[27/365] a taste of Yucatan

Chichen Itza was one of the largest Mayan cities . It was amazing to see it for real. Oat and my favourite part of the ruins was the stone ball court, where the Mayans played a game that is not well understood. The goal of the game was to get the ball through these stone rings that were ridiculously high. The amazing thing is that in a version of the game, you were to use your hips hit the ball to score!









Ik Kil was the first cenote we swam in. It was so much more impressive than the murky green watered cenote at Chichen Itza! The cenote had a jungle feel to it with the vines, lush growth at the top, and waterfalls. I've never been one for diving from very high platforms but the cliff feeling of the ledge in the cenote had me intrigued. I had a different feeling about it as I was about to jump though... it seemed much higher from the top than looking up from the bottom! The drop down felt like time had slowed and I was never going to reach the water.


Xichen was a completely different feeling cenote. It was in a dark cave (lit with colour lights) with shallow water. It was beautiful in a different way.


Ek Balam was amazing, especially because we were able to climb it, unlike Chichen Itza. Although it was in Mexico, the crumbling steps  made me reminisce about climbing the Great Wall of China a couple years ago. Climbing the ruins made me feel as if I was part of something ancient and part of something filled with so much history and stories.




We thought that our last stop was Ek Balam, but Luis took us to Valladolid, the second largest city in Yucatan. We saw a church, a nunnery (no nuns live there), and Cenote Zaci. I love the beaches in Cancun, but I loved the culture that this city had so much more. Cancun is so contaminated with tourism that it seems like it's lost it's own culture. Valladolid seemed much more true to itself.


The best part about our short trip to Valladolid was trying the street food. We had plantains and sweet potatoes smothered in a sweet sauce. The food was kept warm in a metal trolley that had a large pipe that whistled to let people know it was close by. Kind of like how there's those ice cream trucks that have that jingling song.