If you have read my blog for a while, you know that I really, really, really like the writings of Richard Halliburton.
He is mentioned in seven other of my posts. If you have not read my blog before or for a while, Richard Halliburton was a traveler/adventurer who lived from 1900-1939. His first big adventure was to run away to Europe when he was in the middle of college, at age nineteen, working his away across the Atlantic Ocean on a boat. His last adventure was the attempt to sail across the Pacific Ocean from China to San Francisco in an attempt to bring a Chinese junk to the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. Authorities are still not sure if he drowned in a storm at sea or if the Japanese fighter planes bombed their boat (I think it was the former, though the latter sounds more exciting).
Another of Richard's adventures was visiting Central and South Americas; his escapades are recorded in his book New Worlds to Conquer. While in Mexico, he went to the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza and stayed overnight, just because he wanted to do so. He regaled the reader with ancient tales of Mayan sacrifices to some rain god who supposedly lived beyond the bottom of a huge sacred well called a cenote. Each year a girl was sacrificed to this god by being thrown into the cenote. An armored warrior went along to make sure she made it safely to the next world (or to drown her if she was a good swimmer, it seems). (Please note that I am only retelling the story and that I do not believe in the mythology behind it.)
The surface of the cenote at Chichen Itza was seventy feet below the surrounding cliff. This was no "let's go cliff jumping at the river." If you fell or jumped in, this was pain. Like, ow. ;)
Well, Richard Halliburton, the caught-up-in-the-romantic-moment-and-can't-resist-for-the-life-of-him type of person, jumped off this platform in the middle of the night! Seventy feet! Thankfully for him, he did not do a belly flop. He then jumped a second time a few days later to be captured on video and to retrieve his moccasin boots. That time he practically did a face plant. From seventy feet up. Pain...lots of pain... [that's for Kat, Lester, and Danielle ;) ]
Anyway. My wonderful dreams, vivid imagination, and sense of adventure all received a rude awakening this afternoon. I was perusing the pictures of a friend of a friend on Facebook, which can be a dangerous activity. I saw that one of his friends visited the cenote at Chichen Itza on her honeymoon. The picture was beautiful; long vines were hanging over the cliff edge, trailing into the crystal-blue water and...what is this?
WHAT IS THIS?!?!
They put STEPS in the cenote at Chichen Itza! STEPS!!!! In the cenote! So that tourists, many of whom are NOT even adventurers, could get down to the surface of the well and jump off fifteen-foot ledges into the water!
Now don't get me wrong, I myself would never jump into the well at Chichen Itza; I can't swim well, and I don't like heights. But it was rather sad to see that one of the locations of my favorite adventurer's exploits had been exploited itself for tourists.
*sigh*
What can you do.
Moral of the Story:
Beware of Facebook. It can ruin your day. ;)
