This post is not for everyone. If you want to take a selfie with one of the wonders of the world accompanied by a 700 peso tour guide before returning to meet other travelers and drink and speak English, then know that this advice is not for you. If this is your ideal vacation, then book a few nights in Merida and a tour of Chichen Itza. You can go back to your hostel (and I highly recommend Nomadas) and grab some people to go eat great, cheap food. And there is no shortage of bars. There is plenty to do in and around Merida to fill up a vacation and the locals’ English paired with the few words you remember from high school Spanish class should get you through with limited drama. You will have still beat those who never left Cancun and will go home to rave about their “Mexican experience”.
But I hope that you will take it one step further because, for me, it has been spectacular.
CANCUN
Our adventure began in Cancun. Well, it started a bit before that, but I will spare you the details of how awful Frontier Airlines is and the nine hour layover in Denver.
Immigration was full of Cancun-only tourists who all knew each other and were decked out in their favorite college basketball gear. They spoke loudly as we waited in line, dramatically reuniting with their friends each time the line would turn a corner.
Two hours. That is how long we had to endure that line with people who loudly proclaimed that this was Mexico and they should be served margaritas in immigrations. But, without incident, we made it through and stepped into the warmth of Mexico.
Our destination was certainly not Cancun, so the goal was to get to the city center and then bus to Valladolid as quickly as possible. Leaving the airport you are assaulted instantly by English-speaking taxi drivers yelling prices at you of a couple hundred pesos to go here, there, or some other place. Now, at an exchange rate of about 15 Mexican pesos to a US dollar (rounded up for simplicity of math through my trip) this isn’t terribly expensive. But for 64 pesos you can take a very comfortable air-conditioned bus that leaves every fifteen minutes or so and stops only two other times before taking you to the bus station.
From there my group and I combined our few words of Spanish each to ask what was the next bus to Vallodolid and what was the fastest bus to Valladolid. We could have taken the first class bus that takes only two hours (it drives on the pay roads) and would have left an hour later, or we could take the second class bus that left 15 minutes later and took 3 hours (drives on the free roads and is therefore cheaper).
I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but Mexico is hot. I know, I know, I was as surprised as you are now. But it is better to sit on a bus for three hours in comfortable air-conditioning than for two hours and spend one in the heat of the bus station. Save money, same amount of time, and, we reasoned, we will be able to see more of Mexico from our windows!
This last one is mostly false. The Yucatan has much to offer, but views from your bus window is not one of them. It is incredibly flat and brush grows up on either side thick and high so that you catch only a glance of a dilapidated, but still inhabited house here and there. This simply gave us the chance to sleep and not miss much on our 3 hour bus ride to Valladolid.
VALLADOLID
Much better! Valladolid’s charm is evident from the moment you enter! Don’t panic every time the bus stops, Valladolid’s bus station is the last stop, so the seventy-eight other times it stops and you wonder in panic if this is it. If you should get off. You shouldn’t. You’re fine. It is the very last stop.
Valladolid was our first real taste of Mexico and began the theme of “screw you, I’ll paint my house whatever color I like!” In the US you will see a range of colors spanning from browns to beiges and off-whites and, every once in a while, a subdued sort of blue or green. But not too much! In Mexico it is not so. The buildings will be bright orange next to hot pink next to lime green next to whatever other lively color you can think of! With white trim. Always white trim.
Valladolid is easy to navigate if you have a map, or even just if you know the cross streets you need to go to. They don’t have streets and avenues intersecting, but instead one direction is odd numbers, and the intersecting streets are even numbers. Which can be a bit off-putting when you get off at 67th and 52nd, relieved that you only have to get to 66th and 51st and then realize that you are thirteen blocks away and not two. But if you have this knowledge locked away from the get go, you should be just fine.
Valladolid was a quiet town, we arrived Saturday and there were religious festivities going on here and there. But the quietness was only amplified the next morning by 1) it being early as Mexico wakes up much later in the day and 2) it being Easter. This was the perfect time to take in the roads full of pastel houses and the Templo de San Bernardino. While these things were quite nice, using it as a halfway point between Merida and Cancun seemed perfect for us.
