Yesterday was mostly a transit day so (thankfully) there isn't much to say. We had a late breakfast at the hotel before driving an hour and a half to our rental house in the center of Merida. Have I ever mentioned how much I love AirBnB? The place is absolutely amazing. We have two master suites, a private pool, a massive balcony, twenty foot ceilings and even an indoor waterfall. I feel like we got comp'd at the Bellagio. The one downside so far is that the AC is only in the bedrooms, so the rest of the house gets a bit balmy when the daily highs are over a hundred degrees! A quick run to a nearby grocery store ensured an adequate supply of Dos Equis for our stay, and those babies will keep me cool enough :) We spent most of the afternoon in the pool before walking to the main plaza for dinner. The square isn't nearly as impressive as Cusco or Cartagena, but the people are decidedly relaxed and the sprawling trees give the block a cool, airy feel. Most houses don't have AC so even late at night you'll see whole families (or just a lonely grandma) passing the time in a rocking chair just outside their front door. We went to a restaurant called La Chaya Maya for dinner where I thoroughly enjoyed being serenaded by two older gentlemen with nylon string guitars. I'm guessing they came over for the lady at the table, but I was the one making googely eyes (man I miss my guitars!). I've got great pictures of the square and our musically inclined friends, but my pictures are spread across the iPad, a camera, and my cell phone. Unfortunately I can only put the iPad pics on the blog so you can't really get the whole story. Before we go to Iceland in November I want to make a serious upgrade on the camera front because this picture juggling thing is getting old fast. I've heard some cameras have WiFi built right in so I can just take all my pictures with one camera and upload them right from there. Man that would be nice! Dinner was charmingly authentic but, sadly, nothing to write home about. I have yet to experience any fantastic flavors and I'm hoping that we won't leave here without tasting something incredible. I've been very pleasantly surprised but how cheap everything is, but I'd rather pay a bit more and have a meal to remember. Maybe it'll happen in Tulum; we still have plenty of time. We got home pretty late last night so this morning was rough. Another major Mayan ruin site was on my to-do list and the doors opened at 8am. Unfortunately we weren't a short walk from them like we were at Chichen Itza, so to get there by 8 we had to leave before 7. Those of you that know Brittany can easily imagine the groggily whispered bargains that ensued immediately after the alarm went off: "maybe we should go tomorrow.......why do we have to get there so early?.....haven't we seen enough ruins already?" and so on :) Our guide book warned of "outrageous crowds" so I was determined to be at Uxmal (pronounced oosh-mall) right when the gates opened. We were the first ones there, and I eagerly ran ahead as Brittany begrudgingly followed. The site was again much larger than I had anticipated so we did quite a bit of hiking, but getting there so early meant that we only had to sweat in the high 80's. Sounds sad, but that's downright cool over here! We again decided against hiring a guide. We certainly didn't have any substantial appreciation for what we were looking at, but it was worth foregoing some head knowledge to explore the entire place all on our own. We were there for nearly two hours before we saw even one other tourist. Apparently our guide book is full of **** because the boogeyman crowds never materialized, but we relished the solitude. Iguanas (and their bewilderingly large *****) covered the ground, and we sat in the shade to watch them chase down breakfast. It was then that we knew we had seen everything we wanted to see and could head home. "What time is it?" Brittany mumbled. "9:30" I replied. Cue the laughs. This was all we had on the agenda for today and it wasn't even 10am! With so much time on our hands we broke out the guidebook and decided to follow the Puuc Road. It was a small two lane road that meandered through the hills and took you on a tour of ruins in the area. After double-checking that we paid for the extra insurance, I figured we might as well put this rental car through its paces! The road was completely hedged in by forest, and I saw more butterflies in one day than ever in my life. They flitted and fluttered EVERYWHERE. Unfortunately, as beautiful as they are, when they make contact with a windshield at 50mph they still splat like anything else. Our faces constantly alternated between happy excitement at seeing so many butterflies and disturbed grimace as their bodies battered the hood. I still can't muster the courage to look at the front grill... Driving through Santa Elena we were excited to see some Witnesses off the main road. It was coming up on the hottest part of the day, and I'll think twice before complaining about the heat in Florida the next time I'm preaching with the cart! We stopped at a few ruins right off the road (notably Kabul and Labne) and dutifully walked around. The crumbling sites are truly fascinating to see, but many are so similar that you become jaded at an alarming rate (I'm sure refusing to hire a guide and learn about it has something to do with that!). The 1,200 year-old carving sitting in front of you is magnificent the first time you see it, but by time #34 it doesn't have quite the same punch. The sun and heat can really suck the life out of you, so by noon we were back in the car and headed to the pool at the house. Many hours of napping later we still didn't feel like walking to the plaza for dinner. Brittany suggested pizza and Mexican TV, which sounded pretty great to me. I found a nearby pizza place with glowing reviews on google and we hopped in the car to investigate. I'm sure it would've been amazing because there were close to twenty people lined up outside, but we were so intimidated by the crowd that we sullenly walked back to our car. Without speaking a word of Spanish we would've had no idea of when or even where to order. Knowing that the entire line of people was inquisitively staring at us from the moment we got out of the car didn't help either. Defeated (and quite ashamed that we didn't take those two years of High School Spanish more seriously) we plugged our backup plan into the GPS. With heads hung low, I put the car in park as my phone chirped, "you have arrived at...Domino's".