Chicken Pizza (Chichen Itza)
Hello again everyone!
I have quite a bit of catching up to do here... Yucatan tales, then a week in Cuba, now Mexico City... although looking at the weather forecast for the East Coast of the USA, I may find myself with ample time in Dallas Fort Worth airport if my flight doesn't get in and out before the storm front hits!
So... backtracking a week to my last few days in Mexico, at Playa del Carmen in the Yucatan Peninsula. This is the only time in this holiday that I have a hire car (mostly preferring to travel by train when I can). And if I was worried about driving on the other side of the road, I must say that after sitting behind the minivan drivers for over a month, this proxy driving course made it feel quite natural when I finally got behind the wheel.
Ah - the wheels.
Yes, I had pre-booked and paid for a small automatic car. Although I drive a manual in Australia, I wanted to not focus on the car, but on the traffic and navigation (seeing I was doing it all by myself!). When I arrived at Hertz, I waited over an hour before they finally admitted there were no automatics available, but I could have a manual in the same class. I held out, explaining the risk in driving on the other side of the road if I had to also focus on changing gears, etc... (cue impending Academy Award - I was clearly convincing) so they gave me the only automatic car on the lot - a Jeep Patriot! Check out its photo in the Blog Gallery!
The reason it has no licence plates is that it was brand new! (But this meant I was stopped by every police road block - I had a licence on the back window to travel without plates, although I think they just wanted to check out a new car, and have a chat as they were bored...) The Jeep had only 15km on the clock, and it still had its new car smell. It was massive, and I did whinge to Hertz a bit about now having to pay more petrol to drive such a tank around, not to mention parking it (Academy winning, remember?). But after the first day of driving it, there was no way I was giving it up - 4WD is the only way to go in torrential tropical rain (we'll get to that later).
Because, of course it didn't stop raining! I had what I thought would be my first Mayan ruin in sunshine when I drove down to Tulum - a small but neat and lovely ruin by the beach, with its own population of Iguanas lazing around on the rocks and beautifully mown green lawns.
After getting all hot and sweaty walking around in my bathers, I had a great time swimming at the little beach here (without sandflies!). Although I'm afraid one wave did best me - I had my baseball cap on as I didn't want to get my hair wet - and after jumping and riding over many waves, this wave was so high and came out of nowhere, knocking the hat off my head and drenching my hair! I was lucky to find the cap before it sunk, and then had it all soggy and dripping for the rest of the day (as you can gather, I still had fun!). ;-)
But I should have known with Mayan ruins and me - just as I got out of the water and dried myself off, I was admiring such a lovely rainbow on the horizon when the skies opened up and I got a free freshwater shower! Yes, this made four out of four Mayan ruins seen in the rain...
So - what would happen to my big excursion planned to the famed (and my sixth modern wonder of the world that I have now seen) Chichen Itza? I won't keep you in suspense...
It rained. Heavily. Torrentially.
And it was cold rain to boot! The only advantage? All the tourists ran for cover under the trees, and I got an unusually empty photo of the main pyramid temple (check out the Blog Gallery). This photo is a close up of the snake banister to the top. It's very steep.
But first let me tell you about the journey there. It was a long drive - I took the tollway, having been told it would cost around $15 (turned out to be $30!) and in truth, it was a bit spooky being nearly the only car on the (expensive) road for hundreds of kilometres. But it was a very easy drive, so you pay for what you get, I suppose.
I did get scammed though. At the tollbooth when I took a toilet break, there was a Tourist Information booth with maps of the Chichen Itza site. I spoke to the gentlemen there and purchased my ticket to the site, pre-paid for parking and got a free planetarium show thrown in. It seemed like a good saving. I later realised that it wasn't the official tourist info booth, but one for the hotel next to the site! (They tried to sell me a buffet lunch, but I didn't want to spend time in a restaurant rather than on site, so declined.) I'm sure the entry and parking would have been about the same in the official area, and although the show was quite good (and in a small but real planetarium!) it delayed me getting home.
They also "on-sold" me hiring an English guide. I don't know what I was thinking, as after four other sites, he didn't tell me anything I didn't already know... and the two hour tour was barely 90 minutes - most spent standing under trees in the rain. And so expensive for what it was (and he didn't have change, so had to accept a little less from me ($1) - I claimed it was a discount for the rain and shorter tour! He wasn't happy...). Oh well, live and learn!
But the Chichen Itza site is massive, very interesting, and so well managed compared to the others I've seen. You can no longer climb the large pyramid, probably the most famous building of the site (just as well, given the injuries as people fell down them - not to mention the damage to these fragile monuments), but I think I liked the 1000 pillars more and its temple. And the observatory - as astronomy was the main focus of this site (hence the planetarium show which outlines this Mayan history and fascination with the stars - Venus in particular for this site, for which the site's ancient observatory building is purpose-built).
The ball court is also spectacular, and has these amazing carvings around it of the players. Check out all the photos in the Blog Gallery. It's well worth being my sixth wonder of the world to visit!
But the site it quite old and has different styles of architecture, including older mausoleums, which I thought were not only well made to last so long, but also reminiscent of Angkor Wat's ruins too...
The only down side to this adventure was the drive home. I left at around 4.30pm, and took the public ($30 cheaper!) road through Valladolid and Tulum. Unfortunately the skies opened and I was faced with the scariest driving experience of my life! Pitch black country roads, no markings on the road, jungle and ditches on either side, and rain that was so heavy I couldn't see the bonnet of my own car - even with the wipers on full speed and the lights on high-beam.
All I could see were the lights of the occasional truck coming towards me and no idea if I was still driving on the road, especially when I hit large puddles from this sudden flood and it made that shushing noise as the water hit the underside of the car. I was convinced a few times I had driven off the road and into a river! The road normally had a limit of 100km - I was doing 35km with my hazard lights on. Nobody else was going faster, either... I would have pulled over, but - ditch and jungle, remember? It was quite an adrenaline ride, and one I would not care to experience again. But after 30 minutes of this terror, the rain finally eased up - well, it became normally torrential, rather than the waterfall I experienced, and I made it home safely.
Okay - enough tales for now. I plan on spending a leisurely day wandering the Zocalo of Mexico City. Am taking it easy, and enjoying catching up online. I will be around later to tell you about the wonderful, sexy, vibrant place that is Cuba...
Until then - hasta luego! Aveline. xxx
