- Briefly about the history of Mexico
- Yucatán
- Valladolid
- Cenote
- Ik Kil
- Chichén Itzá
- Mayan calendars
- Kukulcán
- Juego de pelota
- Platforms
- Templo de los Guerreros
- Rio Lagartos
- Colibries
- The Lagoon
- Las Coloradas
- Ek’ Balam
© AmorfatiTrips on all photos except where the source is indicated. We’ve visited Yucatán in 2018.
Yucatán
Yucatán is the name of the peninsula, which includes three Mexican states as well as neighboring Belize and a small part of Guatemala. It’s also the name of one of the three Mexican states that are at the far end of the Mexican southern tip. Yucatan was also part of Mesoamerica, which encompassed most of Mexico and the northern part of Central America. In Mesoamerica they had similar culture and often the same gods until it was annihilated by the Spanish colonization in the 16th century. In Yucatán, there aren’t as well-known tourist resorts as along the Riviera Maya in the state of Quintana Roo. Instead, it attract with several ruins after Mayan cities with pyramids, such as the pyramids in Chichén Itzá and Ek’ Balam as well as nearby Coba in Quintana Roo.
Valladolid
If you’re interested in pyramids, we recommend that you stay a few nights in Valladolid. Then you’ve the opportunity to see the pyramids when there aren’t so many day tourists there and also, you’ll avoid the vaste of time to travel which we had back and forth to Playa del Carmen. After the visit to Chichén Itzá we stayed only a short time in Valladolid and what we saw had some charm and especially beautiful was the colourful buildings and the Church of St Servatius.
After the election of a new mayor of Valladolid in 1703, the former mayor and one of his friends took protection in Church of St Servatius. However, they were found by the new mayor’s men and both were beaten so severely in the church that the former mayor was dead when they arrived at the city prison and his friend was killed there. The Viceroy of Mexico, though, made sure to depose and execute the new mayor and his closest man for their involvement in the murders. The bishop also ordered that the church, which had been built in 1545, be demolished in order to erase the memory of the terrible thing that had happened here. In 1705, the beautiful church that now stands on the site had been built.
Cenote
We went to Chichén Itzá with Easy Tours and already after a short while from Playa it was a pretty long stop at their ”service point” and quite a boring cenote. On the other hand, a fun episode was a man who was dressed in a magnificent plumage. Touristically yes, but if you’re a tourist on a tour so 🙂
Ik Kil
It was a much better experience when we stopped at the cenote in Ik Kil. Even if the weather wasn’t the best, it was a must to go down the stairs to the 18 meter deep hole to get a dip. It was a magical feeling to swim in a cenote and of course we’ll remember that swim: D
Chichén Itzá
Chichén Itzá was a Mayan city that was on this site and the ruins are nowdays on the UNESCO World Heritage List. In 2007, Chichén Itzá was also voted by about 100 million people to be one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. The world-famous pyramid is called Kukulcán, or in Spanish El Castillo (The Castle), and annually more than 2 million tourists come to see the wonder. When you get to Chichén Itzá, the pyramid is almost the first thing you see where it stands in the center of the area. Depending on how many busloads of tourists have just arrived, there may be crowds, but it usually eases up at some point during the visit. However, there’s more to see than just Kukulcán, so be sure to get a guided tour to learn more about the other buildings and the history.
Mayan calendars
The Maya people had not only one calendar but several depending on the purpose and part of it can be seen on the pyramid. One of these calendars had 365 days and the number of stairs up the pyramid is 91 each on the four sides and to the platform at the top has a step, ie a total of 365. Also, on the four corners of the pyramid there are nine rounded stair corners that correspond to the nine heavenly worlds in their religion. These nine rounded stair corners also create a shadow of a snake against the edge of the stairs every spring and autumn equinox, and the shadow is connected to the snake’s head at the bottom of the stairs. The snake symbolizes the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl (Kukulcán) who was adored by the Maya people.
Kukulcán
The Kukulcán pyramid was abandoned by the Maya in the 16th century and archaeologists began to liberate it from the grip of the jungle in 1923 and continued to work on renovations into the 1930s. Kukulcán is 30 meters high but since a woman fell and died in 2006, it has been forbidden to climb the pyramid. You can see how damaged some steps are but also how steep they are, without anything to hold on to if you were to climb up, and above all, down, which is always the worst.
Under the stone facade of Kukulcán, there are two more smaller pyramids and a secret passage to a cenote, which is also found under Kukulcán. The middle pyramid believed to be from around the 10th century was found as early as in the 1930s with the help of traditional archeology. The innermost pyramid from around the 600s and the cenote wasn’t discovered until 2015 with the help of Lidar, an advanced technology that uses laser light that creates three-dimensional images. Remember to clap your hands at the pyramid as it creates an echo that is said to be sounded as the Quetzaler bird, which was sacred and whose feathers were on the serpent god of Quetzalcoatl.
