Making The Most Of Our Trip To Valladolid (Day 2) – Chichen Itza
In our last post, we described our visit to Ek Balam and Cenote X’canche during our first day in the Valladolid area. And we had a great time! But honestly, all that was set up to allow us to do what we really came to Valladolid for – make an early morning trip to Chichen Itza.
And boy did things turn out well!
Amazingly, we were able to visit Chichen Itza without getting overwhelmed by tourists, which this archaeological site is known for.
Let us show you what we mean, and how we pulled off this feat.
Why Visit Chichen Itza?
Chichen Itza needs no introduction.
One of the New Seven Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage site, you probably have at least heard of the Maya city of Chichen Itza. But most know little about what makes it so famous.
Chichen Itza was one of the largest ancient Maya cities, occupying an area of 10 square kilometers, in south-central Yucatán state, Mexico. It is thought to have been a religious, astronomical, military, political, and commercial center that, at its peak, would have been home to 35,000 people.
Chichen Itza was founded in the 6th century AD in an arid region where water was obtained from natural wells called cenotes. The city was invaded in the 10th century by another Mayan group (the Toltecs), and they constructed another series of buildings, including the famous stepped pyramid known as El Castillo and a ball court. The site, though largely abandoned by the time the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, remained sacred to the Maya people.
Bottom line, Chichen Itza is one of the grandest cities of the Maya civilization.
Quite a bit of historical and archaeological information is known about Chichen Itza, compared to most other Maya cities. So if you’d like to know more about those things, CLICK HERE.
The Challenge With Visiting Chichen Itza
Now that we’ve established that Chichen Itza is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the entire world, you can imagine the size of the crowds that come to visit. This is made all the worse due to Chichen Itza’s accessibility from more distant tourist destinations, most notably Cancun. Tour buses invade Chichen Itza, by the dozens, every day.
Stories abound of the misery that some people endure visiting Chichen Itza.
The crowds are said to be so large, that the experience can be ruined for some. Others say that the countless vendors that set up stalls inside the archeological zone are so numerous and persistent, that they further magnify the unpleasantness. And on our bus ride to Valladolid from Merida, we saw firsthand how crazy the parking and traffic situation is leading up to Chichen Itza. So if you are using a car or are in a hurry, you’ll be frazzled before your visit even begins! And if the weather is hot…well, you get the idea.
You even hear that all of these things, along with the cost of visiting, make some wish that they never bothered seeing Chichen Itza.
So what was our plan to increase the chances that NONE of this would happen to us?
Simple.
- Visit on a weekday. Because weekends are magnets for tourists in general, and locals get into to Mexican archaeological zones for FREE on Sundays. In our case, we planned our visit on a Friday.
- Arrive at Chichen Itza BEFORE it opens at 8 am and get into the line for tickets ASAP. Word on the streets is that the crowds and number of vendors really start getting crazy after 10 am, and get even worse as more tour buses arrive.
- Use a collectivo service for transportation. Valladolid collectivos to Chichen Itza are cheap, fast, and efficient, and start dropping people off at the site before 8 am. Also, doing this keeps us from having to rent a car or book a tour, which could delay our arrival time and add significant costs.
- Visit in late December. The forecast was partly cloudy and 78 degrees Fahrenheit on the day we planned our trip, 5 days prior. Avoiding the sweltering heat was key for us.
It turns out that all of our planning worked!
Getting to Chichen Itza from Our Airbnb in Valladolid
This was surprisingly easy. We just used the Chichen Itza collectivo!
We arrived at the collectivo pickup point at 6:40 am and bought one-way tickets to Chichen Itza for $40 MEX ($2.37 USD) each. The first departure of the day is at 7 am, or whenever the van fills.
You can also buy round trip tickets for double the cost, as well as tickets that add a drop off to one of the cenotes near Chichen Itza, for an additional fee.
Once we bought our tickets we waited for 15 more minutes while tourists gradually filled up the van. And just before 7 am, we were ready for the 45-minute drive to the Chichen Itza Archaeological Zone.
We arrived at the Chichen Itza parking lot around 20 minutes before 8 am, so we were super excited! But traffic leading into the parking lot was already backing up. So the driver let everyone out and we made the short walk to the admissions building, which would take far less time than waiting for the line of traffic.
We were really happy with this collectivo service! It was cheap, fast, easy, and got you to Chichen Itza before opening. We can’t believe more people don’t use this mode of transportation to visit.
Entering the Chichen Itza Archaeological Zone
Once we arrived at Chichen Itza, we approached the admissions building and joined the line for tickets. It was 7:45 am at that point. There were two lines (of around 25 people each) to choose from at that time, so we picked what looked like the shortest one.
Tour guides were selling their services at the entrance, stating you could get tickets through them and enter the park early, but most people abstained. The markup for that sort of thing is usually pretty brutal!
