Our Mayan tour guide was pretty funny and cool. He went back and forth using 3 languages when he spoke to our group. That isn't easy! He even asked if anyone spoke Portuguese because he was ready to use that language too if necessary! I loved listening to all 3 languages, English, Spanish, and French. My dad speaks 3 languages and my mom speaks 2 so I know how hard that can be to translate for people. And I blame my parents for the fact that I only know 1 1/2 languages. ;)
We made a quick stop as a tour group to a local market where we bought our souvenir for our house. We have made it a tradition to buy one unique local artwork wherever we travel to to display in our home. We want our home to tell a story of our family. We don't want our house filled with unnecessary store bought items that have no meaning to us. So we bought a handmade statue out of obsidian. And we thought we bargained well for it but later learned we should have gone way, way lower. ha!
Just a few minutes later we arrived at my most awaited event, Cenote Ik Kil! It was a natural beauty!
Surprisingly most people were standing by the water taking pictures but not very many people were actually in the water! It blew my mind. You come all this way to take a selfie but you aren't even going to go in? And even fewer people were jumping into the water from a high platform off to the side. You bet we did!! I screamed every time I jumped in and my legs would flail like a crazy person every time too. haha I was quite the spectacle!
Upon first entering the waters I notice beautiful black fish swimming around the water. It was so incredible to be swimming with exotic fish! Except for the few times they would brush against my leg or foot and then I would squeal. But it was a squeal of delight and creepiness. ha!
We spent a great amount of time swimming and quickly ate lunch before heading back onto our bus. Another 10 minutes or so we arrived to our final destination.
Isn't it incredible?!...
It was incredibly hot. More like incredibly humid. And there were vendors lined up everywhere selling the exact same things as our first quick stop for much, much less. Dang it! Oh well.
We soaked up all the Mayan stories and traditions told by our tour guide, who was Mayan himself, as walked around the site. Fascinating to learn how people lived and what they believed!
During our tour our guide introduced us to an older Mayan woman who only spoke Mayan and in true Mayan demographic was the tiniest woman I have ever seen. Tim quickly posed near her so we could show family just how incredibly small she was. My guess was that she was the same height as my 6 year old daughter. A few minutes later I ended up buying tortilla cloths that she was selling for a couple pesos and I was able to grab a picture with her too. How sweet is she?!
In the end we had time to walk around a bit and do as we please. We wanted to bring the kids a few items back so I brushed off my Spanish and got a second chance at my bargaining skills. I think this time my dad, the best bargainer I know, would have been pretty pleased with me! ;)
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