I landed yesterday in Cancun on time, and headed immediately for the bus station where I bought a ticket to Valladolid. Valladolid is a somewhat small city, but still the third largest in the state. It´s pretty central to most of the attractions, so I´m basing here for a little and seeing what there is to see. Last night I met a couple from England (actually Argentina and Australia) who were heading to Chichen Itza in the morning. We made plans to go together.
Chichen Itza was cool, but just like I had heard, it was somewhat crowded and impersonal. At least we got there early enough (around 10am), because at 12 the tour busses started rolling in. And oh, were there tour busses. I think the only thing that outnumbered the tour busses were the number of hawker stands lining every path between every building. Ah, well. As to be expected at a site like that. I did learn something interesting, though. In the traditional Mayan ball game where you try to hit the rubber ball through the hoops on the wall using only knees, hips, and elbows...it´s the captain of the winning team who got to be sacrificed. Winning is losing, apparently.
Look natural...
After Chichen Itza we headed back to Valladolid. We didn´t get the early start we had hoped for, so we got back around 230 and didn´t finish lunch until 3. One ruin left. Two hours until closing. 28 km away. Doable? Why not. So we headed off to Ek´ Balam. We got there with a little over an hour. It was a small site, and you could climb the ruins (which was a lot more fun than Chichen) so we scrambled around and had a good time. There weren´t many people there, maybe because it´s a smaller site, or maybe because it was an hour until closing. Either way, it was a good time. The site had more of a jungley/Indiana Jones feel, which was fun.
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