Mayan Ruins

We took a risk and traveled to the ruins of Tulum and Coba. There are ruins everywhere on the Yucatan Penisula and it was amazing. There were even some small ruins on the resort near the shore. It included a small temple, dwellings, as well as a the remains of a church that the Spaniards had built. There were over 100 bodies found buried in the church yard. If you are wondering, human sacrifice was NOT part of their culture.

We decided we would go to Coba first as it was hot and we could see Tulum on the way back as it is by the coast and it is much cooler. This was our first mistake. Apparently the Federali Police leave you alone if the roads have more people on them. There were very few cars on the road when we passed the Federali Police car. We checked our speed as we approached and we were not over so we felt safe. . .MISTAKE #2. The police pulled us over and told us we were going 20 kilometers over the speed limit. If it had been a different situation we probably would have laughed out loud. He made Darren get out of the car and discuss the situation at their car. Darren made it clear that he wasn't calling them liars but that he was also NOT going over the speed limit. They told him that he could go back to the police station with them now or pick up his license on his way back and it would cost 1,300 pesos. This is the equivilant of about $130 in American money. After some discussion, the police finally decided that there might be a third option and they would give it back if there was some exchange of money. We paid them the equivilant of $47 American dollars. We found out later that we could have easily only paid them $20 but didn't know that at the time. They were very excited and said, "Thankyou, thankyou! This will be a nice dinner!" The rest of the trip we were all fearful and poor Darren had 6 back seat drivers. We made him go 20 kilometers under the speed limit which is very annoying when the taxi drivers sped by us going 20 kilometers over the speed limit. Later we were wishing we would have taken a picture of Darren with the Federalis.