But our trip to the Yucatan gave us an up close and personal view of tropical jungle.
It was really hot - in the 90s - with very high humidity. It felt like vacationing in a giant bathroom after a hot shower. Except we couldn't exactly spend all day every day in our bathing suits! We did not realize how warm our cotton tee shirts and khaki shorts could be in such hot weather. We were careful to wear hats and carry lots of water and take breaks, but even so, we almost worked ourselves too hard one time. The Calakmul pyramid is buried deep in a federally protected biosphere. We had to drive nearly an hour into the reserve, then park and walk another 20 minutes to get to the pyramid. We were really hot and really hungry, but it was worth it. Walking through a jungle isn't something we do every day!
While we were at Calakmul, we climbed a huge pyramid to look out over the jungle, and got to see some spider monkeys playing in a tree. Thankfully, we did not see any jaguars or pumas. I was hoping there were more afraid of us than we were of them.
The yucatan has lots of "cenotes" - underground caves, normally with ponds or creeks running through them. At first, I didn't understand the appeal - why would tourists want to see holes in the ground? - but then we had some extra time between Ek Balaam and Chichen Itza pyramids, and it was too hot to do much else, so we stopped by a popular cenote in the area. We were not wearing swimsuits, so we didn't swim. (also, it was FULL of little fish, whom I was not really willing to share space with) but lots of tourists stop by to swim. I had an image of yucatan maya teenaged boys cenote diving (kind of like the boys on the reservation cliff diving in twilight book #2) to pass the time and cool off and show off for the girls.
The first pyramid we visited had a beautiful waterfall and small riverbed system connected to the pyramid city. I'm guessing that water is why they built their city there. It is too hot to do much in the yucatan, so shade trees and swimming must have been a common activity! They called one of the parts the "bathing pool of the queen" and they used to let tourists swim there. I think it's a liability now.
One of the pyramids that was popular with tourists - Tulum - was right on the beachfront coastline. There were not only a lot of tourists at this pyramid, there were also a lot of iguanas. At first, I didn't understand why the iguanas chose to hang out near all the tourists - weren't they scared? I figured these iguanas must really like the water or something, or they couldn't really live anywhere else nearby (maybe development had ruined the rest of their habitat). But then I realized that a lot of tourists will feed the iguanas! So they actually like the tourists. Except maybe not the giant iguana that was being used by a mexican man to take pictures with the tourists for $5-$10 each pic! We got pics with these tame ones for free.
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