It may appear that I'm writing this on my birthday, but while its 1am of the 4th of August back home its only 6 in the evening here!

After my first foray into the world of ancient Mayan culture, visiting the ruins on the coast earlier in the week at Tulum I went to visit Chichen Itza, the famous archeological site yesterday. I'd seen lots of photos of the main pyramid there before but none of them compared to seeing it in the flesh and also I was surprised as I'd been under the impression that once you had seen the pyramid that was about it to see at the site, but I was wrong. The pyramid is only a small part of what is a huge Mayan city. 70% f it is still buried in jungle and not accesable.

Aswell as the pyramid we got took round the ball courts, several smaller temples and the marvellous tower of astronomy. After this we left and went to one of the local Cenotes. The Yucatan peninsula is strange in that it has no rivers, or very very few at least and all of the fresh water in the area is drawn from water-filled holes in the ground call cenotes (pronouced Sen-note-a-ss). These are effectively huge boreholes in the limestone bedrock, often topped with a roof making them a cave. The one we went to a cave and we swam in, underneath, above and around the biggest stalactites and stalacmites i've seen.

After this we went for lunch to a local retaurant, a favourite of the taxi driver we were using and where he ate with his family. It was fairly basic and we were the only western people in there but the food was amazing. I had spicy beef kebabs with rice and tortilla chips. Felt completely like being in the rural mexico thats portrayed in many movies, with an old man sat in the corner strumming his guitar!


We then headed back south towards Tulum stopping briefly at some small ruins at Coba, a much smaller site when compared to Chichen Itza. Climbed to the top of the pyramid here, slightely higher than the one at Chichen Itza to get amizing views out over the jungle. It was like a green sea as far at the eye can see, the canopy occaisionaly broken by the odd cenote. Took a few panorama pictures which will hopefully come out well.

Off out for the evening meal now, a barbecue on the beach!