachos, they have PLAIN BREAD (with no icky seeds) and GARLIC SPAGHETTI. Afterwards they come out with mini fairy cakes, icing and sprinkles. It's the best buffet ever, and much more edible than I expected for £23 for the whole day. While we eat some of the staff dance for us. It starts off the sort of dance we'd have done at Lowther back in the day (lots of stamping and step-turn-pivot) but soon progresses to them dancing with first individual bottles then trays of bottles on their heads. It's a little odd.

Despite the internationally accepted guidance to the contrary (we discuss it in 3 languages) we follow the large lunch with swimming in a cenote, an underground freshwater pool. This one is stunning, and not too crowded despite the number of tour busses at the entrance, but it is also freezing and full of massive black hungry looking fish which you can see due to the wonderful clarity of the water. Needless to say, I admire from the edge without feeling the need to plunge in.

Back above ground / on dry land, we head off to our final stop of the trip, Valladolid where we find the oldest church in (?the state, ?the country, ?the world). It's old, anyway, dating from 1552, and it's the main reason people stop in the town. In front of the church is the town's main square which has ace twin seats, apparently for courting couples, as well as benches bearing local women selling embroidered hankies and Dora the Explorer balloons. Inside the church is nothing like the grand cathedrals of European capitals, but it's nice in a sweet, subdued way. At 4.45pm we set off back towards the coast, once again going through a military checkpoint which is a kinda weird thing to find in the middle of an otherwise barren landscape. I get a tour of Playacar (which I absolutely, positively did not sneak into yesterday) as we drop off the other guests, and then since the Dutch types are staying at the Sandals on the other side of town, I get dropped off at WalMart since I simply can't go the whole day without setting foot in a supermarket. 

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