Day 3 was a fantastic and fun day - it was our day in Chichen Itza! We had rented the car the night before and after getting up early, combing the beach for some seashells and having a quick breakfast, we jumped in the car around 7:30am and headed towards Chichen Itza. Our first hurdle of the day proved to be a challenge until past lunch. We tried to get cash from the hotel, but all of our credit cards had been locked down by the banks - we forgot to tell them we were traveling to Mexico.
We decided to make the calls to the banks during our drive. The drive was pretty uneventful, which was nice. Actually, I was a little surprised at the cost for tolls - it was over $50 round-trip. Here's a shot of me driving our little Mitsubishi:
Here's a photo of the small town outside of Chichen Itza named Piste. We eventually found an ATM and were able to get some cash in this town. In retrospect, we would have saved some money had we not been able to get cash, but we also would have been stuck and couldn't pay the tolls without cash....
Here are the photos of the day in Chichen Itza:
One of the funnest parts of the day was to walk around and view all of the incredible crafts while negotiating with the local folks. They had some great stuff for sale - too bad it was all the same stuff that was obviously mass-produced. Some of the items looked authentic though. We ended up purchasing gifts for all of the kids and for ourselves.
The Mayan ball court was incredible. The acoutics were incredible - you could hear someone talking from one side to the other. Our tour guide told us an alternative theory that the Mayan ball was not even real, but rather a ceremony to celebrate the resurrection of the Savior....
We enjoyed lunch at the buffet at the hotel on-site. It was pretty good food. We hit the buffet right at noon, then we zoomed into town to get some cash. After lunch, we went back into the Chichen Itza grounds and enjoyed making purchases and wondering around the rest of the grounds.
After Chichen Itza, we visited Valladolid, which was a really cute town. They had a few tourist shops where we bought a new nativity set for the family. We didn't have much time in the town, but we enjoyed the stay.
Amy bought some hand-made linens and doll clothes from a very cute little mexican lady. We were very happy to do business with her!
When we got back to Playa del Carmen, we turned in the rental car just one time (one hour past the due time), then we walked back to the hotel. We were exhausted from walking all day and we had another 2-3 miles to walk, but it was very entertaining - we walked down "5th avenue", which was miles of street vendors and souvenirs. There was some cheap and simple shopping as well as some high-end shopping. Amy even paid 100 pesos to get shots of us with a monkey and a lemur:
This guys did some great artwork with spray paint. We bought one for our downstairs bathroom.
To end the day, we took some great night shots of the hotel and our new towel arrangement for the day.
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