Valladolid and the hidden Maya ruin in Ek Balam

Our journey continued to Valladolid. Here we had arranged to meet up with some 'old' acquaintances: Raphael (Switzerland), Daniel (Germany), and Alex (England). Together, we spent our first day in the Mexican town. We rented a total of 4 scooters (a French couple joined us later) and rode through a few small villages on the outskirts of the city and to the Oxman Cenote, which is known for its Tarzan-style swing into the water. As expected, the male contingent was hardly able to leave the water. ;)

The next day, most of the group split up, leaving only us, Alex, and one of Alex's friends. We decided to keep the scooters for another two days and first went to the Sytun Cenote, which was huge and had a sort of catwalk in the middle where you can take great photos. At the right time of day, the sun shines directly on the end of the catwalk. Pretty cool, but there was also a huge rush to this cenote, so we didn't like it that much. The photos, however, turned out beautifully!! ;)

Alex really wanted to go to a campground during our stay in Valladolid. This campground was supposed to be in the jungle, next to a cenote and a Maya ruin. There wasn't much information about it, no Google entry or website where we could read about it. There was only this rumor that the campground existed. So, the next day we went to the Maya ruin of Ek Balam, which turned out to be the most beautiful of all the ruins we visited, because you can climb the pyramid right in the middle of the jungle and have an incredibly beautiful view. On the way, we also saw a snake for the first time. When we arrived, we first looked at the ruins, visited the nearby cenote, and then reached the infamous campground. It consisted of 3 cabins in the middle of the forest: no electricity, so no light, no other people anywhere, but each cabin had its own bathroom, a few candles for the night, and a bonfire that the night watchman lit for us.

And there we were: in the middle of the jungle, the four of us (+ the night watchman, who supposedly also spent the night somewhere there), a few candles, snacks, beer, our bonfire, animals, animals, animals, and the NIGHT!

Experiencing the night may not be anything special because it's nighttime somewhere in the world all the time. But this feeling of night, real darkness, starry sky, and the sounds of animals, we have never experienced in our lives before.

Alex bought a typical tourist souvenir: a pipe that is supposed to sound like a big cat. Of course, he spent the whole evening trying to attract animals with it, and it actually worked. He had a short conversation with an animal, which luckily we don't know what kind of animal it was.

In our cabin, we had our second encounter with a scorpion (I think I already mentioned the first encounter in one of the previous stories, if not, we'll be happy to tell that story in person), but this time we quickly defeated it and no one was stung.

What a night! What an experience!
I think we will still be talking about this in decades. :)

On our last day in Valladolid, together with Alex, we visited the most famous Maya ruin, Chichen Itza, which is one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Of course, we couldn't miss this destination on our trip. Unfortunately, we didn't like this ruin at all: on the one hand, we had been to Ek Balam the day before, which was much more pristine and impressive, and on the other hand, we were very annoyed by hundreds of vendors who wanted to sell us souvenir after souvenir throughout the entire site.

But at least: we were there, took some funny photos, and can say: Chichen Itza - CHECK! ;)

After that, we went directly to Merida, where we ended up spending more time than we thought we would.