When we first got to Tulum we decided to tour it ourselves, without a tourguide. About halfway through one of the tour guides asked us if we wanted a tour- we said, "no thanks." He asked if we were LDS. I think he may have seen Ross' UofU hat and most (em em) had on long shorts. Anyways, his name was Lemuel. We decided to take the tour and I am sooo glad we did. It was amazing. I'll have to tell you some of the detail in person.
Tulum is a walled city. We entered and exited through the wall, which is still standing. They say there were many homes and structures surrounding this area made of wood and palms. According to one website the earliest written date at Tulum was 564 AD. However they think that it's "heyday" was after 900 BC.
This is the view from Tulum. I mentioned earlier that this was a port city and they did a lot of trading, all the way to South America. We could've swam in the ocean here, but we ran out of time.
This was an Iguana's paradise. There were a ton of them all over.
View from the ocean. I copied the above picture from a website.
The Mayan people were amazing with their calendar, astronomy and mathematical sciences. They planned many buildings according to these things. I posted the above picture because there were these holes planned according to the sun. At a significant time of year the sun would pass perfectly through one of these holes and light something else up. Below is a carving of a baby coming into the world holding it's umbilical cord. According to our tourguide, this represents baby Jesus. Can you guess which day of the year this building is lit up? That's right- April 6th.
This was a small temple. The red hands represent blessings being given.After the ruins at Tulum, we headed back to our van and saw these guys- pretty cool.
Then off to Xelha. You can kind of see in the first picture on this blog what Xelha looks like. It is a big natural lagoon where you can snorkel, jump off cliffs, float down the river etc. It is made into a sort of amusement park with restaurants etc.
Near a bridge they were feeding the fish. If you didn't look under the water, you had no idea that a ton of fish were swimming around your legs. It's hard to tell, but this stingray(below) was pretty big.
What a fun day!
6 comments:
It is absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait to go to a place like that some day. I'm glad you had such a fun time. I'm excited to hear about the rest of the trip.
Those photos are absolutely amazing! You could probably inspire alot of people to go to that vacation spot. Wow, I am just so blown away by the beauty of the land down there. And to see a wild iguana! Were they scarey? I love the story you told me on the phone. You have to share that with everyone. Love ya Mom
It is so beautiful!!! I just have to keep telling myself some day I will get to go to a place like that. How come I can't click on your pictures to make them bigger?
Okay- I lied. I can click on the bottom ones but not the top ones. What I'm wondering is, who is that in the snorkeling picture? It's hard to tell with those goggles on.
Yah- good question about the snorkeling picture. We had to try and figure it out, but I'm pretty sure it's Thayne. It looks like there is a little scruff around his chin and upper lip. And I think (hope) the shoulders are bigger than mine. The first picture of someone jumping off the cliff is Crystal, and FYI all the girls did the rope bridge too. Oh and mom, the iquanas kind of just walked and climbed around. They almost seemed to be posing. There were a ton of them all over these ruins- they didn't seem too scary though.
PS- most of the water pictures were taken with a disposable underwater camera- so they are more grainy, and everything looks so far away.
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