CHICHEN ITZA
The plan, the one that had me very nervous that I would be stuck hauling my luggage all around my first wonder of the world, miserable, was to bring everything with us and leave it with “left luggage” at Chichen Itza. “They will definitely have one,” my boyfriend reassured me for what must have been the 80th time.
“And if they don’t?” I asked, once more.
He shrugged, “They probably will.”
The conversation had gone like that several times. The certainty of someplace to leave our bags downgraded from “definitely” to “probably”.
They did, indeed, have a place to leave your luggage. We were lead to it by a series of signs with pictures of bright red luggage. The phrase I want to put here is “it was free and completely not sketch”, but I am realizing more and more that my version of “not sketch” and others’ may be completely different, though I am certain the concept of “free” is universal. There was someone there to guard the luggage, or rather, take the luggage and then stand near it. Upon our return she allowed us to walk in and choose any luggage we wanted! She did not ask for our numbers or anything of the sort, but I still chose my own luggage. But my bag hadn’t been opened and no one had taken it. So I shall proclaim Chichen Itza’s left luggage as “sufficiently not sketch”.
Having adopted a German kid of 22 years old in Valladolid, our group had grown to five people. Our new adoptee was keen on the idea of getting a guide. And there were no shortage of these. My boyfriend and I are incredibly cheap though, and isn’t that what you want in a significant other? Someone equally cheap, or at least someone who doesn’t mind when you ask for “the cheap one” when asking for wine. So we turned our nose up at the English guides who called out their price of 700 pesos.
The group broke off into my boyfriend and I in the “we got this ourselves” group, and the other three went to find a guide. They ended up paying 500 pesos instead of 700, haggling is most definitely a thing, and having a wonderful time, so if that is your cup of tea the other half of our group highly recommends it! For me, even if it had been an included service I probably would not have taken them up on it. I enjoyed moving at our own pace and, armed with a Lonely Planet Guide and a boyfriend who had just read Aztec by Gary Jennings and done obsessive research pre-trip, we had enough facts to perhaps lead our own tour. Plus, I’ve seen road to El Dorado like a hundred times.
That being said, we strategically took water breaks, reapplied sunscreen, and “rested” near someone else’s guide and picked up a fun fact here and there, so I am not saying that guides are not worthwhile. Just not my style and more than double the cost of entrance to the wonder.
The ruins were amazing. It helped that we got there on Easter Sunday just after they opened, giving us unobstructed pictures and the chance to hear our own claps chirp off of El Castillo. It was found that the echo from these stairs, and other Maya Pyramid like El Castillo matches the call of the Quetzal, whose feathers, alongside jade, were the most valuable items for the people of the area.
(If you’re a nerd like me, check out this article about it! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/12/1206_021206_TVMayanTemple.html)
Upon entry they will give you a map, but you’ll want a guidebook anyway. The free map (or rather, included in entry) is a nice souvenir, but I found that Lonely Planet’s map was much easier to orient yourself by, and Chichen Itza is no small complex.
Pictures cannot do the ruins justice, so what chance does a blog post have to explain to you the awesome feat that is Chichen Itza? Rock walls stretch up higher above your head than a postcard could have conveyed and the carvings stare out with precise lines even hundreds of years later. Even those that have faded only add to the feeling that this place has stood through more years than we usually care to think of. The parts of the complex farther off the path are certainly worth the walk as they give you a feeling of the life that could have been lead in and around this place (just be careful of iguanas, there is no shortage of those).
We ignored the calls of those selling souvenirs throughout Chichen Itza for quite some time. “One dollar!” they would call, holding up something that we knew was not going to be one dollar. And yes, this is a lie. They are holding up their coolest item and it is not one dollar. What is one dollar are the small pyramids and magnets and such.
They must be cheaper away from the tourist attractions!
They’re not. This is completely backwards from what we have experienced in the US and, for me, Korea, but items are much, much cheaper in Chichen Itza. Probably due to there being dozens of different sellers within eyesight at any given time. But the souvenirs are at times a fifth of the price you will find them in gift shops in town.
