Day 348 – Valladolid
Ek Balam and Cenote X’canche
Today we left our Airbnb surprisingly early for us. After weeks of not doing much due to the case back home, we figured it’s time to get back into this travel thing.
Valladolid to Ek Balam
The Collectivo Taxi Station, is on Street (Calle) 44 between Streets 35 and 37. We walked here just before 10.15am and only waited 4 minutes until another pair of people came along. We all got into a taxi and were on our way. The taxi driver was really relaxed, and didn’t overtake anyone, which felt sorta boring after getting used to the normal driving. We arrived at Ek Balam 32 minutes later. The taxi cost 50 MXN / $3.79 AUD per person.
Ek Balam Archaeological Site
The Ek Balam site has a massive entrance building, were you can buy tickets that cost 413 MXN / $31.28 AUD per person. We spent one and a half hours at the site, which was quite small. The main attraction is a large temple at the rear of the site. On this temple, there is a platform, midway up, that is dedicated to a king.
Views from the top
Besides that, I really liked the unique design of the temple behind the ball court. There was actually only a few signs at the site, which was very disappointing given the entrance price.
Cool curved corners Ball Court For people who love jigsaw puzzles!
In retrospect, I would skip the site and just go to the cenote.
Cenote X’canche
We then went to the cenote, which is around 1.5km away from Ek Balam’s entrance. You don’t need a ticket to the archaeological site to visit the cenote. The tickets for the cenote are 70 MXN / $5.30 AUD per person. You can also get a bicycle and entrance ticket combo, which will cost 150 MXN / $11.37 AUD per person, if our Spanish is correct. We decided to walk along the mostly shaded path.
After arriving we had to shower before getting into the water, to protect the cenote.
The cenote is incredible. It’s probably the largest one we have seen. Life jackets or rubber tubes cost an additional 20 MXN / $1.52 AUD per item. Given the size, the cenote was really empty. There is a low jumping platform, a swinging rope, a flying fox (50 MXN / $3.79 AUD per ride) into the water, another flying fox over the cenote (unknown price) and you can also rappel down from the top into the cenote (unknown price). Rappelling down and flying foxes are nice and plenty of people used them, but we didn’t. Swinging from the rope was free and plenty of fun.
We spent around 2 hours at the cenote, before having another shower and then going to the restaurant on site for a quick lunch. The food was actually reasonably priced and the portion sizes were good.
Ek Balam to Valladolid
We walked back to the Ek Balam site under the shade of the trees. Once back at the site around 3.15pm, we waited for a taxi at the place we were dropped off. A taxi arrived 8 minutes later. At 3.30pm another two people arrived and we started heading back to Valladolid. This driver had a shattered windscreen and was driving well over the speed limit. Even though we were, fearful for our lives, the drive was only 2 minutes shorter than going there, which I was surprised at. The price was 50 MXN again.
We bought some supplies from a supermarket, Sorianna Express on the way home and I was relaxing in the hammock next to the A/C by 4:45pm.
A very productive day.