Chichen Itza Tour, Mexico

Day 3 we took a day-long boxed tour with four stops which included Mayan city known as Chichen Itza. Our tour guide’s name was Ulises, He provided us with information and entertainment in both English and Spanish. Even though at times his two sentence steps between the languages seemed over regurgitated and canned humor was borderline cheesy, he seemed to really enjoy his job and it showed in his presentation and delivery. Just before our first stop, we received our first upsell which flowed from his mouth like the promise of commission fused itself to his very being. It was a $25 folder filled with documents created by the Mayan people in which you choose a significant date in your life, your birthday for example, and they translated your date, zodiac sign and a bunch of other meaningless information into the Mayan language and presented it in a full-color copy.

We arrived at our first stop, a small Mayan village which consisted of no more than a Gift shop, a Church and a bar. Immediately after exiting the bus we were bombarded by Mayan children relentlessly offering to take our picture, which we later found out it was to push some of their homemade liqueur on us. It was packaged in bottles with our pictures plastered on them in hopes to force a sale out of guilt. When we finally made our way past the wall of clicks and flashes, we suddenly had a Mayan of our own. Attached at the hip he would linger behind us trying to promote every object we picked up with a force that can only be recognized as starvation. $55 later we walked away with an obsidian knife and a ceramic turtle jewelry box and we could rest easy knowing our Mayan friend would once again have a full belly that night.

Our next stop landed us at a vintage hotel, the hotel was created in the early 1900’s and had an exterior lined with stained glass mosaic windows that looked true to the era. The hotel was our “Secret backdoor” entrance to the ancient city, so we didn’t have to enter through the front and wait in massive lines with sweaty, obnoxious tourists. The hotel was one of the finest I’ve ever seen, and boasted a long list of celebrities that stayed there over the years. We passed through its polished marble floors, and 20ft high cathedral ceilings, into the luxurious courtyard which was filled with all kinds of exotic plants, hammock huts and small bars to the planetarium where in a 20-minute demonstration we learned about the Mayan history, religion and beliefs. After which we were divided into 2 groups English and Spanish speaking then assigned a new tour guide. The new tour guide then led us into the park.

He walked us around and explained the history of each ancient monument in a version of our language that seemed extremely stressed. The words he did know were over-pronounced but could be heard clearly and for the English words he didn’t know we were blessed with a bi-lingual tourist in our group to help him translate. After the tour, we were set free with 45 minutes to explore and fight off persistent vendors that were scattered around the park. Somewhere between the battle with heat stroke and the constant “Buy for one dollar!!” screams from the illegal vendors, I found myself standing at the base of El Castillo, The main pyramid in the park. I was in awe as I looked upon something so massive and built so long ago. It was just breathtaking and the thought of them using this pyramid as the most accurate calendar in history sent chills up my sweat-drenched spine. At that moment I realized that all the time and money spent to get to this point was totally worth it. We then headed out of the park and back to the hotel for our included, authentic Mayan buffet.

The spices were toned down to accommodate the general tourist taste buds but the food was still delicious. I somehow scammed a free beer probably through the language divide. While sitting in the dining room digesting our meal we were greeted by some Mayan women dressed in “authentic” Mayan dresses. They danced like monkeys for our pleasure and entertainment. Mid-way through the performance we tried to leave but were stopped at the door by the head of the dance mob. Standing dead center in the exit with a sign reading “we appreciate tips”, holding what looked like an old tobacco can to collect their guilt begotten dollars. This was one time I didn’t tip. We then hopped back on our Nemo colored bus and headed off to our next stop.

Somewhere along the way we picked up a young Mayan boy, he was maybe 15 or so, and although Mayan was his native tongue he was going to school to learn English, French and Spanish. In all of his broken languages he offered us some of a Mayan traditional liqueur which was comprised of fermented flowers and honey, after this extremely tasty drink he started his guilt-ridden upsell as he handed out the bottles of liqueur with our pictures glued to the front, $25 seems to be the going rate, no disrespect to the Mayan people.

We then arrived at another destination, a Centote, which translates to “natural deposit of spring water”. Essentially it’s a limestone sinkhole filled with water with concrete stairs leading down to it. It’s actually a very beautiful site. It is about 30 feet below ground with stalactites lining the walls, and is about 90m deep. The grounds surrounding it had a colonial style hotel, dining hall and change rooms scattered on the properties. We explored the property in the 45 minutes allowed at this stop, and it started to pour down rain on our way back to the bus. Perfect timing.

Then we arrived at our final destination, a colonial city. They dropped us off at the town center which was a park filled with benches and strange looking chairs. It was surrounded by a fence which our guide explained was originally to keep out the Mayan people. We ventured through the park receiving awkward stares from the locals and crossed a street to check out a colonial-era church. As we headed in, the doorstep was filled with beggars. Considering I’ve only been in a handful of churches in my life the interior was as impressive to see as some of the Mayan monuments we saw earlier in the day. We then headed back to the bus to transport back to our temporary Mexican home.

Travelling Trev.