Pay in pesos. It is obviously going to be a better deal. Some American man was yelling at a young woman because the exchange rate didn’t match up. “Why is it more expensive if I pay in dollars?!” he loudly did the math and shoved the calculator in her face. Then pay in pesos dude. They then have to go exchange the USD for pesos and pay a fee for that, plus, they can charge whatever they want! If it was such a hassle you should have exchanged your USD for the local currency. Alright. End rant.
MERIDA
Having successfully retrieved our bags, we bought a bus ticket inside the gift shop and waited with a group, away from the tour buses, for our bus to Merida. Moral of the story: don’t plan ahead! It is so easy to get place to place just buy your tickets as you go!
Don’t actually listen to that. But it was ridiculously easy to get from place to place in Mexico.
Merida also followed the odd streets one way, even streets the other rule, making finding our hostel, Nomadas, a cinch.
The consensus about our hostel was that it was not your average hostel experience. In the best way possible. We settled in and the boys kept reminding me again and again not to get used to it. “This isn’t what hostels are usually like.” “This is the nicest hostel I’ve stayed in.” “Don’t expect this from every hostel.” Shut up and let me in the hammock!
Hammocks here. Hammocks there. Hammocks, hammocks everywhere! Hammocks hanging over the pool and under palm trees. There may have been more hammocks than guests! If Dr. Suess wants to write a hammock themed book, it ought to take place at Nomadas.
And yes, I said pool. A really nice pool surrounded by tables and chairs and palm trees and did I mention hammocks? Breakfast is coffee and fresh fruit and toast and the like. They play music at night for those enjoying dinner in the hostel. Yoga in the mornings is relaxing, if meditation based, and also free. Salsa classes are free. And their cooking class is 25 pesos, which is basically the cost of ingredients. Which you then eat. The boys were able to catch their basketball game on the hostel’s TV which apparently gets American sports. All in all, for- what?- ten dollars a night, we were very pleased. It is still a hostel and not perfect. The first two nights we paid for the bigger dorm which had some characters in it and was right by the front door that locked at 10pm. But fear not, they had a very noisy doorbell to remind you if someone was there. But it was clean and comfortable enough sleeping arrangements, and the rest of the amenities couldn’t be beat.
Merida had a similar feel as Valladolid, but on a bigger scale and a bit more lively. With churches, old mansions turned banks, street markets, street performers, street food, and more, it is not hard to amuse yourself in Merida.
Plaza Grande is beautiful and holds Catedral de San Ildefonso, a beautiful cathedral that is over 400 years old. This is in the center of the city with all of the food and life going on around it. I think one would have to actively avoid it to not see it during their stay in Merida. Nearby is the Casa de Montejo. This barracks turned mansion turned bank used to take up a city block, but now only a small chunk is left of the original façade. But it is a chunk worth a couple pictures. Though a member of our group called dibs. So no telling what it will be next.
A little more out of the way is the market. But this was one of my favorite parts of Merida. Not another tourist in sight, we made our way through the crowded market selling just about everything. They had hammocks (when in the Yucatan, buy a hammock!), clothes, produce, cooked food, bling bugs and more. “What are bling bugs?” you ask. The simple answer is: I have no idea. I don’t even know what they are actually called. But they are bugs that have had jewelry glued to them. They were everywhere. And we don’t know why.
The market also has less blinged out bugs. If you feel like helping a cockroach out I suppose you could bring your own superglue and rhinestones and remedy this. But you best bring a ton of rhinestones, because there are a ton of cockroaches.
This fun fact stated, I would advise you not to eat the food in the market. If you are a smart person, you won’t and you’ll go eat safer food someplace else. There. Now you can’t be upset if you get sick. I am not a wise person and I scarfed down this sketchy, cockroach adjacent food. 8 pesos for an empanada? I’ll have two, thanks! And they were delicious. I deserved to get so violently ill from this food adventure. Drinks full of ice and cockroaches as tablemates. I finished my meal knowing that if I got sick, no one would or should feel bad for me. But I was just fine.
