Cancun - Day 6
I started the day by calling around some rental agencies to see about the best rate for a rental car. We found the best rate at the Omni hotel right next door to our hotel so we made our way over there and rented the cheapest car we could. This itty-bitty thing was seriously no frills - power nothing, no radio (what are we going to listen to in Mexico anyway), but it did have A/C which was nice.
So we jumped in our silly little car (I drove on the way down, Roger drove on the way back) with a map and headed for Aktun Chen. It took us a couple of hours to drive there. Driving in Mexico wasn't a huge deal. The weirdest part was that the speed limit changes constantly. One moment it is 80 km/h and then 500 km down the road it is suddenly 40 km/h and then inexplicably, another km later, it is 100 km/h. The other drivers ignored the speed limit completely and pretty much drove about 110 km/h. It was so hard to stick with the speed limit because you would almost not even have enough time to slow all the way down before it went back up again. By the time you got back up to the new speed limit, it would drop again. It was really annoying and there didn't seem to be any logical reason for the changes that we could determine.
We headed south on the highway from Cancun and after about 2 hours we saw the turnoff for Aktun Chen. It was quite easy to find. From the highway, we took a one lane dirt road (with two way traffic) for about 2 km until we reached Aktun Chen park.
The park is in the middle of the jungle and there was the cutest little spider monkey running around, well, swinging and hopping around. We purchased tickets for a guided tour of the cave and watched the spider monkey while we waited. I asked one of the guides where the rest of his troop was. Apparently he is an orphan that they have sort of adopted (though he still runs wild through the jungle). He will join a troop of spider monkeys when he is old enough.
When there were enough people assembled, we took a tour of the cave which was very different than other cave tours I have been on in the states. Usually there is a nice little lighted concrete pathway with a stairs at necessary places and a handrail and the whole thing seems really fakey and overly touristy. This cave was lit with extremely well concealed lighting and there was no paved pathway. There were some smaller areas we had to pass through and we had to do quite a bit of ducking to get into some areas of the cave (we wore hard hats). It was quite impressive. (The bats were cool too!)
At the end of the cave is a Cenoté (sen-oh-tay), which is a underground pool of crystal clear water. There are many such cenotés in the Yucatan. Most of the rivers are underground in that portion of Mexico and these little underground lakes formed over time. The Maya set up many of their cities around these bodies of water. Very often a portion of the roof will collapse in and allow access. There is one such cenoté that we were able to view from above at Chichen Itza. At the end of the tour of the caves and cenoté there was a little snack bar with a bunch of colorful parrots hollering "Hola!"
We hiked back to our car and headed down the highway about ten minutes south to the Mayan ruins of Tulum. Tulum was built much later than Chichen Itza. It is a much smaller site than Chichen Itza - both in the scale of the buildings and the area that the site takes up, however, it was no less impressive. The setting more than made up for the lack of grand scale. The buildings are set high on cliffs above the ocean and between some of the cliffs were beautiful secluded white sand beaches. It was really incredible.
The drive back to Cancun was uneventful. We filled the car up with gas, which was really expensive. After the exchange (of both measurement and currency) we estimated that we paid about $2.50 a gallon. We returned the car at the Omni and walked back to our hotel. All in all, one of my favorite days in Cancun.
Click here for Day 7.
So we jumped in our silly little car (I drove on the way down, Roger drove on the way back) with a map and headed for Aktun Chen. It took us a couple of hours to drive there. Driving in Mexico wasn't a huge deal. The weirdest part was that the speed limit changes constantly. One moment it is 80 km/h and then 500 km down the road it is suddenly 40 km/h and then inexplicably, another km later, it is 100 km/h. The other drivers ignored the speed limit completely and pretty much drove about 110 km/h. It was so hard to stick with the speed limit because you would almost not even have enough time to slow all the way down before it went back up again. By the time you got back up to the new speed limit, it would drop again. It was really annoying and there didn't seem to be any logical reason for the changes that we could determine.
We headed south on the highway from Cancun and after about 2 hours we saw the turnoff for Aktun Chen. It was quite easy to find. From the highway, we took a one lane dirt road (with two way traffic) for about 2 km until we reached Aktun Chen park.
The park is in the middle of the jungle and there was the cutest little spider monkey running around, well, swinging and hopping around. We purchased tickets for a guided tour of the cave and watched the spider monkey while we waited. I asked one of the guides where the rest of his troop was. Apparently he is an orphan that they have sort of adopted (though he still runs wild through the jungle). He will join a troop of spider monkeys when he is old enough.
When there were enough people assembled, we took a tour of the cave which was very different than other cave tours I have been on in the states. Usually there is a nice little lighted concrete pathway with a stairs at necessary places and a handrail and the whole thing seems really fakey and overly touristy. This cave was lit with extremely well concealed lighting and there was no paved pathway. There were some smaller areas we had to pass through and we had to do quite a bit of ducking to get into some areas of the cave (we wore hard hats). It was quite impressive. (The bats were cool too!)
At the end of the cave is a Cenoté (sen-oh-tay), which is a underground pool of crystal clear water. There are many such cenotés in the Yucatan. Most of the rivers are underground in that portion of Mexico and these little underground lakes formed over time. The Maya set up many of their cities around these bodies of water. Very often a portion of the roof will collapse in and allow access. There is one such cenoté that we were able to view from above at Chichen Itza. At the end of the tour of the caves and cenoté there was a little snack bar with a bunch of colorful parrots hollering "Hola!"
We hiked back to our car and headed down the highway about ten minutes south to the Mayan ruins of Tulum. Tulum was built much later than Chichen Itza. It is a much smaller site than Chichen Itza - both in the scale of the buildings and the area that the site takes up, however, it was no less impressive. The setting more than made up for the lack of grand scale. The buildings are set high on cliffs above the ocean and between some of the cliffs were beautiful secluded white sand beaches. It was really incredible.
The drive back to Cancun was uneventful. We filled the car up with gas, which was really expensive. After the exchange (of both measurement and currency) we estimated that we paid about $2.50 a gallon. We returned the car at the Omni and walked back to our hotel. All in all, one of my favorite days in Cancun.
Click here for Day 7.
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