Category Archives: Yucatan

A Word About Dining in Mexico . . . You CAN Drink the Water

  By Anne Patrone | March 24, 2011 - 9:13 am | , , ,
1 Comment

In preparation for our trip to Mexico, I stocked up on anti-diarrheal medicines, bought water purification tablets from a local hiking store, and made sure we had granola bars close by in case we got sick, couldn’t drink the water, or couldn’t find a place to eat.

As per usual, I over-prepared and the only thing we used were the granola bars because the kids wanted a snack.

What I discovered was that even though I ate salads and fruit (supposedly a big no-no when traveling in Mexico) and drank tons of water (although all from bottles), the image of Mexico as a destination where one gets “Montezuma’s revenge” by eating local was overblown.

Plaza in Valladolid

To be fair, we didn’t eat at any of the roadside stands offering grilled carne or pollo, but at traditional restaurants, we ordered local specialities with no problem.  We drank margaritas (only the adults!) and enjoyed panuchos (fried tortillas topped with black beans, meat, and veggies), tamales, and cochinita pibil (a marinated pork dish).  Traditional Mexican staples like quesdillas, enchiladas, and fajitas were also enjoyed by our entire family.

I can’t say enough about the breakfasts (my favorite meal of the day) where the boys gobbled up huevos con tocino (scrambled eggs with bacon) while I enjoyed fresh corn tortillas served with eggs scrambled with peppers and onions.

And the guacamole??  To die for.

Central Plaza in Valladolid

Maybe it was all the fresh ingredients.  Or perhaps it was the spices they used.  But going local and dining in Mexico is NOT a problem.  Plus, it’s a welcome change for the kids to learn that there are other food groups than burgers/hot dogs/pizzas. 

Visiting Ek Balam – Mayan Ruins in the Jungle

  By Anne Patrone | March 22, 2011 - 12:25 pm | , , , , ,
1 Comment
Welcome sign at Ek Balam

Another day, another set of Mayan ruins, right?  But the Mayan ruins of Ek Balam (or Black Jaguar) near Valladolid are well worth a stop if you’re already in the area visiting Chichen Itza.

The Acropolis at Ek Balam

The differences between the two sites are everywhere.  Chichen Itza is huge (over 25 acres), Ek Balam is a more manageable size (I’d estimate 10 acres, max).  Chichen Itza was an important city-state and used the Mayans, as well as the later Toltec civilization.  Ek Balam was essentially abandoned by the Mayans in 900 AD and it disappeared into the jungle.  What you see at Ek Balam is pure Mayan.

Chichen Itza has been the subject of several archaeological digs and studies with the end result that a large portion of the site has been restored.  Ek Balam was considered a minor site until a large pyramid, known as the “Acropolis,” was discovered in 1999, so very little has been restored.  Which means you can go into the ruins and climb the pyramid at Ek Balam – something you can no longer do at Chichen Itza.

Since we were traveling from our hotel in the interior to our hotel along the coast, I persuaded my guys to take a small detour and visit Ek Balam.

The jungle path to Ek Balam

Ek Balam hasn’t been “discovered” by the hordes of tourists from Cancun, so the experience is a little more calm than at Chichen Itza.  Local guides are available (and again, we should have gotten a iPod download from TekTrek) but Ek Balam is also do-able without any of these.  You walk through the jungle, wondering where a pyramid could be hiding, and then poof! just as you pass through the defensive walls . . . 

The ruins of Ek Balam

An entire city appears out of the jungle.  Everything is open and you’re permitted to enter and climb anything you want to.  We started off with the oval palace, which was about half the size (and height) of the main Acropolis.

On top of the ruins at Ek Balam
Entering the deserted Oval Palace at Ek Balam

What no one ever tells you, although I suppose it should be obvious, is that going UP is infinitely easier than going DOWN.  It’s a little bit of a stairmaster experience because the steps aren’t like the risers we have in our homes – they’re uneven, short, and every step is a different size – not to mention that they’re STEEP!!!  To get down, I basically had to crouch and use my hand to steady my descent.

