Friday, February 15, 2019

Mayan Ruins, Chocolate, and Monkeys in Uxmal

This happened while on our road trip to Uxmal.  So it's kinda old news.  But I gotta blog about this!

If you're visiting the Yucatan Peninsula and State, you pretty much gotta visit Mayan ruins.  Check!  In the past, I've visited Mayan ruins in Tulum, Chichenitza, and San Gervasio.  All very cool, each in their own way.  This time, we visited the Uxmal ruins. Which were special because they were spread out among trees and pleasant green space. And because we could climb / go into lots of the buildings.  And kinda visit the bats living in there.  Super cool! We could hear some of them chirping.

Next, we visited a chocolate museum/eco park.  The highlight there for me was SO VERY DEFINITELY the spider monkeys!!!!   They were in 2 large enclosures.  With a little dispenser for food, like a petting zoo.  For one peso, about 6 cents, you could buy a handful of monkey treats.  All you needed to do was touch the machine, and the monkeys were ready!  The distance between the monkey enclosure and human fence was such that if the human with the treats stretched out his/her hand, the monkeys could stretch their arms and pick the food out of your hand.  So cool!!!!!  I must have spent about 60 cents on food!  That was about 50 times touching a monkey hand!

Pictures
1- One of the pyramids in Uxmal.  
2- Toby climbing another pyramid.  You can see how steep the stairs are.  It's done on purpose so when you walk back down, you have to walk sideways, and can't turn your back on the gods who stay at the top.
3-Me, posing on one of the buildings.  Looking kinda Mayan aye?
4- An iguana peeking out from it's ancient home
5- Some Phalli....  Symbols of fertility.  Oddly, we weren't allowed to sit on them.
6- My monkey friends!!!!  This one is looking to the side to warn off other monkeys from trying to take the treats.  There was definitely a boss monkey, and less boss ones.  Poor little guys.  But I did manage to give them some treats.
7 - Look at the amazing monkey hand! Apparently, they have no thumbs.  But they use their tail as a hand too.  Very agile and clever!
8- It takes 20 cocao pods to make 1 kg of chocolate.  The pods grow directly on the trunk of the tree. 









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