Chichen Itza

I got up at 6.30 for the tour to Chichen Itza as Id been told the bus left at exactly 7am, at 745 a minibus finally showed up, which delivered me to an office where I joined a queue for another bus.  Once on board the guide promised to quickly give us an itinerary in five minutes and then let people nap, for what felt like hours he told us, how Chichen Itza is not called chicken pizza and that the site was not in an all inclusive resort but "in the middle of the jungle", he repeated these points several times, interspersed with far longer speeches in Spanish before giving us the itinerary three times in each language.

The first stop was at a cenote a cave with a small opening in the roof and most of the bottom full of water.  It was a lot more impresive than it sounds

 

We then went to "a traditional Maya village", which turned out to be a large shop selling silver jewlery and Maya themed knick knacks though we did drive through a Maya vilage on the way there. 

After lunch in the restaurant there we finally got to the site, which needless to say was about as much in the jungle as it was on an ice cap.

The tour itself was really good with lots of information and besat of all we got to hear the voice of the Maya god Kuckulkan aka feathered serpent. If you stand at the right angle to the central pyramid and clap the sound comes back as a high pitched call by the snake carved on the temple, answered by a bird carved on another platform.

 

Returning to Cancun most people were dropped in the hotel zone. The only way to describe it was that I thought I had died and gone to Las Vegas, there were miles of high rise hotels in strange shapes and neon signs for themed restaurants and bars.  It made Cancun Ciudad look like an authentic Mexican town.