Valladolid and Chichén Itzá

On Tuesday we had breakfast and headed early to the Maya Temple of Kukulcán. We walked to the colectivo stop and there they sold a pack of 3 transport tickets for 100 pesos to see the temple, go to the cenote and come back. Entry to the cenote was 180 pesos. Entry to the temple was 614 pesos and we split the 700 pesos for the guide inside between the 3 of us and 2 more people who came with us on the bus. In total that's about 1000 pesos (€50) doing it on your own, while the tours were going for €100/150.

There we saw the Pyramid of Chichén Itzá and the Sacred Cenote, where the bodies were thrown after the ceremonies of sacrifice to the gods. In 1904, Edward Thompson bought the land where the temple and the cenote were for 500 pesos and brought a sort of crane and pulled more than 100 skeletons of adult men and children out of the water, along with several objects used in the sacrifices. He sold these objects to Harvard University which, after an official request from the Mexican authorities asking for the objects, returned the less valuable ones, which are in the Mayan Museum of Mérida, and kept the gold ones and other more valuable ones at Harvard University. Before leaving the temple I went to buy some souvenirs to take home.

Then we went to one of the most famous cenotes, Ik Kil, a large crater full of lianas, where we had a refreshing dip after the walk around the temple and, just imagine, there I went again in my undies. I think I've now paraded through the cenotes in every item of my underwear.

On the way back we came in a packed colectivo bus, I was sitting on the floor, and on arriving back in Valladolid we went for lunch, some empanadas.

In the afternoon, I went off on my own for another wander around the city looking at the shops. It was Valentine's Day, which they say here is the day of love and friendship, and during my walk I found one of the few restaurants with decoration up to the occasion and went in to ask what time dinner and live music were starting and ended up spending half an hour chatting and having a beer with a girl from Latvia called Renata, who was there all ready for the party to begin, but as it was already time for me to go, I said goodbye and went back to the hostel. On the way I passed through the central square, where I stopped to watch a group of Mexicans dancing traditional dances.

When I got to the hostel, already late, Sarah and Romee had already left for dinner and I saw in the WhatsApp group we'd created that they had already agreed to go to dinner at “Restaurante De los Santos”. Kiel, a Dutchman who had been with us during the morning, was also coming with us. So I got ready and went to meet them at the restaurant, where I had the typical dish “Cochinita Pibil”.

After dinner we went to see the light show and video mapping at the Convento de San Bernardino de Siena, which tells the story of the city and the Spanish invasion and of the Franciscans being sent here to evangelise the locals. The night ended at the lively bar “Los Frappes”, the bar had live music and we took the chance to have a drink and dance with the locals to say goodbye to the city of Valladolid.