Day 3- Cancun Trip 2010 (part 3)

EK BALAM

Ek Balam was Carlos' idea.

We thought of going to Tulum or another one of the bigger Mayan sites...but Carlos suggested this one that has only been open to the public for the last 8 years.

13 years ago a man bought all this land hoping to find some Cenote's so he could open them up to make some money.

Well, instead he found these ruins on his land...which was a bad thing...cause then he had the land taken away.

Buy Carlos suggested we go there and we are so glad he did.

It was amazing!

It wasn't all roped off like the ruins at Chitzen Itza were.

These we could touch, feel, climb!

It really was incredible!

And again, I can't believe the amazing connections to the Book of Mormon and the LDS culture.

Amazing!

Heather and I
If you look closely, you can see the rock in the 'mountain'.
This is a 'yet to be uncovered' ruin.
There were two of these that still hadn't been unearthed!
Can you even imagine looking at that side of a mountain and then uncovering an amazing ruin!
How incredible!
(yes, I realize that I wrote uncovered on the picture...woops! Pretend it says still covered.)

Some cool shots from Ek Balam.
The second picture at the top is a shot of the ball field here.
It was much much smaller.
Only two players per team instead of seven.
But the winner was still sacrificed.
The bottom left picture was amazing for us to see...
a light skin man teaching dark skinned men.
There were no white men in this area at that time.
We think he is a missionary from another part of the world.
Half way up the big temple.
This part we are standing on was found by accident.
This building was built in the way of the Chitzen Itza temple.
Four sides of stairs.
When a man was cleaning up and working on the stairs, it collapsed.
And he found this hidden entrance to a hidden part of the temple.
We saw some amazing things there.

The boys

This is Carlos...BYU hat and all!

He really is such an awesome guy!

On the steep steep steps!

Man...they were really steep and really skinny steps...I was pretty nervous!

Carlos said that this Temple is actually a few feet taller than the Temple at Chitzen Itza.

This is the one we were at the very top of.

Brent shot this...he is on top of the observatory looking through the door at the Temple.

Cool shot if you ask me.

I am in it too...I am on the ground trying to find him...he wandered...ALOT!

He loved this!

Carlos brought us home at about 7:00.

That was a full day!

We loved every minute of it!!!

We got back and changed then went to dinner and made it to another show in the theatre.

Then we headed to the hot tub again! So much fun!

**********************

It was an amazing and exhausting day!!! Thanks Carlos!