Valladolid, Chichén Itzá, Cenotes

After seeing my karaoke pals off in Cancún, I met up with Anne at the main bus terminal. We made plans at Poc-Na to meet and travel to Valladolid, and take in the ruins at Chichén Itzá.

Second-class bus travel in México is better than a Greyhound milk run, with departures to where you want to go often five minutes after you buy your ticket. Still, travel tends to be a little bit slower - we covered the 180km from Cancún to Valladolid in just under three hours.

Valladolid is a very fine example of a typical small Mexican city. The sidewalks are narrow, the streets are filled with the sights and sounds of Mexican daily life, and most everything revolves around the central square. Shirts and shoes block the sidewalk for a few feet, then you need to step around a Mayan woman selling fruit, and then duck under the smoke billowing from the roastery next door.

Valladolid Hostel overlooks La Candelaria, which was a second square a few blocks away from the main plaza. It was one of the finest hostels I have stayed in, and the quiet garden was a welcome change from Poc-Na.

We rose early the next morning to get to Chichén Itzá, about 35 minutes East of Valladolid. Definitely the most impressive ruins I have seen on this trip, though Uxmal was supposed to be the most important Mayan city while Chichén Itzá was built up by the Toltecs some three centuries later. Both Anne and I were in a strange mood when we were there, so we kind of blazed through the site. The restaurant had incredibly overpriced food, so we poked around and found the non-descript taco stand well off the tourist track at the far end of the staff parking lot.

We rented bikes the next day and headed out to two cenotes just east of town. Cenotes are freshwater pools found in the limestone bedrock that covers the entire Yucatán Peninsula. Some are more like caves, while others are best described as swimming holes. The two cenotes we went to were very much caves, though you could swim in both. I chose to swim in the second, and the feeling of swimming in cold freshwater was a refreshing change to the warm Caribbean.

We couldn't really dilly-dally at the cenotes, though. I had found a way to make it to Isla Holbox, and needed to catch a bus at 1:00PM that day. I made it to the bus station with just enough time to grab a ticket to Chiquilá, and just enough money to buy the ticket (and the ferry to Holbox).