Chichen Itza

Got up early for a quick last dip in the sea and caught the 2nd class bus to a small town called Piste, next to the famous Chichen Itza ruins (has been called one of the new 7 wonders of the world). On arriving we found a small guest house and sent our clothes off to the local laundry lady. We then headed off to Chichen Itza to see what all the fuss was about. Chichen Itza is truly amazing – it is the most famous of the Mayan ruins and covers a huge amount of space, there is a central temple pyramid which is huge and there are ruins of a market, an observatory and other buildings. The only slight downside is that as it is not far from Cancun it has been heavily commercialised and shops and market stalls line the entrance and are spread throughout the grounds. Also they have closed off access to the highest monuments so you cannot climb to the top to see the views. This was quite disappointing since we had been able to do this at Monte Alban and Palenque. It was still very impressive though but you struggled to get a real sense of what it would have been like over a thousand years ago.

We did make use of the stalls though to buy a little Mexican who we have named Pepe. He is our new travelling companion – see photo.