Uxmal

Welcome to the beautiful Mayan ruins of Uxmal! Today we had our second group excursion and it was nothing but perfect. I'm pretty sure I walked around in awe all day. Every single ruin took my breath away. Then we would walk around the corner and I'd be amazed all over again. Uxmal is a gigantic city with so many ruins and each ruin served a different purpose back in the day. We had a tour guide with us all day and he just graduated with an archeology major, specializing in Mayan history. He was a smartie! He spoke only in Spanish though so it was sometimes hard to understand what he was saying since I'm not familiar with all the vocab about the Mayans. It was a lot of fun though to just walk around and take it all in. I can't wait to one day discover all the secrets of the Earth. I want to know how these people made these beautiful temples so long ago... they were gorgeous! 

We got there and this was the first thing we saw we got to the top of the hill! It's the only temple in history with a circular base. It was so huge! And there are really cool acoustics there.. if you clap while standing at the bottom of the stairs it echos through that little window at the top and makes this quack-like sound.

 This is Paco, our tour guide. Paco was the man! Also, his name rhymes with taco... jealous!

 We tried so many jumping pics and this was the best.. Alannah always seemed to struggle a little with the timing ;) haha

Dos Lauras and a temple!

Then we went around on the side of the temple and there was so much to look at! Paco taught us some more stuff too. I don't remember it all though, and I don't wanna preach false doctrine about the Mayan history lol. 

 This was the only remaining arch on this wall.. the others have all fallen down.

 Then we went up some stairs and we came to this huge, beautiful court. Each wall represents a side of the Earth. The Mayans would gather in the middle of this court because it represented their belief that they were in the center of the Earth. 

 My two favourite girls! Jackie and Caitlin!

Everything was really intricate... I could look at just one part of the wall all day. The walls were decorated with symbolic pictures, animals, people, and other cool designs. I'm sure that Paco told us what they all meant but I was too busy admiring everything to pay attention! Opps =)

 Those nose things on the right are supposed to be elephant trunks!

 Serpent head =S

Photocred goes to Caitlin for this one.. looking back at the temple through one of the windows.

Now that I'm looking back at these pictures I'm noticing how scary the skies look... They definitely look a lot worse than they were. I was actually really grateful for them because there weren't a lot of trees here, mostly just open fields and not a lot of shade either. Not having the sun burning us all day made it a lot more fun. It was perfect! 

After the large court we walked around to the back of the temple. Just as beautiful as the front! We had fun taking pictures here... Paco was not a fan of pics though so we had to take them secretly. He thought that the Mayan info was way more important than the pics. Poor kid probably doesn't have Facebook. 

My favourite pic of the day! 

 Good old Paco enlightening us... 

So this is not how this was supposed to turn out but I think it is funnier than the real picture so I'll put this one up instead =) haha 

 Hey guys! Let's make a pyramid in front of a pyramid! Get it? haha

 Isabelle loved being at the top!

Apparently this was their beds or something? Maybe I misunderstood Paco cuz this does not look too comfy haha

Next, we walked to another ruin, but we got to walk through a beautiful green area. Everything was so gorgeous and lush! God has created such a beautiful Earth =)

 Me, Amber, Kaitlin, Audrey, Morgan, and Ryan

 Pile of rocks... probably more significant than that but I'll leave that up to your interpretation ;)

My gorgeous next-door neighbours! Kaitlin, Alannah, and Lyndy (Luchi)

 Marie "teaching" Tyler about the Mayans

This was a field where the used to play "juego del pelota" which was a popular sport back in the day. It was pretty much like the original hunger games because people would be selected to be part of the teams and the loser would be sacrificed! 

 My bestie and ex-VT... I love Jackie! 

This was the grand palace where the rulers lived! 

 Los cuatro amigos! Bradley and Tom are our besties! We chill with them every day cuz they just live down the street!

Scaling the pyramid! Love the photobomber in the background ;) Thanks Ryan!

 Group on the temple!

When we got to the top of the temple I couldn't get over the amazing views! Everywhere I looked was beautiful! The ruins looked like they were floating in the trees! Lots of great pics at this spot. 

Uxmal!

 Profe and Paco chatting it up about the ruins.. oh, and Ryan too. haha

 The carvings were so intricate and cool to look at! 

 Semi-group pic

 Ryan and I and his camera (as always)

 Our first group picture! Profe, Paco, and all! Merida 2012 baby!

 Cody and the turtle temple... just pondering life.

Laurita snappin' some pics ;)

 Bromancers.

 Cutie pie.

 Alli must taste really delicious.. she has so many bug bites on her legs! 

Oh and as a side note, the words for mosquito bites in Spanish is picadas and the word for sins is pecados. So one day Caitlin was on the bus and accidentally told some one that she had a lot of sins instead of a lot of mosquito bites! We had a pretty good laugh about that. It's funny when we mix words up. I asked a boy if he wanted to sentirme (feel me) when I meant to ask him if he wanted to sentar conmigo (sit with me).. Opps! Good thing he didn't agree! 

 Morgan and I in a beautiful grove! I felt like I was in a Bible movie or something. 

After we finished walking around and looking at all the ruins we went to a hotel on the site and had a delicious buffet. We were all starving so everything tasted delicious. They had a dessert called caballeros pobres (poor gentlemen) and they were so good! We had fun talking and eating and hanging out as a group! 

 Yummmo!

 Mini tree hut!  Felt like I was in Disneyland for a minute haha

 Trying out for the Mariachi band... 

Then we got to go swimming! Of course Brooke and I jumped at the first chance we had to jump in the water! We are swimming buddies for sure. We love being in the pool/ocean/anywhere we can get wet! It was a lot of fun.. we played games with Profe's kids and just cooled off.

Gorgeous at sunset!

Gorgeous pool.

After we had relaxed a bit we went back to the ruins and watched the light show! It was kind of funny because no one knew what was going on. They were apparently telling a legend or something? But pretty much they just shined different coloured lights on the temples. This reminded me that I wasn't in Disneyland lol. 

 The clouds during the day definitely made for a beautiful sunset tonight! I love this picture =) 

 Haha we look so great after swimming all day.... Obviously I win for having the darkest legs so far! 

 "Hey! Look what happens when we walk in front of these lights!" #shadowdancers #easilyentertained

Today was a fun day! I'm usually not a huge history person but I actually had a ton of fun learning about the Mayans. It was a beautiful site with a ton of rich history. I loved exploring all the ruins and hanging out with the group! Definitely a great day, but I'm sooo tired now! I'm going to die!