Chichen Itza...Not Today Topes (Mexico)

The next morning we woke up, in hopes that life was good with Clint.  The mosquito net worked its charms and allowed us a bug-free night.  Our friend Simon greeted us, and Jared and I headed back over to the cenote for breakfast and and early swim.  The cenote was super neat, the pictures do it justice (though I will have to get him to put more up).  It was gorgeous, and so serene.  We were the only two people swimming, so it was really great.  There were tons of fish and birds flying overhead.  Then on our walk back to the hostel, we met Clint perfectly to watch him continue down the road past the hostel.  Luckily, he saw Jared running in his rearview mirror.  Thankfully, the tent was retrieved, but poor Clint got stopped 3 times at checkpoints, and once got extensively searched.  The three of us, then piled in to head to lunch and Chichen Itza.

These were probably our least favorite ruins.  The price to enter was over double what we had paid at (in our opinion) better ruins, such as Palenque and Teotihuacan.  The number of tourists and especially vendors everywhere yelling for you to buy things really seemed to cheapen the whole experience.  It seems more like Disneyworld that actual ancient ruins.  None-the-less, the ruins themselves were neat. The day was incredibly hot, so afterwards, Jared and I rewareded ourselves with a popsicle!  

After the ruins, we headed back to the hostel, and made the last minute desicion to drive that day to Cancun.  Luckily, the drive was only about 3 hours so we should have gotten in right before dark.  No checkpoint stops, completely easy driving, and our first roadtrip without any surprise topes!!!  HAHA!!  SUCCESS!!!  Jared was very proud.  Unfortunately, we ended up getting into Cancun a bit late and had to drive through a new city at night.  There are a massive amount of roundabouts here, that do not work like normal roundabouts.  Apparently, being in the inner lane around the circle does not mean you are going to continue circling.  We drove around for about an hour, and asked perhaps 7 different hotels, police officers, and anyone else where it was.  This place is the best kept secret is Cancun!  We finallyyyyy found it, actually right as we had given up.   The place where we decided to give up was across the street from ours.  She pointed us through a small parking lot to the hotel...without a sign.  Anyway, this place is great and cheap, and has a pool!  We settled in, grabbed some dinner, and came back to the hostel.  At least we got to know a lot of the city during our hour long city stroll.