Playa del Carmen, day 5: Chichen Itza and Ek Balam

Friday was our big trip day to Chichen Itza and (maybe) Ek Balam. We got up, fed, and out of the house by 7:45, but Jack’s shoes were still wet from the prior day’s monsoon, so he wore sandals instead. Only a few minutes into the walk to the car rental, Jack was in tears from foot discomfort and Abbie was in tears from the heat–not the most optimistic start to the day.

The kids played while we did rental paperwork, then we picked up a more breathable hat and some more cash for the trip before picking up the car. It definitely felt like the start of an Amazing Race episode: a rental in a foreign country, fixed cash for the trip, and multiple emotional and physical challenges ahead. Driving through town was the most stressful–tight roads with motorcycles, pedestrians, and unfamiliar streets, but once we made it to the freeways, it was smooth sailing.

The Android Auto screen was polarized 90 degrees off from my sunglasses so the screen was unreadable when looking at it normally, but if I turned my head to the side, I could see the map–which made for a very weird ride with me randomly turning my head to the side like a curious dog every time we came near an intersection.

Before we left the house, I searched Spotify for a podcast about the history and context around Chichen Itza. We listened to it on the way there and learned a lot about the culture, region, and history. It was great to have some professional context before our self-guided tour.

As we got closer to Chichen Itza, we were stopped by several people in the road: police check, Chichen Itza entrance closure and reroute info, and multiple personal tour guide tourist trap pitches.

We paid for parking, tickets, and walked a gauntlet of vendors and would-be tour guides before passing the gates–only to find the path lined with vendors selling trinkets, statues, carvings, bowls, calendars, etc.

Chichen Itza is more than a single large stepped pyramid–it’s a whole city complex with the pyramid at its center. While the iconic pyramid was amazing, the vast complex of massive buildings impressed me even more: markets, colonnades, waterways, sports arenas, and cenotes.

We walked a long ways through the buildings, reading plaques until kids needed to go to the bathroom. As it turns out, there are no bathrooms in there. We made our way out through all the vendors with their bird and jaguar whistles and constant calls for a “special deal.” The kids were pretty wiped out, so we stopped at an amazing family owned hole-in-the-wall place with grilled chicken, soup, and horchada.

We then drove an hour to another set of ruins: Ek Balam. While not one of the 7 Wonders of the World, this smaller complex had many similarities to Chichen Itza with the benefit of allowing us to climb and explore the structures. Jack’s exhaustion from Chichen Itza dissipated and he climbed the pyramids with enthusiasm–he and I even climbed the tallest structure to the top. Pictures can not do justice to the view, the stairs, and the scale of it all.

At the top, there was a woman in her 40s or 50s (she looked young until you saw the strain and wrinkles on her face) with headphones and a white-crystal dagger clearly trying to find a spiritual experience up there. We left her alone, got some water, took a couple pictures then started the climb down.

On the way back, Becca directed us to an ice-cream shop way off the main road that lifted everyone’s spirits for the 2 hours back to Casa Del Sol. I dropped everyone off at the house and decided to take the car back the next day. We decided to drive ourselves because we could make it shorter–but in the end we spent almost 12 hours on our whirlwind tour of the Yucatan Peninsula.