Two cenotes, one ancient city, and 5 million mosquitos

The world is made up of two types of people: people who will help me get into cenotes and people who try to limit my time in cenotes. Ron, who has shown a pattern of blasphemous and nearly unforgivable behavior over the years, is starting to wear my patience thin. Today, for example, when Daniel offered to take us to TWO cenotes instead of one, Ron expressed some pretty limited interest. And it steamed me, because, just a few moments before, Daniel had let me go into a junk food convenience store and I was thoughtful enough to come out with a packet of doughnuts for Ron for his enjoyment in the van. The snacks have their own little comfy seat!

In my excitement to show you that cenote picture up top, I’ve gotten this whole day out of order and so I need to take a step back and orient you all. Today was the day for Ek Balam, a Mayan city that was started in about 100 BC and functioned for about 1000 years. There are about 40 buildings on the property and it was used as a city for nobles only.

Here we are at the entrance: (this is before Ron failed to express proper interest in the second cenote, and so I was willing to stand near him).

Here is Ron and Daniel climbing and talking about historical things, probably pertinent to Ek Balam:

I’ll pause here to give you a little break for you from all this history…as we were all so hot and sweaty at this point, given the 95 degrees, the face masks, the steps etc…I offer up a photo of my favorite Mexican cooling beverage. Pineapple Juizzy, which I think means Pineapple Juice in the same way that Cheese Whiz means cheese, if you get what I mean.

This next picture is at the base of The Temple. 95 feet up and not a handrail in site, so I went up on my butt and down on my butt. Ron has a nice little video of it all but you’ll have to make do with these pictures. Here’s how steep it looks from the bottom and below is my climbing technique:

There is certainly more to know about Ek Balam but the key thing I learned is that the entrance fee is 413 pesos or about 22 dollars. Daniel had to buy two tickets for each of us though as part of the money goes to the Yucatan state government and part goes to the federal government and they do not trust each other to split the money. They literally have two ticket takers at the gate – one for each type of ticket. The other key thing I learned is that Ek Balam is the reason that the Meson de Marques gives out that nice bug repellent but of course I had left it in the van;)

One thing that is nice about traveling around with Daniel is that he will stop anywhere, for anything, and no question is too stupid for him to relay upon our behalf. Today he pulled over in some tiny village to ask about a line of about 100 women, standing in front of a school, each holding a picture of their government ID. They were waiting for a free bucket of corn meal that was available today.

Then, he stopped the van in front of some tiny home so that we could get out and ask a hammock weaver some questions:

Now, back to the cenotes. We did indeed cover two today. The picture at the top is the second cenote and that’s me having the entire thing to myself. It’s called Xcanahaltun. These places are ingeniously run. This one is a private cenote. We paid an entrance fee of about $10 and we get access to a bathroom, a changing room and the cenote. There was no one else there with us. Daniel says he found this place on a scouting mission and thinks it’s really special. We drove about 30 minutes from Ek Balam and, en route, we passed dozens of other cenotes. The roads are littered with signs like this:

Above is one more shot from Xcanahaltun. It’s hard to imagine I will like a cenote more than Xcanahaltun but I’m trying to have an open mind. Down below is the morning cenote – X’Canche. That’s it for Valladolid. Tomorrow we head to Merida with many fun stops on the way. I’ll talk to you soon.