Visit to Chicken Itza, 6th Jan. '25.

When you're in this part of the world, it's just about a given that you'll visit the Mayan site of Chichen Itza. The main pyramid gets onto lots of tea towels and greetings cards.
Up with the larks (probably before them - 6am) for the 7am collective bus. It's an easy journey of only around 50 minutes, and we arrived before it opens at 8am, so our bus full got fairly near the front of the inevitable queue. Two lines for two ticket booths for another unknown reason (job creation scheme?).
Maybe it's my hazy memory playing tricks, but the site felt slightly less spread out than the one at Tikal last month.
It's certainly impressive.
Most of the crowds and the souvenir sellers hadn't arrived, so getting about was pretty-much hassle-free. Even with a photo of the map to guide me, it's a very confusing layout of buildings, paths and two cenotes. Apparently the Mayans build the complex to fit around 4 cenotes at roughly the 4 points of the compass.
I got 'round what was open to the public in four hours - not too tiring as nobody is allowed to climb up the steps or enter any buildings.
Back to Valladolid in time for lunch.
I'd already intended to visit the only cenote in Valladolid town (Cenote Zaci) as it's so easy top walk to. It was fairly photogenic and the shots give a pretty good impression of what these cenotes look like.
As I write this, I'm keeping an eye on the time. I've got a big night ahead of me: going to join a Mayan cooking class.
Hope it's not '1000 ways to cook corn' so I can keep it down.Read more