(This didn’t post until Sunday, so when I say “today,” I mean yesterday.
Today we went to Uxmal! Uxmal is an old Mayan city that was built before the Spaniards arrived. It was so cool! There were a lot of BIG ruins. We left about mid-day and took a tour bus to the site. Again, it was HOT! We spent some time with the same tour guide (his name is Guillermo and he teaches the Yucatecan culture class) who again proved he is super knowledgeable about the ruins around here. I’m pretty sure he knows everything. Here are some pictures:
After the tour and historical info, we were given some time to do some exploring. At the end, we climbed La Gran Pirámide. Climbing up it was scary because the stairs are really steep, but going back down was terrifying. People have died by slipping and falling down those stairs! Anyway, I didn’t get a picture of the actual pyramid so I took one from someone's facebook. The people you see in the front of the picture are the program director and his son. The other pictures are from the top of the pyramid:
After I made my way down the terrifying stairs, we met as a group and went to dinner. We ate at a nearby restaurant, where I ate sopa de lima, some sort of chicken, and flan. Here are pictures of each in order:
From the ceiling of the restaurant were some piñata-like men hanging...I thought it was funny so I took a picture...
Also, I had horchata. I’ve always liked horchata but the stuff here is soooo good!
After dinner, we swam in a pool at the hotel there (although we didn’t spend the night, I think they let us use the pool since we ate at their restaurant) and then returned to the ruins for a show. The show was sweet! It was a about some Mayan legends and included music, and lights from each of the ancient ruins. I have a few pictures, but they definitely don’t do it justice. It’s one of those things you have to experience for yourself.
I have a blister on the bottom of my foot from yesterday, so walking so much today was kinda rough. The blister on a callus on the ball of my foot, which is super weird! Anyway, at dinner, I sat at the same table as Guillermo (tour guide) and his friend. We talked about English and Guillermo had some FUNNY stories. When he first started learning English, he went to a restaurant with some friends. He dropped his fork on the ground, so he asked the waiter for a new fork. But he thought that the letter “r” was silent so what he said had quite a different meaning than “fork.” His friends laughed at him and he didn’t understand, so he kept telling the waiter that he needed another [explicit]. He also said that he can’t tell the difference between the “eee” sound in “eat” and the “ih” sound in “it.” He said that certain swear words sound exactly like other words to him. For example, he can’t distinguish between beach and the b-word. Or between sheet and the s-word. Anyway, it was interesting and super funny. One of the guys in the program said that in his mission, there was a guy named Elder Beach. He got so sick of people pronouncing his name like the swear word that he changed it to “Elder Playa” for the rest of his mission. (“playa“ means “beach” in Spanish)
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