A nice evening walk is down Paseo de Montejo. My very smart boyfriend knew the history and time period and all of that fun jazz. I just remember they were cool. And if I started listing facts about them now you would simply call bullshit and credit Google or Lonely Planet (as well you should). At the end of the road is a huge roundabout surrounding a gorgeous monument where an enormous Mexican flag is supposed to be. The flag was missing in action when we arrived. I shrugged it off. The boyfriend did not take is so kindly.
Cenotes just outside of Merida are also worth a visit. Though I ran out of time in Merida, half of our group went and enjoyed them immensely at a very low price. Lifejackets are either an extra fee or not offered.
UXMAL
We took a bus from Merida to Uxmal and then back (though we did not buy the round trip ticket). They have a circuit bus that allows you to see Uxmal and the smaller nearby ruins in one fell swoop. This, however, only takes place Sundays and I have no idea how you could properly see the ruins at that speed. We arrived at Uxmal just after it opened and were there well past midday.
Chichen Itza is the wonder of the world. I was prepared to very much enjoy Uxmal, but if Uxmal were the superior site, it would be the wonder. So, with this logic in mind, I was ready to be slightly less awed by Uxmal.
And this logic did not hold.
While Chichen Itza is amazing, it is a museum when compared to Uxmal. You can see all of these amazing things, but you cannot touch. But Uxmal you can almost feel the city. You walk the alleyways that the people of Uxmal once walked. You sit on a hill above the city and ball court where they probably sat to watch the games. You feel like if you turned around maybe a bit of the life would come back to it. The Magician’s house is no less impressive than El Castillo (and also chirps if you clap) and you can climb to the top of the Great Pyramid.
You won’t find a ton of souvenirs here. Really just in the souvenir shop, but these prices are no lower than the ones in town (though some of the items were ones I hadn’t seen before, I’d list them, but I have them as gifts to give away…)
PROGRESSO
“Do you know what we need?” someone must have asked. “A trip to the beach! I mean, it isn’t a trip to Mexico if you don’t see the beach.” It must have been something like that. I can’t remember. We must have been drunk or under duress or possibly possessed when this conversation took place though, because we somehow decided that Progresso was a fantastic idea. It wasn’t.
The bus we took to Progresso was much smaller, a local bus, as it was only 45 minutes to the beach. We arrived and knew right away that it was a mistake. But I was determined.
The wind was some of the craziest I had ever experienced. I pinned my hair quickly back, but, after only a few blocks, was keen to just cut it all off. Upon touching the beach the wind sand-blasted our legs and the water, even from a distance, was brown and murky with the churning waves. My wonderful boyfriend waded through the water with me. He tried to stick it out, but as a romantic kiss in the Gulf of Mexico turned into an assault of salt water in both of our mouth and up our noses, he threw in the towel. Or rather, headed back for the towel. I stayed though. I was determined to enjoy my first time in the Gulf of Mexico, damn it! Even farther out the waves grew tall enough to smack me square in the face, and any attempts to just float and go with the flow showed me just how fast the flow was, taking me down the beach faster than I could swim against the waves.
“But, Chelsea!” you cry. “It has a really long dock or something.” You can’t walk on it. It is a road. And the shorter version is covered in garbage and bird shit.
We tried to head back, but everyone had a similar idea and we had to wait in line for the fifth bus before we could get back to Merida.
In the moment I was determined to enjoy. It was an experience! A story to tell.
Well, now I’ve told it and I can push it from my memory.
And you’ve read it! So now you can never ever ever go to Progresso.
PALENQUE
Well goodbye Yucatan! It was fun! I am sure our next stop, Palenque will be quite similar. I certainly don’t need to be more worried about my hair, I am confident!
Oh, ho ho. Not the case.
We took a very comfortable bus the long stretch from Merida to Palenque. Surrounded by the shrubbery of the Yucatan, we couldn’t watch the landscape change as we made our way through Tabasco and Chiapas. That made it all the more breathtaking when, suddenly, there were the mountains and the jungle and, though the Yucatan was fun and charming in its own way, this was a whole new creature and my breath caught in my chest.
I looked through my window, excited for this next beautiful location and, when we finally stopped at the bus station, I excitedly grabbed my bags and headed out of the bus. Here the humidity punched me with all of its might.
Holy shit, Palenque. What did I ever do to you?!
