Dzibilchaltun

So, we had class thursday and friday at 7 am... I'll share more about that later. On our first saturday we went to a place called Dzibilchaltun! It is a classic period Maya site. It is small but still very cool! We had the craziest cutest old Mexican tour guide who kept drawing diagrams into the dirt with a stick he was carrying! it was classic! It was actually quite fascinating that the mayans knew so much about astonomy and astrology that they built the observatory (see the next few pics) so that the doors and windows were in exact positions so that on certain days of the year(equinox, and solstice) the sun would shine directly through the doors or windows. It is amazing!


After climbing and exploring the ruins and taking some pictures. The guide showed us the only water source the mayans had at that time a "cenote" or a natural spring. The interesting thing about the yucatan peninsula is that there are no visible rivers above the ground. The only access to fresh water is underground rivers that surface in these types of cenotes. Well, they said that people could swim in the cenote. Side story: we were toldthat we were going to the ruins and then going to the beach to swim and have lunch. Our Doña Addy told us she would take our swimming suits and towels to the beach and we could change there. SO when we got there and saw the cenote and they said people could go swimming and a bunch of people has brought their swimsuits and got in I was jealous/feeling left out! I REALLY wanted to swim in this cool one in a lifetime chance cenote in the middle of the maya ruins. SO I was sitting there sad that i didnt have my swimsuit with my feet in the water and i looked up and saw my prof and this is how the conversation went...
Prof: it would be nice to swim huh?
ME: YES! i almost want to jump in in my clothes!
Prof: haha why don't you?
ME: I can? (shocked he would allow me to)
Prof: i guess..? if you don't mind being wet (shocked that i actually wanted to)
ME: ok then! (and i got up and cleaned out my pockets and took off my shoes as everyone around me watched in amazement as the CRAZY Cortney prepared to jump in FULLY clothed. SO I did and my roommate got this killer picture mid air!


After the ruins we headed off to the beach to meet up with all of the families that the students are living with. There are 32 students and we live in groups of 2 or 4 In different houses all over the city. There are a few of us that live in the same neighbor hood a few blocks away from each other so we tend to see each other more often and do things together like swim at each others houses, or go running! SO we met up at the beach with all the mexican families and all the students and had a BIG lunch and just sat and played and hung out! Then one of the guys in the group Connor(who was in my first byu ward two years ago so we have become good friends on this trip because we knew each other from before). Well connor pulled out his ukulele and played and we just sat and sang on the porch across the street from the beach! It was Awesome! If you watch you can hear some of us singing along. At the beginning and end there are some shots of the other people in the group and at the end my professor is also in the video! It's kinda long so you can skip thru it if you prefer I jsut thought it was fun! Just kidding! It is taking WAY toooo long to load, over 3 hours. So i'll try again later. (if anyone knows a trick of how to get it to load or post faster I would appreciate some tips) I'm still learning!