Juego de pelota
Juego de pelota (The Great Ball Court) in Chichén Itzá is the largest ball court found after the Maya and here they played Tlachtli, or pok-ta-pok as it’s also called. The game had different rules over time, but a variant was to get a rubber ball with the hip through a stone ring that was high up on each wall that runs along the field. At the far end of the ball field is the Templo del Norte (Temple of the Bearded Man).
Platforms
Near the ball field and the Kukulcán you’ll find two platforms, the Gran Plataforma de Venus or as it’s also called Tumba del Chac-Mool, which is the larger and honors Venus (Great Venus Platform). The smaller one is the platform of the Jaguars and Eagles and there you can also see on a carving how the jaguar and the eagle each eat on a human heart. There’s also Plataforma de los Cráneos (The Skull Platform) where the Mayan people on wooden poles showed off the heads of prisoners who had been sacrificed or the enemy who had been killed.
Templo de los Guerreros
Templo de los Guerreros (Temple of the Warriors) is another impressive building in Chichén Itzá and here’s also the Grupo de las Mil Columnas, equally impressive rows of columns. At one point we happened to pass two nuns who were enjoying taking some pictures and I threw away a hip shot with the camera at knee height 😉 Sometimes you can be lucky with a picture, but I’ve chosen to deidentify the nuns so they don’t have to suffer from other consequences.
Rio Lagartos
In 1517, Spanish conquistadors thought they had reached an estuary full of alligators and named the place Rio Lagartos (Alligator River). It was a double fault as the water is only a lagoon and only crocodiles swim there. For me, Rio Lagartos was part of another day trip I joined from PDC to Ek Balam, where there’s a Mayan ruin with a pyramid that you can climb up on. The tour included Las Coloradas which is an area with pink salt basins and the hope of seeing lots of pink flamingos.
Colibries
The tour stopped in the village of Rio Lagartos for lunch and our restaurant Ria Maya had hung up containers with a nectar that the colibrie or hummingbird likes. That I got to see the small hummingbirds in real life for the first time ever gave me the biggest impression of the bird life in this area.
The Lagoon
You don’t have to go on an organized trip to go with a small motorboat into the lagoon, it’s also possible to arrange in Rio Lagartos. Although I mainly wanted to see Ek’ Balam, it was a fun experience to glide through the lagoon and see pelicans and other seabirds in their real environment.
The Mexican crocodile (Morelet crocodile) lives only in freshwater along the Gulf of Mexico in southern Mexico and Belize. As an adult, it can be just over 4 meters long, so it’s smaller than the saltwater crocodile and the Nile crocodile, which can be 6.5 and 5.5 meters each, respectively. After all, it radiates respect and is magnificent to see up close. Here’s one that has risen to warm itself in the sun and if you are lucky you can also see a younger generation of crocodile.
Las Coloradas
When I booked the trip, there was a picture in the brochure of a large flock of pink flamingos in the lagoon. It was something I had wanted to see and but they weren’t there during my visit 🙁 However, in the area around Las Coloradas, where the pink basins are located, we got to see the pink American flamingo in a very far distance. The pink color of the basins comes from a pigment found in algae and plankton, which prawns also eat and turn pink. The American flamingo that eats of all three get pink feathers thanks to it.
Ek’ Balam
After our visit to Chichén Itzá I wanted to see a pyramid that it would be possible to climb up on and therefore the choice fell on the Mayan ruins at Ek’ Balam. Ek’ Balam, which means black jaguar, began to be built around year 1000 BC and flourished in the 9th century and until they were more or less abandoned about 200 years later. The ruins were rediscovered by Europeans in the middle of the 19th century but didn’t begin to be excavated until 100 years later.
Much is still surrounded by jungle so the ruins at Ek ’Balam aren’t as exploited as Chichén Itzá. Ek’ Balam has been restored since the late 1990s, but in a respectual way, and therefore you get a more genuine feeling for these ruins. The area inside the low walls is relatively small so you almost directly come to the main building.
Just over halfway up you come to El Trono (The Throne) where it’s said that the Mayan King Ukit Kan Le’k Tok’ was buried in the year 801. The entrance to the tomb is designed as a jaguar mouth and on the Jaguar altar one can see various decorations and some smaller statues. Two of them are somewhat strange, these are two winged Mayan warriors, like Christian angels. They are believed to have been there more than 700 years before the first Spaniards came with the Catholic doctrine.
The sun is going down when we’re done with this Mayan ruin and a wonderful experience here in Ek’ Balam. Time to return to Playa del Carmen after a long tour of the northern part of the Yucatán peninsula.
