After only having slept about 3 hours the night before, we added to the torture by only getting about 4 hours of sleep last night. Our tour guide Flavio met us at our hotel this morning at 6:00am. Which meant we had to wake up at about 5:15 to eat breakfast (room service) and get ready and leave. Jon, Shareen, and Shareen's parents joined us for this excursion.

It was a little over 2 hours to Chichen Itza - the ancient Mayan Ruins. We drove straight there and our tour guide gave us a history lesson on the way. It was very informative. Flavio was an exquisite tour guide and spoke English very well. Of course every now and again he and Jaime would speak in Spanish.

We got to the ruins and walked around for a couple of hours going to the various structures and getting LOTS more history from our tour guide there - a different one - Enrique. We got there so early that we beat most of the crowds, and were able to get tons of amazing pictures without other tourists in the background. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Due to the erosion and to keep the ruins from getting more...well...ruined, we were not allowed to walk up the stairs or climb on any of the structures. Which was just fine. By the time we made our way back to the car, all of the vendors were set up, and we got to shop around and hone our skills in the fine art of bargaining. Jaime and I got a couple of cool souvenirs.

After Chichen Itza, Flavio took us to a Cenote - a freshwater underground sink hole. We got to go swimming and jump in. It was unbelievably gorgeous. There was a ledge you could jump off of and Jaime, Jon and I opted to do just that as opposed to going in slowly. ;)

We dried off, changed, ate at a Mexican food buffet then made our way to the 'tequilla' distillery.

I use the 'quotes' around the word tequila because tequila is only allowed to made in one state here in Mexico - Jalisco and we are not in that state, so what we saw being made today could not technically be called tequila, but it was the same thing. We got to try 4 shots of different ages of tequila, 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, and lastly 3 years. They got stronger as they went.

As fun and beautiful and unreal a day that it was, after this we were more than ready to come back to the resort. The rest of the wedding party/guests arrived while we were out on our excursion, so Jon and Shareen were anxious to get back, and we were just TIRED.
We made it back to the resort at about 6:30pm which gave us just enough time to clean up and meet everybody for dinner. There is a total of 19 people involved in this wedding, and all but 2 were here tonight.

To end, I just have to say that this private tour (it was just the 6 of us - no other people in our group today) was the best money we have spent in a long time. It was very personalized, we were able to take our time and get as many pictures as we wanted. Flavio also had a great camera, and took pictures for us all day and then gave us the photos on a USB as part of the package! We had snacks, water, and beer available to us all day, and Flavio and his helpers were absolutely amazing. So knowledgeable, friendly, and funny. And wouldn't you know it, Flavio was a back up dancer for a Michael Jackson tribute performing group for 5 years. Talk about having a common interest!

Luckily the wedding is not until 5:00pm tomorrow, so there will be no alarm set for tomorrow. We are just going to wake up when our internal alarms get us up, eat some breakfast. and relax at the pool and beach up until the wedding. I know, it is a rough life for us right now.