The alarm went off while it was still dark outside, we needed to be at the Colectivo stop in good time for the agreed 7:10am departure to take us the forty minute ride to Mayan Ruins of Chichén Itzá, one of the NEW Seven Wonders of World. We had arranged to meet our guide, Julian, at 8:30am but bus transport times were either ridiculously early or we'd be late. We must have been under lucky stars last night when we passed the colectivo stop and decided to enquire about the times. As it happened one of the local guides had to get to the ruins early as well and he was just arranging to get the departure confirmed -with 3 of us it was no problem at all, with no additional cost.

Julian had turned up early too so we had an extra 30 minutes before the tourist numbers grew and the temperature creeped up. We were so early in fact that the local traders were still wheeling in their wares to set up their stalls.

We had a great tour with Julian even though the site was huge and covered in a couple of hours, he was very informative, took us to the best vantage points for photos and pointed out where the clearest carvings were and even explained what carvings were before the eye could distinguish them. A lot of the history of the Mayans, the Toltecs and their symbolism would have been missed without him.

After Julian left for his next tour group, we wandered back around the site for another 30 minutes but the heat was becoming debilitating, the tourist numbers had increased dramatically and the local traders lined both sides of every path...time to go for a refreshing swim.