Tulum Mexico vacation, February 2023
Adventure for Noel and Lionel Space, Nanaimo BC
Chichen-Itza ruins, February 24-25, 2023.
(Photos can be clicked on for a larger view)
We headed inland to the state of Yucatan to visit the popular ruins of Chichen-Itza, West of the city of Valladolid.
Once out of Tulum, the roads are extremely straight, 90 kph roads that are fairly smooth.
There are occasional dirt driveways that disappear into the jungle, for what appears to be mostly private residences, but occasional mini-resorts as well.
There are also occasional small towns where the many topes (speed bumps) and 20 kph speed limits allow one to see the numerous small vendors, selling the common Mexican themed tourist products.
There are no signs designating that these are business entities or names of the establishment.
Some are no bigger than a shed, while others have about a million dollars worth of stock.
We spent Friday night at a very low cost (and thus low quality) motel just 3 km before the ruins attraction.
However it had a small restaurant with decent food at very good prices.
Chichen-Itza is several hours West of Tulum.
Straight roads cut through the jungle with little else around.
One of the larger stores where we made some purchases on the way back.
Saturday morning, Noel and I drove the short distance to the ruins from our Friday night accomodations.
These ruins attract dozens of huge tour buses every day from Cancun in addition to people in cars and tons of motor bikes and scooters.
Just short of the turn into the entrance, we are stopped by several people waving flags for us to park in their lots.
Some would stand right in the road and force us to a stop and would only let us past when we said we were going straight through.
We got so distracted that we missed the unmarked turn and pulled into the next parking lot to turn around.
When we headed down the entrance road, we were confronted with traffic cones blocking out access and several men in what appeared to be official attire.
A man approached us and said the main lot was full and the we should park in the lot just back from where we were, cost 100 pesos.
We knew we would have lots of walking in the ruins and didn't look forward to adding a half mile extra each way, but we trusted his offer.
As we walked from the lot to the cones, we would see buses allowed through the cones, but also cars that were not taxis.
Half way down to the entrance, there were more people trying to attract cars to their parking lot, hoping to get the ones that had avoided the cone scam up the road (for only 80 pesos).
Map to ruins from motel.
Scammers set up to stop entering.
Our fake official informing us of the parking situation.
Cones to block entrance.
Lots of motor cycles and scooters.
Many vendors along the walk to the entrance.
Official parking area.
Finally we get to the parking entrance.
As usual, there are no signs for a tourist to know where to go.
We follow a large crowd that is heading for what seems to be the entrance and then have to back track.
Apparently most of the people are from the tour buses and can go straight to the turn styles,
but we see some ropes within the crowd that seem to indicate where one should go to pay for tickets under some pricing signs (all in Spanish).
After 15 minutes, we finally are able to work with a cashier and we tell him "Two" and show 2 fingers.
He rings up 1048 pesos, we pay in cash, take our two tickets and venture forward into a large lobby type area with more vendors and food.
After exploring a bit, we see some turn styles, but they turn out to be the exit (no signage).
We look for the flow of traffic and merge in to finally find where the entrance turn styles are.
We go through, but the agent says that we need another ticket.
We explain that we just bought these two tickets at the cashier right behind us and are wondering if we are about to get scammed again.
After several iterations of this, he leads us around a corner to a couple of ATM size machines, presses two, and tells us to insert our Visa card of 180 pesos.
Totally baffled as to what's going on, we take the plunge and shell out more money.
Apparently there is a park surcharge on top of the attraction charge and for some reason the original cashier
thought it would be fun to punk us and make us go through this confusion instead of charging us for the ticket with the attraction tickets.
How many people go through this ordeal every week, which could easily be remedied with signs in various languages (as opposed to mostly zero signs).
However, there were many Salida (Exit) signs.
Some of the tour buses.
No signage above entrance. Shacks out front are not for tickets.
Across from the entrance a Market Place has a sign (Noel bought a hat there).
New hat for Noel.
