Today started very early (3:45 PST) when we got up to go on our tour to Chichen Itza. The first tour bus picked us up 45 minutes late outside where we are staying. The bus was very cool - double decker, and we were the first ones on so of course we go to the top and sit in the front seats - birds eye view! Sadly, we were transported to a central area and moved to another bus, single level only.
On that bus we sat across the aisle from some nice folks from Pennsylvania (sorry guys we didn't get or forgot your names if you read this!), and across the table from Herman and Ann from Sacramento - nice people too. We are having fun by the way making new friends on our trip! Poor Ann froze on the trip but Herman kept himself fortified with tequila and beer and avoided frostbite. The blankets (wool in actuality) promised in the tour did come in very handy as the temperature in the bus was truly freezing. Karen and I managed to avoid frostbite as well since it was open bar as much as you could drink!
Everyone was nice on the bus except for two Canadian Assholes (aka Scott and Dylan, DUDE!!) and their little Chica that they picked up somewhere before the tour. They were very loud and spoke over the tour guide the whole way plus drank heavily then lost their camera and knocked over other people's drinks stumbling down the aisle of the bus and in general made Americans look pretty damn good to our Mexican friends on the tour. One of the assholes (Scott) figured out pretty fast that Karen didn't appreciate him, and asked her if she would just hug it out, be friends, and not hate him. He further apologized for being an asshole, to which Karen said, "I don't hate you, hey, you are what you are, you can't help it! I don't hold it against you." It shut him up for almost a minute. The driver finally told Thing 1 and Thing 2 that everyone on the bus was ready to mutiny, but then after drinking full glasses of straight Tequila on the way home they passed out to everyone's relief.
Our own freeway that was promised to us on the tour description had no scenery except for jungle and Federales with machine guns. We hoped to have some exciting names to suggest but it really was pretty boring and all you could see was trees.
We stopped at Ik-Kil for a buffet lunch with open bar where you could swim in a cenote if you wanted to. When you got off the bus, this nice lady was there offering you free shots of Tequila and you could buy right off the table what you liked:
After passing the tourista trap area you came to the cenote, where you went down about a hundred steps into the ground and came out at water level. Here's a photo from where you could swim. Lots of people did, but we didn't because there weren't showers and we had a long day ahead. Oh, and by the way, they did used to throw dead bodies in there too after they were sacrificed.
After a truly delicious buffet lunch with each of us having dos margaritas por favor (really strong ones too) and a good conversation with the folks from Kansas, we boarded the bus for Chichen Itza. Oh, and here's a photo of the Canadian Dylan (aka Thing 1 the asshole) that we snapped during lunch while he was trying to impress Scott's Chica:
Here are some additional photos from Ik-Kil, too:
Here's a cool tree trunk at the park:
And, a cool plant that is again a HOUSEPLANT at home:
Cool cement chairs at Ik-Kil and in one of the small towns we went through:
On the last leg of the trip to the archeological zone we went through some pretty poor little towns and a reservation. It would be nice if those people were as high as povertly level -- people living in stick homes some without roofs or roofs caving in. Very sad and we felt like we were in another world in our bus looking in on their lives.
Next stop: Chicken and Pizza.
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