Our long travel day. It started with a 4am alarm, a 4:30 taxi to Xalapa, and a 5am bus out of town headed north to Papantla. We both attempted to get some sleep on the 4.5 hour bus ride, but probably neither of us were overly successful.
We arrived in Papantla at about 10 and caught a local bus from there to the ruins. A guy trying to hawk bags of limes to passing cars was nice enough to say he'd tell us when the right bus came. Our bumpy bus ride was something akin to an amusement park ride and wound through a nearby town before dropping us at the entrance to the ruins.
We got there just in time to see a voladores, or flyers performance.
There was one guy playing a flute and small drum, and 4 others that were the flyers.
One by one they climbed up the tower to sit on the square at the top. They spun it around as they wound their ropes up.
Then after a little more flute music with the guy *standing* on the top of the tower (I'm so glad that's not my job...) they all toppled over backwards and proceeded to spin all the way down to the ground.
The rope unwound at the top as they spun around, letting them down little by little, one guys rope came off of each side of the square. Very entertaining, especially since I didn't have to do it. We heard piping later in the day, so I think they did multiple shows every day.
Inside the ruins we had a great time wandering the grounds and looking at the structures.
El Tajin has the most ball courts found so far in similar ruins.
The pyramids had fun designs made of rock on the sides. The niches were probably for displaying things.
Up a hill were some more buildings, and a lovely view of the area from above.
There was one massive group all dressed in white shirts that I figured out was a group from Veracruz University (at one point their mascot walked through to cheers) but they stayed together and were easy to avoid. Other than that there were just a couple other folks around, so it was nice and peaceful.
We admired the cathedral which was painted light yellow and lilac inside, and got lunch at a restaurant at the side of the square. Perfect timing to catch our bus back.
Suffice to say we were both happy when those 4 hours were over. We found a taxi back to our hotel in Coatepec and went straight to bed. Hopefully Dad remembers the ruins instead of the bus ride.
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