xplor ... the scarry part

A dream of Mary's has always been to go on a zip line. Well, they had two zip line runs at xplor. Mary wanted to do the most challenging one which was the Jaguar run. Now, imagine this, Lois is afraid to get up on a step ladder and somehow she talked me into going on a zip line. So I did. As I was going along the first run I was travelling 30 km per hour above the jungle and was thinking if I live I live, if I die there is not a thing I can do about it. So 30km per hour, coming to the tower, and terrified I am going to smash into the wall directly in front of me. Then this tiny Mexican puts on the brake and I come to a screaching halt with Mary standing there watching me...she had gone first. I thought "Thank Jesus that's over", only to find out that there were NINE more runs and this was not the fastest or highest! The only way out was to walk through the jungle or use the zip lines. We must have climbed 2000 steps and travelled over 2 km. I put my sandles in my shirt. This mexican man thought I was a guy and patted my chest and said what's that. I replied  "my tits and my sandles" I don't know if he understood.  Enjoy the photos.

xplor continued

Here are some photos of Mary and I going through the underground caves. They gave us paddles for our hands and we had to paddle through the caves which was quite a long distance. All was well until Mary started to rock the boat!

My gawd my legs are long!

Stop rocking the friggen boat Mary!

Doesn't Mary look happy.

Internet

Mary and I have been trying to post more pictures since Sunday. The darn internet won't let us on the laptop in our room. It is a very weak signal so I am using the computer in the lobby of the hotel.

The last few days we have been laying by the pool and relaxing. This hotel is amazing. They gave us $2500.00 in credits because we stayed for 12 nights. Here is a list of things we got for free with the credits:

• Two trips to Myan Ruins
• A lobster and steak dinner
• A chefs dinner where they showed us how they prepared each course of the meal and pared the wine with what we were eating
• Two eyebrow waxes
• Two pedicures
• Two 80 minute massages
• One 50 minute massage
• Two manicures
• One nail polish change
• One bottle of wine which they kept for me for three days because I couldn't finish it by myself

We are off to Costa Rica tomorrow. The hotel is not going to be nearly as luxurious as this one but then again, it only cost half the money. Hopefully the flight will go well. When we flew from Turks and Caicos to Puebla they put us through 10 security checks. It is especially long in Miami when you are coming into the United States from Latin America, or so the immigrantion officer told us. When he saw we were from Canada, he just let us through. Eveyone else had to be finger printed and have their photos taken.

Will post more photos when we can

Lois and Mary

xplor

We had quite the day on Friday. Friends in Puebla told us to go to xplor for the day as there were many activities which were fun. What fun we had! The photos will give you a good idea of what we were doing.

Mary and I driving in an ATV through the jungle.

Some of the driving was underground though caves and water.

Here we are posing for the camera while I try and get up enough speed to get through the water.

This is a swinging bridge. I was terrifed that I was going to put my wheels in the hole in the middle of the bridge. See the people behind us...I was not going very fast. While we were there two guys smashed the front of the ATV's by going too fast and they had to pay for the damage. We didn't want that to happen so I took it slow.

Monkey Tour and Birds.

The warbler or singing bird.

Blue Heron keeping other birds off his rock.

Gulls facing into the wind from the ocean.

Mom iguana with her babies perched in different parts of the wall. They prefer cool areas inside the rocks at times.

Teen monkey... mom was too fast.

Notice the butterfly totally camoflaged into the bark of the tree. 

The monkey in the tree.

We decided to do a quick monkey tour on this site of the hotel. Apparently, there are other types of animals here as well but we didn't get pictures of them. We saw a couple of moms with babies on their backs and a couple of teenagers. There's some beautiful warblers (birds) on site but they are hard to catch on film and of course the ever present Iguana.

Tulum

Lifeguard sitting at the beach in Tulum. The beach was on his left side and he's facing right.

MR. IGUANA TO YOU!

The Caribbean Ocean in the background.

Trees have grown through the walled city.

This fellow is piping on a picalo.

This is a traditional event that happens regularly which I can't remember what it's called. Anyway, they climb to the top, the flute playing the whole time and a small drum and when it stops they all start the desent upsided down. Beautiful colorful costumes in reds, blues, and yellows. What a great job! Entertainment and get your spinal column straightened out at the same time.

Here they have finally landed and are finishing up with a traditional dance.

This was another archeological site we visited. The site is located on the ocean and is a walled site with 600 inhabitants and was a major trading center. It was estimated that 21,000 Mayans lived outside the walls of the city. The ruins you see are the foundations  and walls of the buildings.This was known as "the decadent period. The walls were not straight as in the previous ruins we have seen where everything was aligned. Visualize these buildings covered with stucco and brightly painted with reds,blues, greens, and yellows. The doorways were very low so that the visitors who entered had to bow when they came in as a sign of respect. The Iguanas sitting on the ruins are known to be "the guardians".

Educational Part

And now for the educational part of the journey. When Hernan Cortez arrived on the shores of Mexico in 1519 he expected to be greeted by savages. Instead, he found two cultures thriving, the Aztec and the Myan cultures, both decended from the Olmetec. The Aztecs had created a thriving area on a lake which is now where Mexico City sits. We added photos of the pyrmid in an earlier blog. They taxed many people for hundreds of around Mexico City. Needless to say, those people resented the Aztecs because they didn't like to pay taxes. Another thing the Aztecs did was build a city on top of a lake without a fresh water supply. they built acquaducts to carry the water. When Cortez wanted to defeat the Aztecs, all he had to do was get the people who didn't like paying the Aztecs to join his army, then cut off the fresh water supply. Within 9 months his army defeated the Aztecs.

Defeating the Myans proved to be much more difficult because they had built city states. It took 20 years to defeat the Myans. The Myans had a complex system for counting time. In North America, we view time as a liner thing whereas the Myans viewed it as a cycle. They had two calendars that coincided every 52 years, the religious and seasonal calendars. They were also mathematicians and astronomers who knew about the Milky Way long before scientists in North America did. The Myan calendar runs out on December 21, 2012 but this does not mean the end of the world. It means we will start a new era in civilization. They also used a binary code for math and counted in units of 20. It really is facinating to learn about how complex this civilization was and how they thrived with knowledge, religion, and traditions that the Spanish thought barbaric. They had a written form of language and wrote on paper hundreds of years ago. The Spanish had a fire and destoryed all but 4 or their tablets.

Enjoy the photos. This was Chichen Itza  so we will add the Tulum pictures next.

Dolphins

Today Mary and I went on a dolphin swim. That has always been on her bucket list. It was an amazing experience. She was a little nervous about swimming with the dolphins, I was a lot nevous. I don't care much for things stronger than me and trust me, dolphins are stronger than Mary and I put together. Here are some photos of the adventure.

The resort

Here are some photos of the resort where we are staying. It is very different than the accomodations we had in Puebla.

They are giving us lessons on how to make sushi.

This guy is hilarious. He is always dressed up and doing entertaining stuff.

Mary getting dancing lessons by the pool.

They wanted an extremely hefty price for doing laundry...$5.00 for a shirt and $3.00 for a pair of socks. We must have had over a $100.00 worth of laundry for that price. So I ordered more shampoo to be brought up to the room, filled up the jetted tub, and did the laundry. Mary laughed and laughed at me. But it worked.