Woke up this morning, geared up for our day at the ruins and had a delicious breakfast with a world class view! Caught up a bit on worldly matters while connected to wifi- apparently the only big thing happening is Bieber Fever in Jo'burg!
For whatever reason, Sarah and I decided we would walk to the Mayan Ruins... The temperature must have been at least 35 degrees Celsius and we knew it would take at least 2 hours courtesy of google maps and yet our takkies were on, our backpacks were set and off we went! We walked and walked and walked... And sweated and walked.... And walked and sweated (in between marveling at the different resorts, iguanas and long road ahead!!) We have since named this the "Bikram Walk" haha... Shedding kilos I tell you!! ;) We ffiinnaalllyyy made it! Wow... 2 hours later! Felt good though :)
We bought our tickets and followed the path to the walls of the Mayan city - it was so incredible to see the remains of this ancient ancient civilization! The setting is just spectacular- on the cliffs of the Caribbean Sea... There's even a point where they've built a staircase down to the sea so people can go swimming... What an amazing experience! I can actually say I've swum off the cliffs of the Mayan ruins! Very lucky girl!! After exploring the ruins as much as we could, we decided we were officially done sweating and walking and it was time for some relaxing beach time! We headed to a beach we spotted along the way called Playa Paraiso and had some lunch and then just enjoyed the beach and sea - we are becoming somewhat skilled at this ;) Given the stupid price of taxis and also our always-developing travel skills, we walked back towards our hotel along the beach as far as we could, went up the the road when we hit some cliffs, took a taxi to the beginning of the hotel strip, and then walked back down to the beach and walked along the sea to our hotel...
After this amazing day, we took the time to book our hotel at our next stop in Caye Caulker in the country of Belize, as well as our transport there (bus to Chetemal and boat to Caye Caulker) and then we went to freshen up and get ready for dinner... By this stage it was 9pm and we had again forgotten the fact that restaurants in these places close early so our initial choice was closed... We then sat down at a spot called Coco Banana - ehem ehem... We took a glance at the menu and realized we would have to take out mortgages on the meals... So sat in frozen panic for a while haha! Then Sarah came up with an ingenious solution... And when approached by the maitre'd again, the conversation went like this:
Sim: Excuse me, do you make pizza here?
Maitre'd: No... Sorry no pizza...
Sim to Sarah: Se! They don't make pizza here!
Sim to Maitre'D: Ah man... We really wanted pizza tonight!
Sarah to Maitre'D: We thought that was a pizza oven?!
Maitre'D: No no we use that to grill the fish..
Sim: Ah no! I'm so sorry we really really want pizza tonight!
Maitre'D: That's ok- there's a place down the road which makes pizza...
Cue for us to get up and leave! Hahaha... We ended up at the same place as last night and ate the same delicious seared tuna and were welcomed warmly by the chef and waiters again! No complaints at all!
We got home exhausted and ready for a solid night's sleep! What an incredible day...
Lesson of the day: Always always ask to see the menu before sitting down no matter how hungry you are!
Moment of the day: Swimming off the cliffs of the Mayan ruins...