To describe the chaos of our trip to Chichen Itza, one of the seven wonder of the world, I am just going to paste in some of my text messages from that day:
"My hotel is close to the highway, so my dad hopped on assuming there would be gas in the direction we were heading. Instead we drove for 30 minutes in between rows of jungle with 0 Turn offs and 0 ways to turn around . Google Maps said there was a gas station close, but it was on the other side of the forest with no road to access it! After 1/2 hour we had 40 KM left of gas but the first sign advertising gas said 112 KM away. So in a moment of desperation we flipped around on the only turn we saw and drove another 1/2 hour back. We had slightly less KM till empty left on our car display than the signs said it was to get gas. We started brainstorming ways to get gas in case of emergency if we ran out on the side of the road (we probably would've had to walk because there were no ways for anybody bringing us gas from Cancun to turn in our direction to reach us. I said a prayer. We arrived at the station with 1 KM to go.”
“Now USAA has put a hold on dad's credit card and we're almost out of cash!
We're sitting at the ticket area of the famous ruins... He had just enough of my cash to get our tickets but we have no money for food or gas or anything later. Btw, despite that whole trip we don't have enough gas for the return trip
And no one else brought wallets.”
The story ended like this: My dad used the rest of the money I had pulled out of my account the night before to pay for the tickets, while USAA failed to figure out why the account was still blocked despite my mom telling them before our trip that we would be in Mexico. He had 100 American dollars in emergency fund and got a cruddy exchange to buy gas, with a little bit left over. As we were in the car, though, Adam made some stupid joke along the lines of, “Guess what, Dad! I have $35 in my phone case! Just kidding!”
“I’m so glad you said that!” Dad replied. I thought he was sarcastic, because that joke certainly wasn’t funny at a stressful time like this. Actually, he was serious. “If you hadn’t said that, I would have completely forgotten that I put 700 pesos in my phone case two days ago!”
It was a serious blessing that he remembered that, and that he hadn’t spent it on souvenirs several hours before, because otherwise we would’ve have had enough money to get through all the toll roads! I’d say God was definitely watching out for us.
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| A Mayan sports area. The ball was supposed to go through the hoops, visible high up on the sides. |
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| the cenote where they once held virgin sacrifices |
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| Cenotes are essentially giant waterholes where the earth collapsed many years ago. The cenote right outside Chichen Itza was possibly one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my entire life. We jumped from high up into the warm waters and enjoyed as rain sprinkled down the gaping hole past the draping vines. |
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