We think this is taking ‘free range’ to another level with this pig (he wasn’t tethered). He must look forward to the wet season – we couldn’t find him the next day when the roads had dried.
This lady and her husband were the perfect hosts. Without asking she appeared with this umbrella to provide shade as the sun had moved around during the time David had taken to take care of his administration duties……………. Our co host with one of his many creations – these are handmade by him and his wife together with running the hotel.We have to be on our best behaviour today mixing with real tourists at a well known site – the LP guide recommended being there early before the tourist parties arrived by 11am. We go through the turnstiles around 8 am.
Ideally we would have been able to climb this and taken views of the surrounding countryside as well as the monuments down below. Sadly, in 2006 someone did that and fell to their death and it is now cordoned off for safety reasons. We were surprised they allowed people up there in the first place – the 97 steps are so steep you need to be an elite athlete to complete the climb/descent and with 1.7 million visitors a year the wear and tear on the stonework would be a huge challenge to maintain.
Whichever way you look at El Castillo it is impressive especially when you consider the tools available to them between 900 and 1200 AD.Inevitably this reminded us of our visit to Anghor Wat in Cambodia. Fortunately this site is only 47 hectares and we covered what we wanted to see in under 3 hours – Anghor Wat is 10 square kilometres and we needed a hired Tuk Tuk to transport us around for a day.The stall holders were still setting up as we wandered around; there were dozens of them mostly selling the same types of things. Thankfully they only call out to you and don’t chase you down the road and physically try to propel you back to their stall like some places we could mention (Cuba?)Although the stall holders were relatively well behaved we were on full alert after our experiences at dinner and breakfast. At dinner we were expecting 60 pesos in change and only received 40; at breakfast we were anticipating 250 pesos in change and only received 50 (this is not a typing error). On both occasions we promptly challenged our server and neither apologised, showed any contrition or interest that they made a mistake. A lesson learned for the remainder of this trip. When we arrived there were three coaches in the car park; when we left there were 27 and we understand that’s a normal day for them.
Mexico and Belize 