The next day i made the visit to Chichen Itza. An early morning bus ride got me to the site just after 8 o’clock which was great as there was only a few people in the ticket queue ahead of me. By the the time i went in the place was almost empty with only a couple of stall sellers setting up.
The main building El Castillo dominates the site –
The Great Ball Court, inside here housed an area of 168 by 70 meters intended for the games of the time –
Temple of Warriors –
El Caracol (the snail) – believed to be a proto observatory as the windows and doors line up to astronomical events, especially the path of Venus. Weird to think that a lot of these ancient cities around the world have some sort of observatory, or that particular parts of the buildings or layout line up to various planetary happenings. They clearly had a good understanding of the stars, moon and suns all those years ago.
El Caracol – Chichen Itza
No longer is anyone allowed to climb the steps of El Castillio, kind of correct i think.
The local iguanas are always ready to bath in the sun –
A must see thing in Mexico and in particular the Yucatan province is the Mayan temples of Chichen Itza, one of the new seven wonders of the world.
The day trips from Playa Del Carmen took 3 hours to get there and obviously 3 hours back in a mini bus packed by mostly American tourists, the whole day taking 12-13 hours. Not wanting to go through this punishment i looked at other alternatives and found that there was an old colonial town nearby by the name of Valladolid.
A 2 1/2 hour bus ride found me in this quaint little town, not big and not lots of tourist attractions but a good gate way to other places and therefore a good base to stop for a few days. It felt like a proper Mexican town (or how i envisaged a Mexican town would be like) a large town sqaure, a church nearby, lots of little roads going off into all directions all looking the same.
Rush hour in Valladolid –
Valladolid
I found an open top tour bus which was parked in the square and enquired about the next departure only 5 minutes to go said a yojng lady. I paid my 55 pesos (£2.75) and went and sat upstairs on the bus. I was the only person on the bus and then the young girl came upstairs and stood next to me with a microphone. She proceeded to do the commentary as though the bus was full of tourists, a little odd but good training i guess !! My fellow passengers –
Valladolid
My own personal tour guide –
Cathederal of San Gervasio next to the main square –
Cathederal of San Gervasio – Valladolid
Convent of San Bernardino de Siena –
Convent of San Bernardino de Siena – Valladolid
Me in front of it –
Convent of San Bernardino de Siena – Valladolid
It was a good little tour and quite amusing being the only person on the bus, just got a bit awkard when she started to ask questions and i hadn’t been paying attention !!
Later that afternoon i went to find a local cenote called Zaki, a cenote is a freshwater sinkhole or underground river where the cave roof has fallen in. There are many of them throughout Mexico and are quite an attraction for locals and tourists alike. Some you can abseil down into and then swim around or just walk down from above and swim with the cat fish. There was one only a stones throw from my hotel virtually in the middle of town –
Cenote Zaki
Cenote Zaki
Cenote Zaki
In ancient Mayan times cenotes were consider a sacred bathing place and were protected by the local people.
El Caracol – Chichen Itza
