I highly recommend it.
Jose picked us up at our hotel at 7 am. We drove two hours to Chichen Itza. Through the miracle of time zones, we arrived at 8 am as the park opened. As we waited to enter the park Jose hailed a tour guide who suddenly slid into the seat next to us. We asked him his rate and it was rather high. Kevin and I used to get a little flustered in those situations and agree to a tour even though we didn't want to spend the money nor experience the site in this way. Instead, Kevin had his bearings and politely declined the tour.
Chichen Itza is open to the hot sun. Early, the crowds are smaller but it fills up quickly. It can be overwhelming with vendors hawking wares and guides selling tours. But, historical sites the world over are like this. Angkor Wat was often very similar. Kevin kept hunting for a good book so we could guide ourselves. The plaques mainly had to do with architecture, not history, context, ritual, nor belief. We found the information we could.
Most of the sites are dedicated to Venus. Venus is a star visible in the night sky to the Yucatan. Venus intersects with Mayan beliefs on descending Gods and Goddesses, astrology, and seasonality.
Hot and sweaty, we exited Chichen Itza after about two hours in the park. We'd actually stayed a little longer than we had told Jose that we would. He drove us directly to Ik Kil, a cenote very near to Chichen Itza.
As I stood at the rail looking down into the depths of the cenote I instantly recognized it from postcards. This place is the stuff of dreams. As it's close to Chichen Itza and more commonly visited, it's more expensive and with more infrastructure. There's a gift shop and locker rooms. You pay for everything.
We slowly descended slippery stone steps down to the water level. There's a small area to stand that's crowded and jostling with people from Mexico and all over the world. A few ladders were stacked off to the left for those who wanted to descend into the water slowly. There's not a lot of privacy. Often someone would scramble alongside you.
To the right, steps lead up to a small platform where you could jump into the deep water from a height of 25 ft. I held our bag while Kevin scrambled up the steps. In an instant, he was flying.
There were two bored lifeguards really not doing very much. Most of the world seems to engage with the "life is risky" motto. Having recently shed much of my hesitation I told Kevin I wanted to jump. He is always interested in me being more adventurous and fun so he gladly took the bag. I began to ascend the steps. When I got to the top I saw the intimidating space between me and the water's surface.
I said to the life guard, "I'm scared." He shrugged with boredom and said, "Jump." If I wasn't so nervous I would have found the whole thing hilarious. I asked if I should hold my nose. Again, a disinterested shrug. "Yes, that's good. Jump." Probably seconds had passed but I noticed people around me who were beginning to jump as I hesitated. It didn't feel safe to be so close to the edge. There was obviously no law and order. The lifeguard was mainly ensuring that people didn't jump directly on top of one another. I told myself to do it, held my nose, and stepped off the edge.
I hated the sensation of free falling through space but I loved the feeling of resurfacing in the water knowing that I jumped in fully. I loved feeling like I entered in with less hesitation than I used to, that I was doing the thing.
The waters were clear. There were plenty of quiet, private places to swim off to. Kevin spent a while on the edge of the cenote as the roots dripped water around him.
Afterwards, we climbed the flights of slippery stone steps back up to ground level and found Jose.
He drove us to the colonial town of Valladolid for lunch. It feels like a place. Like, somewhere people work and live, which is always orienting after visiting tourist sites. We wandered around the center square before deciding on a spot to have lunch. There are factories in town that process chocolate and coffee for those who want to do more. We've taken some of those tours in other places. We just watched the kids leave school for the day, the retirees read their papers on a park bench, and life go by.
When we reconnected with Jose he gave us some options. We could always go back as we'd already had a full day-- we'd done what the group tours normally do but more quickly as we did it on our own schedule and only had to continually gather ourselves. We could stop at some more cenotes. Or, we could head to Coba, which is often it's own tour.
Coba is a slightly less touristed Mayan ruin by lagoons, some that are home to crocodiles. We asked Jose to take us to Coba. As we drove up to the quiet gate he told us to go inside and rent bicycles. The highest pyramid is about a mile into the park. He wanted to make sure we got there before closing.
His advice had been great so far so we rented two rickety bikes and set out on the path. The park is mainly flat and the trails are wide. The breeze gathered between the tall trees. Coba is much shadier and kinder than Chichen Itza. We passed smaller ruin sites until we finally found our way to the main pyramid. We looked up up up the steep stone steps with just one long rope to orient climbers.
So we climbed.
I've often found that up isn't so bad. You can lean forward and organize your weight. As we got to the top, we had to again negotiate lots of bodies speaking various languages with differing ideas of appropriate space sharing and respect for sacred sites. It's daunting. Little kids were up and down like mountain goats. We gulped at the height, sat a moment in the fading sun, before beginning our descent.
The tricky part. At a certain point the stone steps are so worn that they no longer have angles or a top surface to stand on. I think it's easier to shift into butt sliding there. I stuck my feet into little cracks and crevices to slow the descent as my butt slid on the smooth stone. My hands clung to the rope even as people on the other side grabbed on to aid their climb up.
It wasn't my first rodeo.
We found our bikes again and dashed off to another part of the park to take in whatever sites we could before we lost light and access. The park was practically empty. The breeze was cool. The sites were beautiful and interesting. Ever since my evening and morning with the moon and sea I'd been singing a certain refrain in my head: "Everything is amazing. Nothing is perfect."
The breeze was cool and a mosquito bit me. The ruins were awe-inspiring and the crowds were annoying. The sun was glorious and it was hot.
It's all amazing. None of it is perfect.
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