Monday, August 6, 2012

Cancun {Part 2}

 One day, we went to this amazing natural open swimming pool. The water was great and there were little cat fish all around in it. Kinda gross. They also had super fun cliff jumping, so we took a few action shots...




 Kirk
 Abby
 Chris trapped under a personal rain cloud.
 Chris
 Jack
 Ally
 Ally's biff

 Chris
 Ally

 Afterwards, we went to an actual Mayan man's house. He lived in a hit built by himself. He slept in a hammock and only had one lightbulb in the house. There was no kitchen. There was a fire pit burning in the back. There is a well where they can get fresh water for drinking.
 More huts
 The huts were for really really short Mayans.
 Abby and Ally just acting like Mayans.

 They have chickens running around their property.
 Dogs run wild and on the loose around these parts. They were so cute, but so sad.
 Feeding chickens.
 Late night light show at Chichen Itza.
 This is the night we put baby sea turtles in the water. My camera was blurry.



 We also went to many water amusement parks in Mexico. We went to Xel Ha and went snorkeling. We went to Xcaret and Abby swam with sharks and I swam with dolphins. Not a hard choice for me between anything and sharks. I will never choose sharks over anything else. They are literally my worst fear. Whenever I am in the ocean, if I see even a slight shadow, I freak out.

However, swimming with the dolphins was so cool! That has always been on my life check list. It was so much fun and the dolphins were so cute. They even had a baby dolphin that was swimming all around us. So freaking cute!
 Shark that Abby pet.

We also saw a Cougar.

Cancun {Part 1}

Chris and I spent the last week in Cancun, Mexico with the Guinn family. We had so much fun just hanging out and spending time with each other. The mornings were beautiful. We stayed in a penthouse suite right next to the ocean. Sunrise was beautiful everyday. I had to snap a picture. Here are some more pictures of our adventures.
 Ally and Jack fighting as usual... jk.

 Everynight, sea turtles would walk up onto shore, dig a hole, and lay eggs. Here are a bunch of tracks we saw in the morning. We even got to see a few sea turtles one night outside around 9:30 pm. They were humungous! We also had the chance to send baby sea turtles out to sea after they hatched. It was the highlight of my trip. Baby sea turtles are the cutest!
 Later we went down to see the ruins in Tulum. On our way, we saw a really cool Iguana. We had to pay to take pictures though... whatevs.



 Tulum ruins

 Tulum beach: believed to have been where the spaniards were spotted discovering the Americas.






 Cool Jack

Cool tunnel we had to walk through to enter and leave.
 Later in the week, we went to Chichen Itza! I've only seen pictures of this place. It was so so very cool. We even had a mormon tour guide to have us a specialized tour that was put in the light of the Book of Mormon. BYU researchers believe that these are the grounds of the past Lamanites and Nephites. There are many sculptures and inscriptions on the wall that suggest this to be so, such as, the tree of life, two thousand stripling warriors, King Benjamin's famous speech, and many more. It was so cool to learn and listen to everything he was saying. These grounds are considered the land of Bountiful. The main temple here is said to have been the site of King Benjamin's speech. 
 This is the Warrior's temple. All of the pillars represent the two thousand stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon. There are 2,000 pillars in the temple. This is also the site of human sacrifices that were performed by the Lamanites and ancient Mayan.


 Just buying some Mayan souvenirs.
 This my friends is the Mayan ball game. The winners of this game were all killed for honor. Their heads would be chopped off. They say first one to score wins. Seems too hard to do since hands and feet cannot be used.