January 5, 2006. Latest post in the world, I know. But can you blame me? Okay, well you can, but since break started I’ve been “on the go” constantly! Besides that, I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday vacation. I know my family and I had a fantastic Christmas and New Years. But to tell you the truth, I’m almost ready to go back to school…maybe tomorrow?
So what have I been up to since break commenced? Oh yeah, it’s your favorite ‘picture’ time with captions!
My family is big on family time...family time meaning vacations!! And we usually leave around the most hectic time possible. I got back home Friday afternoon (the 15th of Dec.) and we left for Cancun Saturday morning...yes..and when i say morning...I mean, we left the house at 7AM people!! And yeah, our flight was delayed for nearly two hours, because they were fixing some alternator thingy in the engine, WHILE we were on board! I was about ready to have a heart attack and wished we were staying at home instead of flying across the country on a plane that was needing repair...not to mention the crazy turbulence in those 'peaceful' looking clouds....
anyway, besides that, we were welcomed by Cancun's humid, hot, 87 degree air. And I knew it was worth it. I'd show you a picture of us landing in Cancun...but I was so afraid that I couldn't even get my camera out of my purse!
So a picture that I took from my seat when we left Cancun will have to do:
I can't post all of my pictures because that would take me a century and a half to post this..and I really need to get on top of this blogging thing.
the beach.
yes. wonderful.
As funny as that naked palm tree looks...it reminds me of the insane hurricane that hit the Cancun area last year. Driving around the hotel zone during our last night in the country, you could see all the repairs stil being done today on billions of dollars worth hotels/resorts/eateries. And in a way, I'm really glad we didn't spend our vacation in the hotel zone. The rumors are true...everything is so americanized, which is nice for convenience, but then, not fun for families like us that like to find the old churches and attend mass. Or go on those tours where you visit Mayan ruins and walk in a marketplace where hundreds of years ago, a Native Mayan had walked...not only that, you could see how those people worshipped their gods. You could hear the stories of how Mayans can still speak their native Mayan language, but cannot write it. Why's that? Because back in those days, the only people that could write were the town leaders/priests. And those same people were the only people allowed to go up the temples to give offereings to the gods. The large archeological site we got to see was Chichen Itza in the Yucatan region.
There was the massive Chichen Itza pyramid that was believed to be dedicated to the god of the Sun.
.
at the north entrance of the temple/pyramid, were two massive snake heads.
at a certain time during the year, when the sun is setting, it casts a shadow, along the flat bannister..causing the body of a snake to appear slithering down the side of the pyramid, with the head of the snakes at the bottom of it.
another shot of the Chichen Itza, with our tour guide Luigi on the far left. :)
the famous observatory: El Caracol; this was pretty amazing to see...
Oh I forgot to mention, that this trip Chichen Itza was an all day one. it nearly took 3 hours to drive from our resort to the Yucatan. On our way there, we visited a Mayan village where we were able to mingle with shop owners selling their goods. And if you've ever traveled in Mexico...you must know the power of haggling. For those of your poor souls that have never done it before and plan on coming to Mexico sometime...get some practice in...or you'll be paying alot more than what the item is actually worth!
Now I'm horrible at bargaining...I still don't know if I got my money's worth with this:
1 aztec calendar
1 black onyx elephant
3 glass cut Chichen Itza paperweights
1 silver astrological sign charm
1 not limestone but better than limestone that i forgot the name of- zodiac of september from the mayan calender
1 Chichen Itza notmadeoflimestonebutofthisothermaterial pyramid
2 carved Chichen itza god sculptures
I spent 50 dollars on all those items you see on the table, what do you think? Comment and let me know!
Now this place was Cenote Ik Kil...a partially covered natural sink hole...where it houses...you got it..naturally purified water! YES, in MEXICO! And guess how deep that water is.....150ft deep. And guess who got to SWIM in it? Yes, UIS's own, moi, got to swim in it!! It was absolutely beautiful and peaceful...the water tasted so sweet, I could've swam in it for hours, but we were on a strict time limit, and could only stay at that site for 30 minutes, b/c we still had to travel to Chichen Itza.
That was pretty much one of the most memorable experiences of my life. It was a really weird feeling, but I just felt one with nature at that moment. I felt as if all my worries and cares were washed away. Of the hundreds of people that went to that site of Cenote Ik Kil that day, only a handful or so of us, actually jumped in! I was surprised myself, I guess the main thing I had to keep thinking to myself was that..."if anything....I know how to float!" I was really nervous to jump in like some of the people..but I found a wooden ladder on the side that I halfway-climbed down..and then jumped in. Good idea, except that I had my mouth wide open..so I got a great taste of the water...and hacked it up quite a bit too =P But after that awkward scene I backstroked to the center of the sink hole, just to about where one could look up and see the blue sky and puffy white clouds running across it....the water dripping from the plants hanging above the sinkhole was like gentle, sweet rain....I seriously could have floated there forever....if some guy wasn't splashing around so much and making me really nervous...I decided then that if I had closed my eyes....I most likely would have had some guy accidentally backstroke into me, making me freak out...and then I would've drowned and died that day....yeah, I know, I'm a really positive person.
:)
Anyway, now that I'm done daydreaming about that day...here are a more pictures I took while in Mexico:
the marketplace at Chichen Itza (my mom and brother are dorks :) )
A bar in the middle of one the pools??
The resort we stayed at. :) Mayan Palace :)
some pretty cool grafitti in that Mayan village:
A typical house in the Mayan village we visited:
Do you remember in that disney movie Road to El Dorado, or something like that, the scene where the girl is telling the man to use "the hip the hip!!!" in a typical Mayan game? Here it is! This is that ballcourt! I had no idea that the captain of the winning team would then be beheaded at the temple near this ballcourt! It was said that it was an honor for a normal person to be given the chance to go speak to the gods. The Itza people believed in reincarnation, so as horrible as this may sound to us, to die for a game, really isn't as crazy sounding to those people back in the day. And this game itself was a sacred ceremony, performed only once a year, so the winning team was highly honored.
Remember I talked a bit about the Itza people believing in gods (plural) yes, Mayans were originally Pagan. But since the conquer by Spain occured, one could see how religion; Catholicism was forced upon them. For a small Mayan village, and the gigantic size of the Catholic church...a message was definately being said.
I remember Luigi (our tour guide) saying that many years later (sorry for the vagueness, I can't really remember..but if you have any knowledge you'd like to enlighten us with, please post!) , the Mexican government told the people that they now had the freedom of religion. But after hundreds of years, when all your life you've been taught one religion, what else can you turn to? No one knew of the old pagan gods that their ancestors had at one time worshipped. The temples were abandoned because no one knew how to make offering, or felt no need to make offerings to gods they had no knowledge of. An example would be Chichen Itza, if one were to find the before and after pictures of this archeological site, you could see the years of abandonment piled with rocks, mud, and weeds/trees all over.
It's amazing to see what archeologists can do with time (lots of it) and the incentive to clean up sites like these...That observatory has even been in a couple of Indiana Jones movies!!
Well for now, this is it...PART II coming very very soon...
just now now... because I have work in the morning...