At 8 am sharp, the lines started moving. At that point, the lines had grown significantly and were now probably a hundred people long. Good thing we got there early!
After about a 20-minute wait, we paid our admission fees and entered the archaeological zone.
As with our visit to Uxmal, there were two ticket booths, one for a general admission fee and one specific to the Yucatan Government. The general admission fee was $90 MEX ($5.19 USD) per person. However, the Yucatan Government admission fee was $524 MEX ($31.07 USD) per person for foreigners.
Mercifully, we were allowed to pay both admission fees by credit card!
In total, we paid $1228 MEX ($72.80 USD) for both of us to get in.
We then made our way through security where we showed our tickets, got our backpacks searched, and entered the archaeological zone.
Exploring The Chichen Itza Archaeological Zone
When we entered the site at around 8:20 am, it was still relatively calm. Although tourists had a presence, their numbers weren’t off-putting (yet). We also saw vendors pushing carts to set up their stalls inside the facility, but they were not ready to make sales at that point.
In other words, it was the perfect time to hit the most popular areas of the park before the crowds were overwhelming. But we knew the wave of bodies was coming, so we made haste!
The first thing that hit us was how big the archaeological zone was. We think it was even bigger than the Uxmal Archaeological Zone, which we thought was quite large! And the number, size, and decor of the buildings we saw were mind-blowing.
Yep, Chichen Itza lives up to the hype.
Here are some of our favorite shots.
Our Impressions of Chichen Itza
Wow.
Our visit to Chichen Itza was totally worth the time, money, and effort to make happen, at least the way we did it. And considering Chichen Itza’s reputation, we were pleasantly surprised by the relative calm…at least for the first couple of hours we were there.
But YMMV if you make a visit and ignore our guidelines!
You may also be wondering how the character of the Chichen Itza Archaeological Zone changed while we were there over time.
We’d say that from 8:30 – 9:30 am, the zone had a manageable number of people. Meaning that you could see the most popular sites without too much crowding. And the vendors were still setting up, which added to the relative calm.
From 9:30 – 10:30 am, crowd density increased around the most popular sites to a less-than-ideal level, but you could still escape to the more remote areas of the archaeological zone. The more enterprising vendors were set up by now, but not so many that they were distracting.
From 10:30 – 11:00 am, it became complete chaos. Crowd density was high almost everywhere, and there was no escaping it. And by this time all of the walkways in the park were lined with vendor stands selling their wares at varying levels of aggression. That said, the vendors weren’t rude or anything like that. We didn’t find them too hard to ignore, and several were pretty hilarious in their sales pitches. “Almost free!” and “As cheap as Walmart!” were my favorites. 🙂 But make no mistake, it was pretty much wall-to-wall people.
And it was only going to get worse as the day went on! After nearly 3 hours of exploring under pretty ideal conditions, we were glad to be leaving.
Getting Back to Merida from Chichen Itza
But it was now time to head back to our home base in Merida!
Again, this was easy.
It turns out that there is an ADO/Oriente bus stop at the back of the Chichen Itza Archeological Zone bus parking lot. It is directly in front of the Mercado de Artesanias, in the loop where all the tour buses park.
We just found the faded green “Parada” sign and ADO/Oriente emblazoned parking spots and knew that we found the right place.
From this location, you can buy fare on the Oriente bus back to Merida, which stops here hourly (supposedly) until around 5 pm. The fare is $146 MEX ($8.63 USD) per person.
We just found a person with an official-looking shirt for transportation services near the bus station and asked them about the Oriente bus back to Merida. There was no kiosk or anything like that.
All the workers looked out for each other there, so we were eventually approached by an Oriente representative who helped us. As usual for Oriente buses, we paid cash, and then he recharged our AhorroBUS card with a hand card scanner. But if you don’t have a card, one will be provided.
Supposedly the Oriente bus to Merida arrives 10 minutes after each hour, but the huge line of car traffic entering Chichen Itza makes that very wishful thinking. Although we were there 10 minutes after 11 am, no bus came. So we just waited until a bus came, 30 minutes later.
We boarded, scanned our AhorroBUS card with the driver, took our seats, and were on our way back to Merida. And three hours later, we arrived safe and sound.
Closing Thoughts
What a couple of days!
There was no wasted effort during our trip to Valladolid, and we couldn’t imagine things working out any better.
We thoroughly enjoyed all of our activities, with Chichen Itza being the clear highlight. We strongly recommend that you visit if you can, especially if you follow our advice!
Have any of our readers been to Chichen Itza? What was it like? Leave your thoughts in the comments! It will be fun to compare experiences.
Until next time…
Thanks for reading!
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2 thoughts on “Making The Most Of Our Trip To Valladolid (Day 2) – Chichen Itza”
Great photos!! Early travel makes looking at sites so much easier. Cannot wait for your next blog!!
Thank you!