Tulum and Chichen Itza by Em

First of all, pictures still being a pain, but we will get them up asap!

So, we survived the bus! John found it tough because he is so very very tall, but I of course, being a pygmy, found them quite comfortable. Pshaw.

Actually the first class long-distance buses, which everybody recommended to us (they have AC, which for four hours in 30+ degrees is a total must, and only cost about 2 pounds more than the second class, which also takes over an hour longer) are pretty darn good - I´ve been on a helluva lot worse before on England coaches!

We went to Chichen Itza on Monday and it was v impressive, spread over sqare ks of space and some of it very well preserved. There´s a huge huge major pyramid temple in the middle which does this incredibly cool thing: the acoustics of the central zone are designed so that sound ricochets off the walls of the buildings, so if you stand in front of the pyramid and clap sharply, you get a pinging, zipping echo that comes back off the wall. I was easily amused, and applauded for some time, but unlike those standing around in the square clapping gormlessly like seals, I made sure I was in the right place, since it only works in one place! John will soon be ´rocked out,´I think, but we spent about 4 hours wandering around Chichen Itza and it was really good fun.

We got a bus down to Tulum, smaller town on the Yucatan peninsula, yesterday morning and this morning wandered the famous and popular (rammed with large Americans) clifftop ruins. It was hot, so I wore shorts, naturally. It was also going to involve scrambling around on rocks so I also wore my brace, naturally. Walking through town on the way to the site I felt quite conspicuous and Forest Gumpy but John assured me it looked quite cool and I was like a sort of armoured Lara Croft. Bless. Then a little old man passed us and did a huge double take on me, hurrying off exclaiming in Spanish ´Oh my god! The bionic woman!´

Ta very much.

I also got a charming stripy leg tan from the brace, which will obviously not go now for months despite how long I spend in the sun.

We both love Tulum, and would recommend it to anyone who wants a quiet beach holiday. You can wander around the ruins if you want a bit of culture, snorkel on the nearby reef, there's masses of diving, Mayan tat all over the place for you to get ripped off over, rent and food can be had pretty cheap, and the beach is a stunning expanse of the softest sand ever. So far my favourite new snack is boiled corn on the cob smothered in chili which we bought from a vendor with a bucket. (John declined the chili, fair enough - it was a bit gritty.)
I am basically making the food world tour, and on tomorrow's itinerary is a visit to the We Nuke Chicken Here shop. It's basically a shack in town with a grill you could roast small children on (which they may in fact be doing, but hey, it looks like chicken and I'm not fussy) piled high with incinerated meat. Smells incredible. After I play with the dolphins tomorrow I am going to investigate the nuked chicken (John not so keen, he likes the restaurants with chicken breast in small bits in fajitas). I love the Mayan ruins but finding it hard to elicit in John the same enthusiasm. And it's difficult to maintain the appropriate scholarly awe and professionalism when you've got someone squawking in your ear, 'Look, a Mayan dustbin!' every ten yards. Helpful comments range from identifying Mayan ATMS, bins, snack food vendors etc, to absolutely relentless refusal to accept even the slightest statement in the guidebooks as containing any factual basis whatsoever ('How do we know a family of peasants didn't build this to live in and winch themselves to the top in a basket every day?' about the central pyramid at Chichen Itza). But I take my revenge by lengthily examining my deep, even, nut-brown tan every evening, as John looks mournfully at his own luminous white calves. Like an arrangement of pink and white carnations. Mexican sunshine does not like you- that'll learn you to mock Mayan archaeology. Though he did try to buy me a £5 tin wedding ring yesterday, which I graciously declined. (Told him it was too expensive, but obv am holding out for the £6 'sterling' version).>********************

The next day
Best day ever yesterday (Sat) – we went to the local dolphin prostitution centre for me to enjoy myself at the expense of these intelligent, graceful, sensitive animals. They do tricks and you get to do a bit of dolphin fondling yourself. It all went well with my group except for one mad old lady who assailed 'our' dolphin with affection until she poked it in the eye, at which point the dolphin promptly fucked off. But it came back when asked to kiss a nice German mother, and indeed was so keen to kiss her that despite frantic whistles from the trainers would not do anything else, except pause briefly to 'kiss' the woman's four year old daughter. It was brilliant fun, and the dolphin seemed to take a particular liking to me, so during 'free play' (somewhat like mingling at a very weird cocktail party) it circled me for some time, bumping me in a (I hope) friendly and inquisitive way. The dolphins get their own back at the end though, with something called 'the foot push.' Basically they get to swim at the visitors and send them flying through the air before dumping them in the water.
Hit the chicken place last night too, and they do indeed Nuke Chicken There. The sign in Spanish reads 'We burn chicken until charcoal.' Even John, squeamish about meat being cooked properly, couldn't argue with that. Add the enthusiastic assault on the carcass with a meat-cleaver by our butcher/waiter and that sucker was definitely dead. Yum.