Hintze Family: Chichen Itza

From the moment that I mentioned to anyone that we were considering a trip to Merida in January, the most common response was “Be sure to go to Chichen Itza. We checked out the travel books, and it is listed as One of the Seven New Wonders of the World. Cool. So, that was on our list of “for sure things to do”. I mentioned it to Sharon and she and Gardner were happy to go to see it again.

It’s about an hour and a half bus ride from Merida to Chichen—1st class, but that is, and a rather full bus. Gardner suspected as much and he went to the terminal the night before and purchased our tickets. I quite like to ride the bus in Mexico. It’s such and inexpensive and efficient way to get around.

The bus took us right to the Visitors’ Center parking lot. It wasn’t cheap to get into the ruins, but if you’ve come that far—From West Jordan to Merida, you’re not going to refuse to pay another $15 (US) to get in. Who knows when I’ll be back on the Yucatan again? (Soon, I hope).

Me, Frank, Gardner, Sharon, and Tom (a friend of their friend, from Chicago)--in the Visitors’ Center.

I was glad to get back to this point after being in the hot sun for a couple hours—cold water bottle, and a popsicle.

These are of the Grand Pyramid. Quite amazing.

I wasn’t particularly bother by the crowds. The area is so expansive, we were able to spread out and not be too aware of all the tourists. But in that second picture, you’ll notice the venders table. Those were everywhere. And that got to be a bit annoying.

They were all selling the same stuff, for about the same price, all “practically free”. I learned to tell them that I’ll hold out for “free”. Frank gets a little hung up if they approached him because he tends to try to explain to the why he’s not going to purchase. Eventually he got better at “No, gracias” and refusing to engage.

This place really was more his thing than mine. I’m sort of “You’ve seen one ruin, you’ve seen them all”. But he likes to poke around and get pictures of everything from several different angles. Happily, Sharon’s friend, Peter, is the same way. (This was his 6th time to Chichen) So, he and Frank read every plaque and circled every ruin.

We ate lunch down by the cenote (fresh water pool coming up from and underground river).

Gardner, posing, of course. Frank Sharon and Gardner

You can see the vendors in the background. They lined the dirt road down to the cenote.

Peter Tom and Sharon a friendly iguana, hoping for some crumbs.

This cenote isn’t accessible like most are. But there are so many people there day in and day out that it wouldn’t be practical to expect to swim in it. We were grateful for the shade and the little snack shack just to the left of the camera angle. It featured cold water bottles and clean, free banos!

If you look closely, you can see the snake head at the corner, and the tail that wraps all the way around the building and meets up almost at the head. The snake has a name, can’t recall it just now.