rise and shine!!!!
well, someone didnt rise
this is our mexico trip day 2 road trip to chichen itza.
cancun to chichen itza is about 200km. we took highway 180D. the tolls cost about 400 pesos, about $40USD. locals dont take this highway, they take 180 which is a local road. there were rarely any cars on the 180D; we only saw 5 cars the whole way through.
half way to chichen itza, we got pulled over by a local (fake) police. he asked for my driver’s license and papers. he checked everything and he said ‘good!’ pointing to my drivers license and rental paper and said ‘problems’ pointing to the seatbelt and my two friends in the back. he busted out a book looked like a bible. its all in spanish but im guessing its their ‘road rules’. he was pointing to this one sentence and it says 1000 pesos (90 USD) next to it. basically he was asking for 1000 pesos because 2 of my friends in the back werent wearing seatbelt. we know for fact and checked online that only the driver has to wear seatbelts in mexico. he asked for 900 pesos and we just pretended we dont understand what he was saying. then he lowered his price to 500 pesos and started yelling us. i know we were getting ‘robbed’ and i wanted to just drive off, but he actually had a small hand gun on hanging from his belt which was probably fake. i didnt wanna risk it so we offered him 200 pesos. he suddenly had this BIGGEST HAPPIEST smile on his face and started to shaking each of our hands vigorously. he was absolutely thrilled to take the money which almost convinced me the 200 pesos was totally worth it to make this amigo this happy.
we got stopped another time on our way back, but he let us go cuz my friends in the back were wearing seatbelt this time. so make sure you buy your insurance and wear seatbelts. it doesnt matter what the laws are. in country like this, the locals are the law if you dont want more trouble. we also saw what real police looked like when we passed by couple check points. they were all carrying ak-47s or some sort, not some small hand guns.
anyways, it was a pretty smooth drive to chichen itza besides the police incident.
so yea, pyramid Kukulkan is one of the new world’s 7 wonders. we hired a guide and he explains a lot numerology behind how its built which i cant remember any of them now. like how many staircases are related to how many days in the season or the calendar blah blah blah. it’s pretty interesting. check out this web is you are interested to find out more about it: http://www.numeralgame.64g.ru/numtr/numtr7en.htm
when you clap right in front of the pyramid, you can hear an echo sound of a bird.
this is the original ground level.
Temple of a Thousand Warriors
*gross animal warning! quickly scroll down if you hate lizards*
*gross animal warning! quickly scroll down if you hate lizards*
*gross animal warning! quickly scroll down if you hate lizards*
*gross animal warning! quickly scroll down if you hate lizards*
*gross animal warning! quickly scroll down if you hate lizards*
lizards are everywhere in mexico
the wall
Cenote Sagrado
ancient mayans would conduct sacrificed during times of drought. gold, jade, clothes, and skeletons of children and adults and other good stuff have been found in this cenote.
our guide told us there are about 6000 cenotes in the area.
these ppl hustle so hard too, even offered me mayan boyfriends
sorry to bore you guys with so many picture i promise this is the last one
this was the hottest day out of the 6 days we stayed in mexico. they dont sell any water or any food related items in the park so we were dying by the end of our tour. as soon as i got out of the park, i got this slushy thing. life saving.
now was lunch time, we headed to Valladolid for lunch and more cenotes.
a lot old beetles in mexico
city of Valladolid
oh yesssssssss! street food!
when the dude handed this to me, there was a hair stuck in my sandwich. oh well im in mexico. i wolfed it down without having a second thought. it was alright.
oh yesss! fruit! all peels and cut for your convenience. told you there are true professionals! too bad the mangos were sour.
The Church of San Servacio
we walked by a few fancy americanized looking restaurants, but i wanted to eat at where the locals eat! we asked a local looking amigo he pointed us to this food court.
it was a tough job ordering food since we barely spoke any spanish. my man charles got the job done yay.
watermelon, papaya, banana milk.
we all argued that our own drink was the best.
ground beef
they recommended this. sausages were super dry and disgusting taste.
bland, but probably the best out of all.
everything all together was only 210 pesos = less than 20 USD. cheapest meal of our trip but also most terrible tasting meal. the meat was all dry, flavorless. on top of that, there were a million flies kept flying and fighting for food with us.
locals dont necessarily good. lesson learned.
after our lunch, it started to rain. i stopped by the Church of San Servacio briefly to take some pictures.
our original plan was to visit cenote zaci, but it started to rain really hard so we settled to visit somewhere closer.
we also got stopped by some kids asking for money smh
i am claustrophobia, so this kind situations really scare me to death. took me forever to get down, i was almost in tears.
i believe this was Cenote Xkeken. im not 100% sure cuz i forgot the name.
one of my biggest regret during trip was not bringing my swimsuit. i left them in the car because it was raining so hard so i wasnt in the mood of swimming before i got there. i thought it would be an open air cenote, but it was actually a cave. trust me, you would wanna swim there. i couldve returned to the car and picked up my swimsuit, but i didnt wanna go through the hole entrance again. terrifying.
so i watched my friends and the fish swim. fml
that pretty much ended our day 2.
on our way back, we missed the exist to get on 180D paid highway, so we had to take the local route. you have to pass 20 villages on the local road. whenever you hit one village, there are these massive speed bumps that can make your car fly if you dont stop for them. there were also dogs, cats, chickens, children, bikes running around the street, i almost killed a few.
then it started pouring and our wipers BROKE!!!!!!!!!! the worst thing could possibly happen when driving in rain!!!! charles took over and he had to manually turn on and turn off the wipers all the way back to our hotels. it was supposed to be a 2-hour ride but it took us almost 5 hours to get back to the hotel. mexico’s water system is terrible, it was flooding everywhere. I was complaining how expensive the toll was on our way to chichen itza, but on our return trip I realized the toll was super worth it. I’d even pay double to avoid driving through these villages.
if it werent charles, me and tingting would never make our way back to cancun. charles is the man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what would we do without him. sorry ladies he’s taken!
we got back to our hotel in one piece thanks to charles. we settled for room service
some quesadilla
tacos, pretty decent.
charles and erica flew back to LA the second morning.
hated to let them go but next up: day 3 snorkeling at isla mujeres!!!!!!