Ticket prices all in Spanish.
Ticket confusion at the turn styles.
Suspicious machines to take our money.
Finally into the park. 100 meters of vendors before you see the ruins.
Cruising past the first throngs of vendor stands, we finally see the enormous ruins and the open grounds.
Fortunately the grounds are expansive enough to make the density of visitors tolerable.
There is a map presented at this juncture, but it only give titles and only in Spanish.
We had also picked up a paper map, but it had no more information either.
There are hundreds of people selling their services as tour guides, so keeping free information to a minimum boosts their income.
From this spot we could see item 2 on the map (ball game) and 1 (Kukulkan pyramid), so we opted to see 2, which is a sports field about the size of a narrow football field.
There used to be a large placard on a square mound of cement to describe the monument, but it was missing.
The most impressive feature of the ruins was that they existed.
They were of good size, but the stones and overall stature of the structures was not an unimaginable feat.
The features were worn, or the facades were missing, and much of it was not maintained to be impressive after the discovery.
The structure at the end of the ball field had scaffolding and tarps that seem to have been neglected for quite some time.
Depictions included warriors, panthers, snakes, and eagles.
Map of the ruins.
Ball game field.
Goal hoop. Moss and weeds growing on the ruins.
End of the field.
Carvings visible on the outside of the side above a goal.
Most of the ruins seem to be constructed of mortared rocks with a facade of carvings.
Wall outside the ball game stadium.
Wall outside the ball game stadium.
The largest structure in the complex is the Kukulkan pyramid.
There are millions of toy figurines sold in Mexico in the shape of this pyramid.
An interesting phenomenon occurred when tour guides would make a loud clapping or knocking sticks together, where a reverberating echo would return from the top of the temple.
The Mayan calendar is composed of 18 months of 20 days (no weeks), plus an additional 5 day week.
Thus the 9 steps of the pyramid are representative of that.
West side.
North West corner.
Steps on the North side.
Description of the temple.
North side steps with access to inside.
As we continued East, we viewed 7 (Temple of the Warriors).
It is notable by having many pillars emanating in straight lines around it.
Some are square columns, but most are round.
West side of the Temple of the Warriors.
Description placard.
Some of the many pillars.
Carvings on the pillars.
Straight lines of pillars.
Placard shots.
As we ventured toward the more remote part of the park (and less crowded), we discovered the only food vendor inside the gate.
Noel was happy to purchase a cold coconut which was bored open and supplied with a straw to drink the water.
The only vendor of food in the gates.
Noel found cold coconut.
Yum.
Further back on the grounds is 14, Ossuary and on the other side of it is 13, Platform of the Tombs.
Ossuary.
Placard.
Platform of the Tombs.
South side of Ossuary.
Further down is the Observatory.
Ruins across from Observatory (in rough shape).
Cataloging stones as they piece it back together from rubble.
A large field is in front of the Observatory.
The top of the Observatory is in rough shape.
Another side of the dome.
At the far end of the field is 18, The Nuns.
To the East of that is a rickety looking Temple of the Sculpted Boards.
Then the East side of The Nuns can be seen to have scaffolding as 17, The Church is discovered.
The Nuns.
Openings into The Nuns.
Temple of the Sculpted Boards.
The Church.
It was amazing to see so many vendors on the grounds; there were hundreds, maybe a thousand.
Across from the Kukulkan pyramid there was a whole park full of just vendors.
You would see mostly the same items throughout.
We purchased a leather scroll with the Mayan calendar burned in from a vendor (who spoke good English) who claimed to be part Mayan and made it himself;
he was very believable, but we saw many almost identical items from others.
The temperatures were in the mid-80s, a bit humid, but our feet were getting tired, so we headed for the exit and back to the motel.
Some were actual craftsmen, rather than just retailers.
Craftsman.
No signs for the exit. Surprised to see armed National Guard here.
We quickly returned to the hotel in mid-afternoon to continue on to Valladolid for the next 48 hours.
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