Climbing the Acropolis at Ek Balam

And yes, I was scared to death with the little pyramid, so climbing to the top of the Acropolis was out of the question.  There are no nice handrails to aid your descent and the wind whips at you until you feel like you’re going to blow over – honestly.  But in the interest of getting some decent pictures, I climbed to the halfway point and sent the camera up with hubby and my eldest who DID climb to the top.  Youngest stayed at the bottom and befriended some Mexican dogs.

Acropolis at Ek Balam – climbed halfway up
Monster-mouth entrance to the tomb

Thank goodness I decided to only climb halfway – although an elderly lady (had to be around 70) scampered to the top with no difficulty – I was petrified coming down.  I basically bumped my bottom down the steps until I felt more secure.  How sad is that?

View from the top of the Acropolis at Ek Balam

As we left Ek Balam, I asked my guys which Mayan ruin they liked better – Chichen Itza or Ek Balam.  The answer was a unanimous vote for Ek Balam.  Getting down and dirty and climbing a pyramid will beat a “Wonder of the New World” any day of the week! 

Chichen Itza – One of the Seven Wonders of the New World

  By Anne Patrone | March 17, 2011 - 10:02 am | , , , , , ,
2 Comments
Temple of Kukulcan or El Castillo at Chichen Itza

One of the main reasons why I wanted to stay in the interior of the Yucatan was to be closer to Chichen Itza.

Listed in Frommer’s 500 Places to Take Your Kids Before they Grow Up  and as a newly named “Wonder of the New World,” Chichen Itza was on top of my “must-see” list for our Mexico trip.  And since every book I read about visiting Chichen Itza recommended staying nearby to avoid the late day crowds from Cancun tour buses, I also knew I wanted an early start.

Mayan/Toltec carvings at Chichen Itza

We had success on the early start arriving around 10 am and had two hours to spend with a private guide (cost around 600 pesos) that took us around the main site with very few people.

Which brings me to the subject of tours/guides/etc.  Before we left for our trip, I had the option of buying a TekTrek download for Chichen Itza and Ek Balam (a site we visited the next day) or hiring a guide when we got to those two sites.  I talked it over with my guys and since they’re not fans of audio tours (which is what TekTrek is – a download onto your MP3 Player), we decided to get the guide when we arrived.

Temple of the Skulls

The guide we hired approached my hubby while he was waiting for the rest of us to get out of the bathroom.  And while he spoke English, he was difficult to understand and he couldn’t answer our questions.  It was like he was programmed with a set speech and heaven forbid if he diverted from it.  Plus he kept playing up the human sacrifice element to interest my boys which I knew was overstated.

Yes, the Mayans and later the Toltecs practiced human sacrifice – but it was more bloodletting rather than the overdone beheadings seen in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto.  (Horrible movie and almost comical in it’s portrayal of the Mayan culture . . . which hey, Mel had already been absorbed into the Toltec culture by the time the Spanish arrived).

Ball Court at Chichen Itza

On the plus side, our guide did point out some of the more interesting aspects of Chichen Itza.  The Mayans were known for their calendars so they built their main temple (Kukulcan) with 91 steps on each of its four sides.  Add in the top platform and you get 365 days. Plus it’s lined up for some interesting light and shadow effects on the equinoxes.

There are also some neat acoustic elements at Chichen Itza.  If you stand in a direct line with the steps of the Temple of Kukulcan and clap your hands, the sound echoes back sounding like a sacred quetzal bird. In the ball court, clap your hands and it’ll echo 7 times – the number of players on their ball team.  At the ball court, there’s also a spot where you can stand and speak normally and people on the opposite end will hear you.

Cenote of Sacrifice 

After our guide left us at the Cenote of Sacrifice (which hey, why would they want to poison their drinking water with dead bodies??) we wandered on our own throughout the rest of Chichen Itza.

And this is where I was kicking myself for listening to my kids and not having the TekTrek audio guide.
It might have been a little annoying, but we would have had a better idea of what we were seeing instead of the brief descriptions I could glean from my travel guide (thank you Frommer’s!).

Caracol – possible observatory

We left in the early afternoon, tired and amazed at the mass of humanity that was pouring forth from the tour buses parked in Chichen Itza’s parking lot.  Forty-four places visited, 456 to go!

