After a day of relaxing and getting a lay of the land in part 1, we headed off to a pre-arranged trip to Chichen Itza. It was another long car ride (~1:45 minutes each way) and the kids were not excited about this one! Sit in a car for how long???? And look at OLD ruins???? Boring!!! We entertained them well enough with electronics and arrived at the site on a cloudy and relatively cool day. We were told many times how lucky we were we were able to be so early in the morning before all the tour busses arrived and to have it be overcast, cloudy and “cool”. I hired a guide to walk us through the site. The kids were not interested and instead ran around the nice grounds and just got their legs stretched out.
Some of the cool things the guide showed us is that when you clap at just the right spot at ground level – the sound bounces back and sounds like a bird. That was REALLY cool! We stood there for quite a while and the kids were even entertained with that fact. The equinox was about a month early, and we weren’t there at sunset/sunrise anyways, but the picture (below) of the shadow appearing of the snake from the angle of the light striking the building was really cool! It’s truly one of the 7 wonders of the world!
picture showing the snake traveling down the side of the pyramid.
The satisfy the kids a bit and to let us listen to the guide I had hired (!), I gave the kids a turn with my point-and-shoot camera. They had tons of fun – as you are about to see! And they took some really good photos. Lots of photos, but some of them turned out great!
Lance and I were in a picture at the same time! Photos courtesy of Sara.
When Alex had the camera – all Sara wanted to do is “1-2-3” and then get pulled up and jump.
Then, Sara got it back again and took a picture of me taking a picture of her – so cute! To the right is our guide.
And sometimes I get so frustrated with these two… but other times they are so nice to each other I just want to remember this!!!!
Big brother Alex picking up little Sister Sara to help her take pictures. He carries her around for a while like this, but she gets pretty heavy!
I gave Sara the suggestion to have Alex stand by the wall and then take a picture of him, and she is quite the photographer!
And Lance gets in on the picture too!
She’s my little mini-me in so many ways – and now she’s a photographer! Maybe her own “real” camera is in her future!
There was so many vendors there. We were walking to one of the cenotes (sinkholes/underground river) and they were just lined up. It was like walking a gauntlet with two young kids.
We finally broke down and go the kids a whistle (which was a bad parenting decision since those things were annoying!) and Alex got a jaguar. They taught him how to do it and it sounds like a jaguar growl! Here are Lance and Grandpa looking a the price on the calculator.
Chichen Itza was pretty big – but we got to see most of it. The place really started filling up and we were on our way out.
Sara got tired and her little legs couldn’t walk anymore – so we traded off carrying her. That girl is getting heavy!
On the way back to our resort, we stopped in a nice town Valledolid. It was a beautiful old colonial town of about 50,000 people. We ate at a nice restaurant that our driver recommended – El Meson del Marques. They were famous in this area for two things – Pavo en Relleno Negro (turkey with blackened peppers) and Conchinita Pibil (chicken cooked in banana leaves). The fresh squeezed juices were divine and we sucked them down after all the walking we did. We were STARVING and didn’t bring too much for snacks for the kids. We ate everything up and enjoyed every second! The Relleno Negro is black in color and looks pretty unappetizing, but it tasted SO good!
Grandma and Grandpa got the Relleno Negro and I got the Conchinita Pibil – I tasted both and it was like heaven on earth! Divine!
Sara’s favorite became fresh squeezed orange juice after this restaurant – Jugo de Naranja.
I loved the colors of the buildings and the bicycles.
Sara blowing her whistle outside – since we wouldn’t let her (couldn’t stand it!) do it in the car. Such a cool town – I hope we can come back some day and spend some more time there.
After a long hot day of walking around – we jumped in the pool and cooled off. It was a long day, lots of walking, lots of car riding, but it actually went pretty well.
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