Xcaret - Afternoon

After lunch was pretty low-key 

We took in a couple more views

 An Iguana crawled in to be Jake's footrest - such great service at this place ;)

 We thought about hopping back in the water here but decided we'd go snorkeling instead.

 There are a couple different snorkeling areas. This one looked like the best! Nice inlet, lots of fish, clear water... It was perfect!

 It was Jake's first time snorkeling, so I took a pic to document it :)

There were quite a few fish & it was not very deep, so it was easy to find them.

 We had done just about everything so we watched a quick show

 And checked out the butterflies

 And the Mayan village

They had a little Mayan Village where they recreated some stuff - had some dancers dressed up, etc.

 And the colorful cemetery

 

And the chapel

 I wish our sacrament meeting had this kind of view, I'm not sure how many people would pay attention though :)

 And a stadium where they play Mayan ball games

 At first I just thought they were Mexicans dressed up in Mayan costumes, then I realized they were genuine Mayans who had survived all these years and whose wardrobe selection hadn't changed a bit. Luckily they only wanted to take over the park and reclaim their homes that were over-run with tourists! They also claimed that those "ruins" were just fixer-uppers that needed a little TLC :)

This is not a selfie... ok, its a selfie!

 We stuck around for the grand finale, a big show they put on to end the day. It started out pretty interesting, a little slow, but unique.

 

It begins with the Mayans and their history. In this video they were playing a game of fire ball.

 

Then moves on to how they were conquered by the Spaniards, and eventually became part of Mexican heritage.

They did that 'playing the flute after you climb really high' thing again... They dismounted by flying through the air around the pole.

Even though it started a bit slow, it ended... well, we don't actually know how it ended. We left after the first couple of hours - once they trotted out group after group after group of dancers, supposedly dancing for each region of Mexico, but after they danced for north, south, east, and west, they then started in on individual cities and we booked out of there pretty fast :)

I don't know why we took this picture other than to show you what was going on in the show... Just imagine dancers wearing traditional Mexican outfits dancing to Mexican folk music for a long, long, long time!  :)

We headed back home tired ponies, excited to crawl under our covers and enjoy some down time. Xcaret was awesome!!! It was a long day though and we were ready to head back to the resort :)

 We talked to one of the ladies who does the turn down service the night before and chatted with her a bit. Apparently she really appreciated the chat time because the next night we found bonus candy all over our bed! :)

 And they had created a little dish art for us too!