Watching Flamingos Take Flight at Celestun National Wildlife Refuge

  By Anne Patrone | March 15, 2011 - 1:17 pm | , , , ,
1 Comment
Flamingos at Celestun National Wildlife Refuge

One of the main reasons I wanted to take the kids to the Celestun National Wildlife Refuge was because of the flamingos.

Huh?  Flamingos?  Can’t they just see them in a zoo?

Of course we can.  And we often do at our local Bronx Zoo.  But seeing them in the wild . . . the way they were meant to be seen is a rare treat because flamingos need a very specialized and rapidly disappearing ecosystem – an estuary to hunt for shrimp larvae that make up the bulk of their diet and give them their unique pink color.

Shrimp larve which give flamingos their pink color

And so on a beautiful day (after letting hubby sleep in . . .) we headed to the coastal town of Celestun and got lost on the way there.  Again.

I’m pretty sure that if we had stayed on the main highway with its neon signs of pink flamingos pointing the way, we probably wouldn’t have gotten so turned around . . . probably.  But we needed more pesos for gas and entrance fees and thus had to exit our boring drive and look for an ATM – a rather difficult task on a Sunday in Mexico when you don’t speak the language.

(Note to travelers:  Head to the airport when you need a bank/ATM – they’re usually close by).

Money in hand, we thought we were headed back to our boring highway until bam! we somehow wound up in Ulam – the town where we needed to make the turnoff to Celestun.  No problem, right?  Just follow the large green signs pointing to Celestun . . .

Boat trip to see the flamingos

. . . which magically disappear when you need them the most.  A few wrong turns, a retracing of our path, and a couple of angry beeps when we went the wrong way down a one-way street (seriously hard to tell these things – only a small arrow high on a building) we managed to get where we were going.

By now it was getting late in the day and worried that we would be traveling back in the dark, we decided on a short, one-hour boat trip to see the flamingos.

And though our guide spoke no English, we managed (thanks to two high school years of Spanish and hubby’s four years of Latin) to understand enough to make this a memorable trip.

Tons of flamingos at Celestun
Mangroves lining the estuary
Huge termite nests in the mangroves
Examining the clear water that forms the freshwater part of the estuary
A friendly crocodile hanging out in the water

And yes, before you ask, we got lost again on the way back!

Experiencing the Hacienda Lifestyle in Mexico

  By Anne Patrone | March 10, 2011 - 10:25 am | , , ,
2 Comments
Hacienda San Jose Cholul

As we muddled our way around the Yucatan, finally settling into our hotel, the Hacienda San Jose Cholul, I had to explain to the guys what exactly a “hacienda” was and why I wanted to stay at one.

According to Wikipedia, a hacienda is more than a house, less than a palace.  The best word might be an estate.  Dating back to the 1500s when the Spanish colonized Mexico, haciendas fell out of favor in the early 1900s during the Mexican revolution.  Some survived, but a majority of these estates didn’t.  Outside of every major town you can see the ruins of haciendas – once beautiful, now piles of rubble.

Before and After at Hacienda San Jose

When I was looking for hotel options for our family in and around Merida, I knew we could stay at a traditional hotel, but I wanted something different.  Something that would evoke the Mexico of the past. I settled on Hacienda San Jose outside of Tixkokob (the ‘x’ is pronounced Tish-ko-kob).

Yes, it’s a pampering, over-the-top experience since Hacienda San Jose is associated with the Starwood Luxury Collection, but what I found fascinating was how the original owner (a Mexican businessman) took five derelict haciendas in the Yucatan peninsula and restored them to their former glory.

Restored chapel at Hacienda San Jose

The bedrooms have thick walls (at least a foot) and high ceilings (around 20 feet) to keep things cool during the hot summer.  Beautiful wooden doors look handcrafted with old iron hinges.  And color is everywhere from the sunny yellow chapel to the bright blue arches and walls.

Interior of chapel – note the before and after
Gardens at Hacienda San Jose
A siesta outside our room!

We loved our hacienda experience – the stunning gardens, waking to birds, feeling like we had traveled back in time, but if staying at one isn’t an option, try visiting the Hacienda Sotuta de Peon which is a museum or some of the other haciendas mentioned in Yucatan Living as a day guest.