After what was a busy 10 days in New York, Audrey and I decided to spend the next 5 on a beach in Cancun, not doing anything except getting a tan.  The location was a private home about 7 clicks north of the township of Cancun and smack bang next to nothing, except other houses.  The first day went to plan with the sun shining at a comfortable 31 degrees and the humidity hovering in the low 80's but that's where it ended.  The following 4 days consisted of rain, rain and more rain.  We made the most of it by catching up on this blog and doing some work on all the photo's that we have taken, Audrey plowed through at least 3 books and I got my fix of Civ 5.  However bad the lack of sun was, we managed to make the most of out it, plus our feet thanked us for not putting to much pressure on them for a change.

There are 2 reasons that people come to the Yucatan Peninsula.  The first is those that spend their time in 5 Star Hotels that spread along the Caribbean Coast for over 20 km's, drink and getting drunk.  The only prerequisite is that you need to have a bikini body or a six pack to look the part here.  The second is for the Mayan Ruins that are spread throughout the region.  This was our next destination.  Audrey has for as long as she can remember wanted to visit this place and she was as excited as I've seen her for a while, since New York !!  We went to Chichen Itza first as it is on the way towards all the others, plus it is regarded as the best example of the Mayan Architecture, so much so that it was voted onto the New World Wonders of the World in 2012 (along with The Great Wall of China, The Taj Mahal, Christo Redondo, The Colissuem, Machu Picchu and Petra).  The whole Chicken Itza site is a large complex that is still yet to be fully understood.  Built around 750 AD and abandon around 1300 AD it became the center of the Mayan world for a large period of it.  Was it the Kings home?  Was it a place to worship?  Was it a city?  Whatever it was it was clearly very important to the Mayans at the time.  As we have traveled around the world one question always comes up:  Would we rather see the old structures as there were when they were found OR completely reconstructed to the best knowledge by the Archaeologists.  Now that I have been here I have 90% leaned towards the reconstruction.  See some of the buildings haven't been touched yet and are completely overgrown with jungle and are impossible to tell what they are or the function that they served.  Whereas when you view El Castillo, the main pyramid at Chichen Itza, you can get an immediate sense of wonder, awe, what ever you call it, at what it was like back in the day.  You can see the Priest up at the top on the altar holding the sacrificial heart in his hand, showing the crowd bellow, who are all chanting and spiritual.  It would have been a site for sure.  These days the site is filled with vendors trying to sell their wares to the unsuspecting tourists.  I had read that they were bothersome to a lot of people back we both found that they were polite and really were out of the way from the views of the ruins which is what we are all here for really.  The other aspect of Chichen Itza is that none of the ruins are alloyed to be climbed on anymore after the unfortunate deaths of some people in the mid 2000's when they slipped on the steps and tumbled down to the bottom.  Sure this may seem like a bad thing but without people clambering over everything you can actually get a really good look at ruins and like I said, that it what we are here for.

Merida is the 12th largest city in Mexico and is the logical place to stay when exploring the Mayan History.  The city itself was built on top of a ruined Mayan one that had been abandoned a few century's earlier.  Never to waste to much energy, the Spanish Conquistadors and Catholic Missionaries used all the pre-cut rock to build the first homes and churches in 1560.  It is a nice symmetry to it all that former buildings of the conquered are still around, only in a different form.  The Church is actually the oldest on the America Continents by the way.  Merida is not a pretty city, the streets and sidewalks are some of the smallest that I've seen and it makes walking hazardous, the blocks rectangular and run in a north-south, east-west direction and the shop fronts are in for a desperate need for an upgrade, or at least some paint.  We felt safe walking around though which is a credit to the people of the Yucatan that they haven't been run over by the drug lords of the North and East.  Plus we were never asked once for a bribe.  Cool.

The next 2 days we spent on the Ruta Puuk, the Puuk Road.  This is a 250 km drive that takes you to some of the more important site for the Mayans; Uxmal, Kabah, Sayil, Xlabpak, Labna and the Loltun Caves.  Uxmal was great.  It is in the top 5 sites for the Mayans and here there is still a pyramid that you can climb.  Now about those steps.  The people that live around this area are small, really small and the steps and steep and large, really large.  I have been racking my brain to try and understand why this is the case and nothing is coming in, so I have decided to move on even though I would like to know why.  Moving on.  Uxmal is another area that has some restored structures and some that have been left alone for a later date.  I like this approach because as techniques and technology change future archaeologists will still be able to study the ruins in-situ.  Truth is it probably doesn't matter because I am dead set positive that there are hundreds of ruins out in the jungles that haven't been found yet and thus are in-situ.  Once again I digress.  We stayed the night at Uxmal and went to see the Light and Sound show.  It was in Spanish so for us it was really a Light and Noise show but seeing the ruins lit up under a cloudless sky, with bats flying around everywhere and smacking into our heads ever-now-and-then was a surreal experience and one I recommend.  I mean who wouldn't want bats to continuously fly into you at speed.  The other sites along the Ruta Puuk were a lot smaller but well worth the look, especially Labna with it raised road that runs between the Royal Palace and the Temple, that looked unique.  The last place we visited was the Loltun Caves.  People believe that this is one of the oldest caves in the America's that was used by people, dating back to around 10,000 BC.  It's a nice cave with tonnes of head space that importantly had some pools of water and several entrances and exits.  Just recently a large stone head was found that belonged to the Olmec people (I don't know them so I wont go into it) and it's appearance has lead some to believe that the first peolpes into Mexico may have come from the Mongol region.  Now there is a debate for the future.

Seeing these building was high on both of out lists and I'm glad that I've 'ticked it off'.  Next we are off to Belize and Tikal in Guatemala.