So after 5 days of bumming around on the beach getting basking in the sun like a sea lion and 5 nights of partying into the early morning in Playa Del Carmen. I decided it was time to do something touristy and head to one of the modern wonders of the world Chichen Itza.
Chichen Itza
After hearing from a lot of people that the tours to Chichen Itza weren’t very good seeing as you were stuck in a crowd of other people and had limited time to visit the ruins on your own we decided that renting a car was the best way to do it.
So my friend Traci and I arrived at 7:30am to pick up the rental car and with nothing more than some saved maps and notes from a post on trip advisor on my laptop we ventured off on the roads of Mexico to Chichen Itza.
However being the completely organized travelers that we were we realized we only had about $500 peso’s($40 USD) between us and what made things even worse was we somehow managed to completely miss the last gas station within 200km of Chichen Itza. This transformed our simple leisurely drive to Chichen Itza into a nerve racking adventure where we had to make it to a gas station before our car stalled on the side of the road in the middle of the Mexican jungle leaving us stranded with no way of calling for help, as neither of us had a working phone with credit.
Driving out to Chichen Itza through the jungle
Luckily we managed to make it to a gas station after 20 nerve racking minutes of the car’s empty fuel light being on. We then had the dilema on how to pay for the fuel seeing as the toll roads had eaten up $220 of our peso’s leaving us with a mere $280.
With ATM’s being a scarce commodity and the gas station not taking credit card we were lucky that I had my big backpack with ALL my belongings in it as I was changing hostels. This also included my emergency $100 USD which I had stashed away in case of emergencies. So after a very confusing conversation where I realized how terrible my spanish really was the people at the gas station allowed us to pay for fuel in USD (Thank God For that!).
Our little rental car that we took to Chichen Itza
$48 USD later we were back on the road with a full tank of gas and were now on a search for an ATM in the town of Villadolid. After driving around random side streets we were successful and were back on the road to Chichen Itza.
Awesome shot of me looking at chichen itza courtesy of Traci over at http://traclynne.blogspot.mx/
Upon arriving at Chichen Itza we were greeted by swarms of merchants all trying to aggressively sell us their wares. The ruins them selves were impressive but I felt that the hundreds of souvenir stalls and constant harassment from people yelling “Almost Free” and “Only $1” really took away from the experience and natural beauty of these ancient buildings.
One of the many souvenir store laden paths at Chichen Itza
We still ended up having a great time and got some awesome photographs. I would definitely recommend everyone to go to Chichen Itza atleast once.
I also learnt alot that day about how important it is to be prepared 😀
What an adventure! Very cool pic of the ruins reflecting in your sun glasses.
How much time would you recommend staying at Chitchen Itza? Also, have you seen if there are any events going on December 21st for the end of the Mayan calendar?
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Wow. I had heard varying reports on the organized tours, but decided to risk it anyhow. After reading about your adventure, I feel a little better about that decision. On the up side, we didn’t have to worry about tolls, gas stations, or directions, and we got to enter the park from the Lodge at Chichen Itza, avoiding some of the crowds. On the down side, we had a hard deadline for leaving the park. Our tour included lunch at the Lodge; in retrospect, I would have skipped that and stayed in the park. I didn’t think the merchants in the park were so bad – there were a lot of them, but they were not aggressive and are kept well away from the main sights. Either way, you’re right – it is a must see when you’re in Yucatan!
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