1st march. Ahhhh 6am, hate these early starts! Great big fingers crossed that its not going to rain. Apparently (according to our guide) you don't drive in Mexico, you survive! After a crazy ride to the jungle (not super jungly though) we got in a canoe and headed up river to a nice little swampy thing they called a lagoon, apparently there were crocodiles in there but I'm not convinced! Then a walk trough the jungle for a swim in a cenonte (Mayan cave) after the shaman had blessed us and cleansed us to mane sure that no spirits would enter our beings. the mayans believe that the dead's souls pass through here on their way to the underworld so we wouldn't want any bad spirits infecting us! The cave itself was beautiful, with some really pretty rock formations all around, it would be great to do an explore of the caves through there. Next a little more of a walk and a zip line (which was awesome) back to the van. Off we drove to the next port of call; a traditional village and lunch!! When we got there we headed up to a 'rappel' which i have learnt that all countries in the world call abseiling except the crazy kiwis and us. Anyway, I went first coz everyone was too shy and apparently Nichol and I made it look so easy (I should hope so!). Then across another zip line after the steep climb up trough the wilderness, there were these awesome vines/ tree root things every where they looked awesome. Then accross to lunch where we were made a traditional Mexican lunch by some of the locals, it looked really cute actually, the ladies were dressed in the traditional outfits and hand made the tortillas and empanadas (they were my favourite) by hand and there was all this other nice stuff too but they were my favourite Then across to view the photos that the 'mayaratsi' were taking of us (because we weren't supposed to take our cameras but we did) and there were some really nice shots but the photos were $60 (I know!) and there weren't that many nice pictures!! Then back to the van for another scary ride to coba. The driver was so scary because on the highway, with yellow lines clearly painted in the centre of the road to overtake, be would drive toward the oncoming traffic on top of the lane markings... Ahhh! Coba was pretty cool, the tour guide that we had at the start was very slow and kept repeating himself and wasted a by of time by some of the information was interesting like the games that hey used to play, how and why they did sacrifices and some information about what used to be where. We then hired a bike for 350 pesos each and rode around the park. We came to that main temple, which is the second highest of the Mayan temples, and climbed to the top, not a bad view down from up there, I think that we were lucky it was a cool, overcast day! Then back to the van for a beer and some tourist shopping while we waited but didn't end up buying anything, it's all so expensive. A log drive back to the hotel chatting to our insurance friend. Went for a wander to find dinner and stumbled upon this cool little place with a super friendly guy out the front. Then we wandered a bit further and found the street food that we were actually looking for ... Doh! It turns out that this was the park that we were looking for the day before, we're so clever! Nichol got this weird bun thingo for desert that has sweetened condensed milk and chocolate sauce on, it was quite nice, a bit sweet a bit savoury and only 10 pesos! After all that time to head back, a long and interesting day and totally worth doing the adventure tour over the cultural one! Nearly forgot, something interesting that we learnt from mr repeat everything guide was that the Mayans, every 52 year cycle improved their towers to the sky by making them higher but instead of building new ones or using the materials from the old ones they just kept building on top of the old ones so the insides of the things are solid not hollow like a pyramid... There u go!