One of the adventures we were looking forward to was visiting some of the Mayan ruins in Mexico. There are a few in the Cancun area. Will planned a day out seeing one set of ruins in Tulum where the ancient city is perched right on the coast.
As we drove into the ruin area (a protected park) people started shouting at us, saying we couldn't drive any further. The GPS was telling us we could. Will ignored them and drove on. I had to close my eyes and ignore everything! We did stop and pay for parking. Enterprising individuals tried to sell Will a tour package with admission into the park at 500 pesos...actual admission is only 80 pesos. Will said no to several sales pitches as we made our way into the entrance of the park. We parked and walked down the street. As we passed vendors shouted at us to buy their wares. A few people had animals (snakes, monkeys, etc) they offered to let you hold and charge you for a photo. It was overwhelming for me.
We made our way into the ancient city and paid the more reasonable entrance fee.
It was so cool! The ruins really were right on a cliff over the bright blue ocean. There were several buildings. The area was also really crowded. There were lots of people milling around. It was hard to enjoy the buildings in peace and quiet. Colter was not really into it. I ended up taking him off separately and we looked for iguanas. Colter ranked us as we spotted more and more.
We managed to meet back up with the rest of the family for some pictures and a little informational tour from Wyatt. He was the one most engaged with the tour pamphlet. He discovered what the city was like in its glory days. He described commerce and social life for us. Wyatt also pointed out cool carvings. One was of the defending God, on the winter solstice the sun shines on the feet of the carving.
Tulum was cool...but it was also hot and crowded. We all ran out of patience. We drove into the town of Tulum to find a restaurant to eat lunch at. Lorien was feeling the most out of patience and decided to stay in the car while we went out to eat.
The food was really yummy! I tried ceviche for the very first time, it was good! We really enjoyed the chips and salsa too. We ordered a big platter of fish and vegetable and ate our fill. We all needed the fuel and time to sit.
On the drive through the town we got into some of the residential neighborhoods. Will said it reminded him of his mission in the Dominican Republic. The houses were made of whatever people could gather for materials: cinder blocks, sticks, cans, very random stuff. We also passed a LDS chapel!
It was interesting to see some ruins and experience a hyper tourist spot as well as the town the tourism supported.
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