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Published: April 21st 2010
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We crossed the border from Belize on the first day of the Easter holidays - not our brightest of ideas as it took forever for our bus to get through the carpark that was the brdige joining the two countries. Our luck continued when we seemed to be waiting forever in the combi station at Campeche, trying to get to Bacalar. We finally found out that combis weren't running today, so followed an old lady and her granddaughter all the way across town to share a taxi.
Arriving in
Bacalar it must have been obvious that we had no map of town, nor any clue as to where (if anywhere) we could stay, as a very kind American emigrant pulled over in her pickup and asked if we wanted a ride. When she asked if we were heading to the hostel, we said 'there's a hostel? Sure!'. Her kindness provided an uplifting end to what had been a somewhat trying day for us. In Bacalar we enjoyed some Easter holiday fun swimming in the crystal clear freshwater of the lake, ate mango on a stick, and caught some free music in the old fort overlooking the lake. We also took
what turned out to be a very long walk to get to our first cenote. Now we knew cenotes were some sort of natural formation, possibly referred to as a 'sinkhole', but otherwise did not know what to expect. As we entered it at first looked quite a lot like a restaurant and bar. Oh right, walk a little further.. And there it is, an open lake of limestone geology, with inviting freshwater to swim in. But don't try to touch the bottom of the pool here, as we found out it was over 90m deep. We had good fun swimming, diving underwater to check out all the tree roots growing down through the rock and deep into the water. Then we enjoyed some ice cold Sol (one of Mexico's finest brews), as the filming for some sort of travel show went on behind us at the restaurant.
Next stop on our tour of the famous Yucatan Peninsula was the colonial town of
Valladolid. In visiting Valladolid we thought we would be avoiding the holiday rush expected in the Yucatan for the US 'Spring Break' - now don't get us wrong, we enjoy a good wet t-shirt competition as
much as the next person, but the idea of thousands of noisy, annoying young Americans was a real turn off - no Cancun nor Tulum for us. However, we soon saw that Valladolid was a massive tourist destination, as tour bus after tour bus pulled into town, everyone got off, walked around the main square for 45 minutes, and then continued on their way. And we could see why, Valladolid's main square is one of the nicest we've come across in our travels, with great two-person seats for intimate conversations in the moonlight..Ha!
Some of the main attractions near Valladolid are more cenotes. The one we visited was even more impressive than our previous one, being set completely underground within a cave! Lit artificially, and also through a small hole in the roof of the cave which let a little bit of sun through, swimming here was quite a sensation. Stalactited coming down from the ceiling, bats nestled up on the roof, and probably all sorts of crazy cave fish and water creatures swimming below us.
The tourist-scene was even heavier when we arrived at the Mayan ruins of
Chichén Itzá. Through the mobs of crowd we came
to the main plaza, with the impressive temple, at the side of which was a music stage being set up for the big Elton John concert the following Saturday night. The undeniable highlight of the site however, was the massive 'ball game' court. Well over a hundred metres in length, complete with stone rings (for the ball to go through, presumably), and carvings depicting the sacrifice of players (were they the winners or the losers?). Impressive stuff. Equally interesting was another cenote on the site, in which 20th Century explorations have found all sorts of sacrifices (including many human remains) deep underwater. But as soon as we had seen all the ruins we had to rush out of there, the number of people, and the persistence of the countless trinket sellers was becoming unbearable!
A bus took us into
Merida, the capital of Yucatan. Here we had a great night in, aided by Jen's discovery of cheap beer by the litre in a nearby convenient store, and our borrowing of the hostels communal guitar. As we were staying right on the zocalo (the main square) we also took many wanders through the very happening town, past buskers and clowns
and people selling all sorts of things. On Good Friday we took a day trip out to the town of
Acanceh, passing several small towns on the way where stations of the cross re-enactments were taking place, with the entire village in attendance. This is also why we were in Acanceh, where hundreds of school kids were dressed up as middle easterns, and there were Roman guards all waiting within the main plaza, between the towns large church and the ruins of a Mayan temple. At first it seemed like a big party, with people selling ice-blocks, more mango on the stick, balloons and all sorts of things. But then the mood changed somewhat when the first of the 'criminals' was tied onto his cross, and the cross raised into the midday heat. The same for the second guy, and then there was the sound of a hammer and nail over the PA and the cross with 'Jesus' was erected. Straight away Jen and I looked at each other in disbelief - 'no..he's really nailed to it isn't he??'. We looked closer, and it sure looked like it. There was even blood coming down from his hands, massive nails coming
Chichen Itza
main pyramid, main attraction out of them, blood on his face from the crown of thorns. It was really full-on. And still the ice-cream vendors rung their bells. Jen began to feel a bit quoozy (and to tell the truth I wasn't far behind), so we went and found a shady spot to sit down in, pretty affected by what we had just seen. A bit later the plaza began to clear out, and we looked over to see that the three men had been removed from their crosses and taken away. We walked up close to the crosses (now draped with material), looked at the ground beneath and saw blood..Or wait a second..Is that paint?? And then looked up at the cross of Jesus..OOooooooohhh. Isn't that clever. They have bent nails that make it look like they came out of the centre of his hands. He wasn't really crucified after all..Thank god for that!! Now we can go enjoy an ice-block without feeling guilty!
The next day we left to spend the rest of Semana Santa (Holy Week) out by the beach at a place called
San Crisanto. Camping the night and lazy the days away in hammocks was the perfect way
Chichen Itza
yet another cenote. It was in here that sacrificial victims were thrown to end our time in the Yucatan. It was also an awesome place to be for the Easter weekend as it was clearly a bit of a low key holiday place for families from Merida. Lots of fish was eaten, a few beers were enjoyed and I even got to explore a little bit of saltmarsh. Good times all round really.
Now for a return to the life of overnight bus rides and into Zapatista country!
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