Yucatan Peninsula Vacation: Part I

So I took a week off of work and headed to the Yucatan Peninsula (Campeche, Yucatan, Quintana Roo) for 9 days on a little solo adventure........
Day 1: Campeche
After 14.5 hours on the bus I arrived in hot and steamy Campeche, Campeche. Not that 14.5 hours on a bus is fun, but I woke up for the last couple of hours of the trip which are on a road that goes directly along the Gulf of Mexico. The city of Campeche used to be surrounded by a large wall to protect it from pirates, and today pieces of the wall, lookout towers, and gates still remain throughout the city. The streets are filled with pastel-colored buildings (although behind many are actually empty lots). To the north and the south of the city, up on hills, are two forts, and the main plaza is only 3 blocks from the Gulf of Mexico. I got to try 2 specialties of the area, pan de cazón (a layered dish with tortillas, salsa, and dogfish), and pibipollo (kinda like a giant tamal cooked in a banana leaf and filled with chicken and masa).

Day 2: Edzna
Early on Sunday morning I went to one of the lager sets of Mayan ruins in the state of Campeche called Edzna. Because Campeche gets less tourist traffic than the rest of the Yucatan, public transport to sites outside the city is a bit more difficult. Luckily, there is one bus that leaves at 7, passes the ruins at 8 and then again at 9:30 on its return trip, but if you miss this, nothing else passes the site until 4:30. I had the entire ruins to myself, other than the massive clouds of mosquitoes. I think that they might have been worse there than I have ever seen. You can still climb the main pyramid at Ednza, and from the top you have a great view of the ruins and surrounding forests. The site is also filled with iguanas, mot mots, and a couple tarantulas. In the afternoon, I went to a small village called Hecelchakan.
Day 3: Merida and Izamal
Monday I left Campeche early and arrived in Merida, Yucatan. I spent the morning wondering the city and ducking into air conditioned buildings. This is the low season in Yucatan right now for a couple reasons, the heat, the mosquitoes, and the rain. Coming from Puebla where it had been cold and rainy, it was definitely very hot, but at least not so crowded. Merida is basically another colonial city. There was a city-wide art exhibit using recycled materials, hence why some of the following photos may seem a bit odd.

In the afternoon, I went to the small town of Izamal. The town is famous as the home of a large yellow convent and has a couple Mayan pyramids within the city limits. In addition to the convent, the rest of the buildings in town are pretty much all entirely yellow as well.

Yucatan Peninsula Vacation: Part II

Day 4: Uxmal, Kabah, Ruta Puuc, and Progreso
Tueday was a ruined-filled day. I started off by visting 3 sets of ruins (Sayil, Labná, and Xlapak) that are collectively known as Ruta Puuc. While all fairly small, some of the temples have some really interesting details. As with Edzna, they were completely empty.

Kabah is a set of ruins located between Ruta Puuc and Uxmal and is famous for its wall of faces.
Then I finally visited Uxmal, which is the largest of the 5 and has 2 very large pyramids (again one of which you are still able to climb and from there can see many of the other ruins).

Then after a long day of ruins, I took the bus north of Merida to the beach town of Progreso, also home to the longest dock in Mexico (over 7km long).

Day 5: Chichen Itza, Centoes, Tulum
I headed to Chichen Itza on the 6:30 am bus from Merida, and while I was regretting the early hour, arriving in an empty Chichen Itza was definitely worth it. By the time I was headed out at 10:30, the place was filling with people and tour groups, but I had the place almost entirely to myself.

After the ruins, I caught a bus to Valladolid and from there headed a little bit outside of town to two underground cenotes. Because of the limestone geology in the yucantan Peninsula, there is virtually no surface water (no rivers), expect cenotes, which are basically pools of water. The two near Valladolid, also happen to be underground so you feel like you are swimming in a cave and generally, roots from the trees above reach through the ground and down into the centoe for their water source. Swimming was a welcome relief from the heat. After that, I hopped on a bus for Tulum, Quintana Roo, on the shores of the Caribbean Ocean.

Day 6: Rainy Tulum
Of course, the only planned beach day was the only day it stormed for the entire day. I went to the ruins at Tulum in the morning, and while the buildings are less impressive than some of the other Mayan ruins, their location, on rocky cliffs overlooking the white sand and turquoise waters of the Caribbean make them an amazing site.

Just after the ruins, a huge storm hit the area, and it pretty much continued raining all day. I ended up passing a good part of the day huddled under a palapa with other people at the hostel playing cards. The storm did break long enough to take a bike ride along the coast though.

Yucatan Peninsula Vacation: Part III

Day 7: Rio Lagartos
Friday I left Tulum and returned to the state of Yucatan. Rio Lagartos is a small town (1500 people) located on an estuary on the Gulf coast of Yucatan. Its estuary is one of the places that flamingos flock during the summer months to feed and breed. So I got to town on Friday night and arranged my boat trip for the following morning. I ended up at the only restaurant in town in search of food and later that night ended up on a free night boat trip into the estuary and mangroves where I got to see crocodiles, raccoons, needle nosed fish, blowfish, and crabs.

Day 8: More Rio Lagartos and the hacienda Ochil
Saturday morning I left on a 7am boat ride into the mangroves and the estuary to go see the flamingos. In addition to flamingos I also got to see boat-billed herons, white pelicans, and a bunch of other birds.

I returned to Merida that afternoon and went to an old hacienda to the south of town.

Day 9: Cuzamá and more cenotes
Sunday was my last day on vacation, but my bus wasn’t until 6:30pm, so I went to the small town of Cuzamá, that has an old hacienda with 3 cenotes on it. From where the bus drops you off you take a pedistrike to the old hacienda where you then take a horse-drawn cart to and between the cenotes (all underground, and all swimable). To enter the last cenote, you had to literally climb down a ladder (about 1.5 stories) through the limestone and then down into the cenote.

After swimming, I went back to Merida for a last meal of cochinita tacos (baby pig cooked underground in a banana leaf) and then got on a 19 hour bus ride back to Puebla.