July 6 ❤ Rio Lagartos, Ek Balam, and Valladolid

Juan and I woke up early to go on a tour to Rio Lagartos, Ek Balam, and Valladolid.  We were finally on our bus waiting for some more people to show up for the tour when it started to rain.  I hoped that it wouldn't be raining in the places we were traveling to.  We ate the breakfast they gave us on the bus and then fell asleep until we got to Rio Lagartos.

At Rio Lagartos everyone slathered on sunscreen and bug spray and then we separated into groups to get onto boats.  We toured the Ria Lagartos biosphere reserve looking for various species of birds in the mangroves.  We saw cormorants, white herons, gray herons, a scissor-tailed bird, a black hawk, a peregrine falcon, and flamingos.  There may have been more, but these were the main ones that we saw. My favorites were the peregrine falcon and the flamingos.  The other cool thing we saw was a crocodile.  Our boat driver fed it a fish and I got a video of it eating the fish.  It was pretty cool.  Juan touched its tail, which sort of freaked me out, but made the kid sitting behind us pretty happy.  He said it felt like a rock.  The only bad thing about the crocodile was that we got really close to the mangroves and a ton of mosquitos.  They didn't care that I was covered in bug spray and I got eaten alive.  :(

Ria Lagartos Bird List - not sure if all my labels are accurate, so maybe you can match the bird up better with the list.  ;)

Right after we pushed off the docks in Ria Lagartos.  I love the bright colors of the houses!!!

Cormorant in Ria Lagartos.

This is a termite home.  Yikes!!!

Mangroves.

They said this was a black eagle, but it looks like a black hawk from the list of birds found in Ria Lagartos.

Peregrine falcon.

Peregrine falcon.  He was so cool!!!

Gray heron.

Crocodile!!!

Flamingo!!!

Flamingos!!!

I loved the flamingos!!!

I thought this was a cormorant, but now I don't...hmmm...what is he???

Coming back to shore...

After Ria Lagartos, we got back into the bus to head to the Mayan ruins of Ek Balam.  In Mayan, Ek Balam means jaguar star.  These ruins were well-preserved.  We got to walk up different parts of the ruins, including many steps up to an amazing view.  We saw the grounds where they played the ball game.  She gave us more information about the ball game, saying that the ball was more than 3 kilos, about as much as a bowling ball or more.  She said they would wear protective gear and could only touch the ball with their shoulders, hips and knees.  A player would situate themselves seated near the hoop that was further up on the wall to be able to knock the ball through the hoop.  It was so hard to score a point that one point was all they needed to win the game.  She said that it wasn't clear whether the winners or losers had to sacrifice their blood, but she said it was only the team captain and that they just had to cut themselves and pour blood onto a sacrificial fire.  She didn't say anything about death.  My mom asked me what the stones were held together with.  We asked our guide and she said it was probably cement.  There were beautifully preserved carvings on the final structure we walked up.  They were surrounding the place where people had found the king's sarcophagus.  It was beautiful.  It looked like the opened mouth of a jaguar or snake.  There were several small carvings of people.  They said that there were a lot of similarities between the Maya and Hindu cultures as seen in some of the carvings.  There was one carved person that was pointing to the sky, indicating that this was where the king would go.  In Palenque, they buried the king in the ground, thinking that he had to go through underground passages before going to the heavens.  In most of the other Mayan ruins, they put the dead up higher, on their way to the heavens.

The place where they found a sarcophagus in Ek Balam.  Can you see that it looks like the mouth of a snake or jaguar?

The view of other buildings at Ek Balam after climbing the steps of the highest building in the ruins.

Me at Ek Balam.

Juan going back down the steps.

After Ek Balam, we headed down to Valladolid to eat dinner at La Casona.  It was a buffet of all different kinds of Yucatecan food.  I wasn't that impressed with the food since we'd eaten better at other restaurants.  I did like the black bean soup, the fresh guacamole, and the coconut ice cream though.  It started to rain when we got there, so instead of walking around the plaza, we went directly to the bus.  It didn't matter too much to us since we'd already gone there on our trip.

On the way back to Cancun from Valladolid, we saw a beautiful rainbow that extended from the front window of the bus to the side windows.  A nice way to end the day.

Rainbow seen from the bus on the way home.