Day 3 - Costa Maya

Day 3 we woke up in beautiful Costa Maya, Mexico. We decided we wanted to go see some Mayan ruins so we headed into the jungle with our great tour guide (who's name I already forgot, but she was fabulous). We were totally amazed at the fact that we could be so close to these huge Mayan temples and you didn't even know it because they were buried in jungle. The ruins that we visited have only been open about 10 years. (Prepare for picture overload. I wanted to be an archeologist when I was a kid. I know what a freaky kid. I've always been facinated with other cultures.)

This is the first glimpse we got of the ruins from the bus as we were driving there. Then we got off the bus and saw the first huge temple. This was the temple where they did their religious rituals. Apparently the Mayans were fans of beheading. They would play ball games and the winners were then beheaded. Not sure what the draw for winning was, but oh well.

Klint & I and Emily & I

Em & I loved those purple plants at the top.

Here are Em & Eric checking it out.

This would have been a street. Houses would have been built on top of these steps & foundations. Here we learned that they would have also buried their family members in these steps & foundations. It was here that I told Klint no matter how much I love him, I would not be burying him under the house when he died. I fell in love with how dense, green & beautiful the jungle was....to look at. I'm not sure I would want to live in it though.

After a short walk we came to these steps that were going to take us to the Mayan "Heaven" aka "Sun" & "Moon" temples. There was an easy way & a hard way up. We decided we didn't come all this way to take the easy way to "Heaven" so up we stared to climb the 36 steps to "Heaven".

Here's Emily on her way up to "Heaven"

Here's Klint when he made it to the top. We were amazed at how beautiful the view was.

Here come Em & Eric

The "Sun Temple"

"Moon Temple"

Klint on the Sun Temple

Me on the Sun Temple

The rounded corners are very typical of the Mayan culture. I thought they were really cool.

Em & Eric on the Sun Temple. Look at that gorgeous tree! They had some of the most beautiful plants. I was wishing I had my Aunt Janet there to see them. I was sure she could have found a "contorded philbert".

The Moon Temple

The guide said that the temples were never finished. When one ruler died or was ousted the next one just added another layer to the temple in their taste, so the temples aren't empty in the middle like the Egyptian pyramids.

This shows the layers to the temple & also (hard to see, it's at the bottom) they painted the temples red.

Sun temple

This is the "easy way". We decided we could take the "easy way" out of heaven.