Day 3- Riviera Maya

Day 3
The 6 of us booked a private tour with Alma's tours to see the Mayan land. He is a member of the church and does an LDS tour of the ruins. He asked us if we would like to see something not listed as an "actual part of the tour" We jumped at the chance to see the culture. He took us off the beaten path to a real little mayan village. The road out there was narrow and the jungle was overgrown. Posts would appear out of nowhere that he said marked the trail to a little community. We first stopped at this little honey store. The honey is made from special honey bees only found in the riviera maya. They sold everything from honey candy to shampoo and lotion. It is the actual stuff we had samples of in our resort. It smelled really good. Miguel then took us down the road to a little family he had befriended. They had 14 kids, 8 girls all named Maria, and 6 boys.
We got to see how they lived and the let us just walk through their little compound.
First off in their front yard was their year supply of javelina. They raise them as pets, and when it is time to eat.....
They demonstrated how to make torillas and grill them on the fire.

Cook their meat on the fire all day.
Some other "pets"


He showed us how they do their laundry.
Maybe I need to start doing laundry their way......I couldn't believe how white their dresses where living in the dirt like that.
The guys. Miguel, Rand, Zach, and Ian.
The girls. Shemri, Jamie, Lara.
This snake dropped from the tree in front of us and lunged at a frog about 2 inches from Rand's camera. He got quite the video!

They make all kinds of things to be sold to the tourists. The told us the hammoks took 1 week for a small one, and 1 month for a large one to make. Working every day. Considering we bought a medium sized one, (not here) for about $35, that is not a lot for a lot of work!
We then met up with a bunch of other tours for a really yummy lunch at this old conquistadors palace. With a little entertainment while we ate.
Dancing with a beer bottle on their heads!
The next part of the tour was to go swimming in a Cenote. I guess they are all over down there. It is basically a sink hole with really clear cool water. It was gorgeous.


The guys all jumped and after a lot of peer pressure, Jamie jumped, then Shemri, then me.
We all got cooled off just in time...
To start sweating again on the tour of Chichen Itza. Our tour guide, Luis, was a full blooded Mayan. He converted to the church 2 years ago. We spent hours touring all the ruins, and was able to get his perspective of everything as a Mayan and as a member.

There were a ton of murals of a "Great White Bearded God" and hieroglyphs of Lamanites living with Nephites.
You could clap your hands and it would echo out the top. Gave you a perspective of how all the people down below could hear someone standing at the top.
Their are 2000 columns. He told us it was dedicated for the 2000 stripling warriors.


This was one of the main reasons we wanted to go here to be able to see this, and it was amazing!