Valladolid, Chichen Itza and Ekbalam
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
11
141
Trip End
Ongoing
Valladolid,
Mexico
Sunday, January 7, 2007
We are now in the small town of Valladolid. Its a quaint sleepy town about 1 hour away from Chichen Itza. We are staying at a wonderful little hostel named Alberque La Candelaria. We have a small private room that overlooks a small park. The best part of the hostel is the back garden. It is beautifully landscaped with tables, chairs and a hammock all in a natural setting. There is also an outdoor kitchen where breakfast is served everyday. Our first afternoon here we just wander around and enjoy the sights and sounds of the city.
On the second day, we wake up to the sounds of roosters and decide to catch the 7:15am bus to Chichen Itza. To our suprise, the kitchen area was full of people making breakfast and drinking coffee
back garden at the hostel
. A party hostel this is not. Most of the early risers were headed off to one site or the other or to visit the cenotes. Over breakfast we chat with a few people and I end up talking to a guy from Edison NJ. Small world. He tells us we can catch a collectivo across from the bus station and get there in 40 mins. instead of 1 hour and it's the same price. Sounds like the deal for us. We find the van, hop in with the locals, and head off to Chichen Itza.
Once inside the site, the first thing you see is a massive pyramid in the middle of a large clearing. It is absolutely stunning in the morning sun with no other tourists around. Unfortunately, you can no longer climb it becuase some 78 year old woman had the nerve to fall down and die last year! I'm not sure if this story is true, but it's what we heard at the hostel. We then wander around the ruins of 1000 Pillars. From what I understand, there are 1000. I only got to 97 and stopped. I will take their word for it.
Across the field is a massive ball court where an insane game was played using a 12-pound solid rubber ball and vertical hoops that are 20 feet off the ground. You can only use your wrists, shoulders and hips to get the ball through. Sounds quite impossible to me. Here is the kicker: the winning team gets jewels and gold while the losing team gets their heads cut off
Carvings at the top
! Who is up for a game? Todd, Neil, Rod? Personally, I don't think I will be entering any contest where there is a 50/50 chance of me losing my head!On the opposite end of the site and down a 500 meter gautlet of local craft sellers, is the Sacred Cenote. This Cenote was the site of many human sacrafices to bring about rain for their crops. The cenote is about 50 meters across and the water is 20 meters down with a depth of 20 meters. At dawn, the Mayans would throw someone into the cenote, usually a virgin. If they were still alive at noon (tread water, virgin, tread water!), they would be rescued and asked about what the future will hold for the coming farming season. I guess if you can tread water for 6 or 7 hours then you must be a god. Before the tour buses from Cancun show up, we head back to Valladolid via bus and catch a shared taxi to another archeological site called Ek Balam.
Ek Balam verbally sounds more like some sort of Middle Eastern curse or you are trying to clear your throat rather than a Mayan site. (But who are we to question the linguistics of the Mayans, right Jimmy?) The cab drops us off at the entrance to the archelogical park and speeds off. The guy at the front desk asks us if the cab is coming back for us later.
Cathedral in Valladolid
We say "No, why?" He informs us that no taxis or collectivos come here, nor is there a bus stop nearby. He tells us we will have to call a cab or walk 5 kilometers to the nearest town. Great, this info we could have used 10 minutes ago! Oh well here is our $5.40 and in we go. We will figure it out when we are done. Ek Balam is incredible. The setting is much more natural than Chichen Itza in that most of the trees are still in place. You feel like you are walking through the jungle to the different sites and some of them have not been excavated yet.
The main pyramid is massive and you can climb to the top (No one has sacraficed a blue hair to the tourist gods yet!) From the top, there is an amazing view of the entire site and as far as you can see there is only the jungle. It may be a forest, but I'm calling it a jungle. We take our time going through the sights, as we do not have a ride home, and enjoy the afternoon amongst the locals. There are no other gringos at the site. It's probably due to the lack of public transportation that keeps people away.
On our way to the parking lot, we see a white van. No, not the DC sniper - oh wait! That was a caprice from NJ... Darn false reports. We run to it hoping to get a ride home. We are in luck - he says he will take us back to Valladolid ...when he returns in one hour. Crap. We sit on the curb and eat an orange while we think. A couple of taxi guys offer to take us for 100 pesos (10 bucks), but that is double the collectivo so we say no. After ten minutes of baking in the sun, we decide to take the taxi and hop into the air-conditioned car.
While at the hostel, we meet a lot of nice people, even the guy from Jersey
Chichen Itza - Chacmool
. There are a couple of Quebec Doctoral students (Guillaume and Sebastien) who are traveling while on break, a couple from Australia who have been traveling for 4 months, and two students who go to Vassar (David and Heida). Everyone has been amazingly friendly and full of helpful information.On our last night, there is a dance in the town square so we go to listen to the music an watch the locals dance. When the last song starts to play, Kay and I get out there and bust a move with the locals. We figure it would be good for a laugh for all present!
Valladolid is a really pretty small town, with very friendly locals and good food. It is a great central location for visiting many sites and activities in the Yucatan peninsula. We highly recommend it!
We would like to stay longer but our journey awaits us! The next morning we get tickets on the 2nd class bus to Merida. The big city, here we come!
- Frank
Comments
I'm so envious!
In reading about the game in Chichen Itza I thought maybe I was confused so I checked it out. Here's what I found:
It is not hard to imagine a Mayan King sitting here presiding over the games. Legends say that the the winning captain would present his head to the losing capitan, who then decapitates him. While this may seem a strange reward, the Mayans believed this to be the ultimate honor.The winning captian getting a direct ticket to heaven instead of going through the 13 steps that the Mayan's believed they had to go through in order to reach heaven..