It was gonna be a terribly hot day in the Yucatan. The travel guide said it may reach 108 degrees Fahrenheit. My son and I were taking a tour of the Mayan town of Chichen Itza. It was an all day event. We left our Cancun hotel before 8am and didn’t come back ’til after 7pm.

After two hours of driving, the bus driver pulled into a souvenir shop/restaurant, where we would be eating later. All the souvenirs were hand made by the Mayan people. There was a lot of silver, onyx, wood carvings and such. Very nice things but nothing I really wanted.

My son, however, wanted a black onyx panther about 10″ long. Very nice craftsmanship and cost $30 US Dollars. You can bargain price with Mayans, so I offered him $5. After about two minutes, I wound up paying $15. I probably could have paid less but what the hell. These people live in bamboo huts for most of their lives. I guess I felt guilty after a while.

After about 45 minutes, we were instructed that, after our tour, we would return to the restaurant across the parking lot to be fed by the Mayans and their own food. If we were daring and bold, we should try their meals and would be very surprised. I was up for the offer as was my son. He’s been very daring when he eats (like me). My wife and daughter, however, would have gone back to the hotel hungry. My daughter barely eats anything now, let alone something she doesn’t recognize. Along with the predicted hot temperature, the food was the other reason why they didn’t come.

After visiting the ruins of Chichen Itza, we returned to the restaurant to eat, which was all buffet style. I didn’t plan our day too well and didn’t bring much to eat. Not too bad though, as the temperature did hit 106 degrees, so we weren’t all that hungry during that time. However, by the time we sat down to eat in the air conditioning, we were starving.

We started with the barbecued chicken wings, some deep fried fish, the typical yellow styled Spanish rice and some tortilla wraps. We then had some of their soup and quesadillas.

I tried a little of everything but especially liked the chopped meat inside half a pepper inside a half deep fried potato skin. I went back a couple of times for that.

My son said he didn’t like the fried fish because it was getting caught in his braces. So, I took his other piece for a taste and was very good.

The meal was part of the tour package but we had to purchase our own drinks. My son had a couple of Pepsis and I tried a couple of the local beers. They were fantastic.

Well, for the ride home, the tour guide asked us if we wanted to know what we ate. The majority did. Our tour guide was of Mayan descent and was very used to this food and knew quite a bit of history of the culture.

Anyway, here is the breakdown of our meals:

Our BBQ chicken wings and tortilla wraps were BBQ iguana.
The chopped meat inside the pepper/potato was armadillo
The quesadillas and the soup were some sort of rodent
And the deep fried fish was nothing more than rattlesnake

I have to say, I enjoyed it all except the “rodent.” It just had a strange texture and taste. Not that I now know it was rodent, but it just tasted weird. And by the way, it wasn’t a rat or mouse. He gave it a name that I didn’t recognize.

A few people made that joke that is tasted like chicken. Well, the tour guide made a good point; why eat chickens (which produce edible eggs) when there are plenty of other animals running around their jungle they can eat.

One final thing, all the food we ate was caught and cooked that day, fresh.