Palenque is lucky that it is so beautiful.
The town is a bit small, with a couple nice things to see. But makes for a good hub to see the jungle and waterfalls and the like (though we didn’t have time for these). The food here is not like it was in Yucatan. We were not at all impressed, but probably would not have thought much of it except for the fact that the food we had just come from was so amazing.
The real draw to Palenque is the ruins of the same name.
You pay for a van to take you the 15 minutes to the ruins where you must pay for entrance to the park area, and again to get into the ruins. With all of this paying in several small transactions, it was still less than either Chichen Itza or Uxmal.
The ride in the van was so enjoyable. We shared it with several locals going to work (as tourist apparently don’t get up that early) and I voiced that I almost wished the ride had been longer. You take a road through the jungle and you can look across the sloping hills and mountains at the beautiful expansive green that simply wasn’t present in the Yucatan. Each new person got into the van with a “Buenos dias” and a huge smile.
We were the fourth and fifth people to get our tickets into Uxmal for the day and had it nearly to ourselves!
I had already stated how amazing Uxmal was. How could I gawk at Chichen Itza, then declare Uxmal better, and then declare Palenque better?! I couldn’t, I reasoned. So I fought it for the first half of the time we were there. But I could only fight it for so long.
The ruins weren’t quite so big, but just as beautiful. And added with the backdrop of the jungle all around, it was amazing. Here, as in Uxmal, you are climbing stairs and walking down paths and feeling like you can feel the life of the city. But, unlike Uxmal, at Palenque you walk from one series of ruins into the jungle, only to come upon another clearing with ruins just as beautiful.
Within the dense jungle there are ruins not quite so well preserved, and quite a bit smaller, but being under the canopy and alongside a stream and waterfalls, I was still appreciative of it.
A sound started out so quiet we didn’t pay much mind to it at first. But it slowly overpowered the gentle stream until it was a roar above us.
“What is that?” I asked. “Is that real?”
My boyfriend and I both determined that it wasn’t. Like zoos elsewhere, we were certain it was coming from a hidden speaker someplace in the trees in order to give a sort of ambiance. It got louder and louder. The sounds didn’t seem to repeat and I couldn’t help but imagine an angry monkey leaping down from the high treetops, unhappy with our presence. But he and I were certain it was a track.
As we came across another small set of ruins that had once been baths, there were two people looking up into the trees. Though they didn’t speak English, they called us over to them and pointed up. There, in plain view, sat a group of howler monkeys.
I pursed my lips, one last moment of defiance, before admitting it. “Palenque is the coolest.”
The museum (included in the entrance fee) is also very cool. If you’re reading a guidebook like we were as you went through you have plenty of fun facts that are then reinforced with the artifacts of the museum.
We took another bus back to the town of Palenque and hung out for a while.
While the food may not have been the best, the town was charming and had lots to see around it. It was a great place for a taste of Mexico. Outside of Palenque ruins we didn’t see another foreigner and if we wanted something we had to ask for it in Spanish.
VILLAHERMOSA
Something we didn’t know: Palenque has an airport. Had we known that we could have skipped Villahermosa and been better for it.
The initial plan was to take a night bus from Villahermosa to our next destination, Mexico City. This would be an 11 hour bus ride for about 60USD. But the plane ticket was the same price so we thought that was the best idea.
Villahermosa is dirty and a little unnerving without sights to make up for it. We stayed in a four star hotel (Mexican four stars is not the same as US four stars, but it was fine) and had planned to see a small park that had some stone heads in it. We decided against it. We got some food instead. This food was the worst of the trip. I got a salad as there wasn’t really anything better anyway. I paid more for a “ensalada natural” than if I had wanted chicken. But I don’t know why. I got four pieces of romaine lettuce, three stale pieces of bread, and all of it was smothered in mystery sauce. I was warned not to eat salad. But I had paid 55 pesos for that salad and only remembered after I had eaten every awful bite. Later that night I laid in bed. My boyfriend caught me with protein bar crumbs all over me and I whined that I had been wasting away! I froze in sudden realization. “If I get sick from that fucking salad-“ He just laughed.
