We finally made it to Chichenitza! Well almost, Lyn was busy working but we went with Evan’s friend Keith and his mom Jodie who were visiting us from Calgary. We also managed to meet up with my aunt Val, uncle Barry, and cousin Alex for lunch which was fabulous. We went on a Sunday and with our visa’s that meant it was very inexpensive for us. We did splurge though and as a group we had a tour which I believe is very important. The Mayan ruins of Chichenitza were quite impressive by themselves, but to have a guide actually explain what everything meant was priceless. Thankfully it was a somewhat cloudy day, still in the low 30’s though which was quite hot. We arrived at about 11am and had our tour right away which worked out great as we missed most of the heat of the day. As we were sitting in the restaurant waiting for our family to arrive from their tour, we saw the other people arriving who were just finishing their tours an hour after hours and they were all looking very sun burned and sweaty! We had finished the tour right before the sun poked its head out from behind the clouds. I wish I had written this post sooner, as I have forgotten much of what the guide told us – however the pictures are pretty good.

We ate at the Mayaland Hotel for lunch and it was a great buffet. They had several stations set up where you could get any variety of food: International food, Mayan food, Mexican food, Salads, Burger Bar, etc… It was really quite enjoyable and they had dancers who came out and did a show every 45 minutes or so for the people who were eating there. It was not inexpensive, but we were there for a couple of hours and Evan did eat 9 pieces of chicken so all in all, it was a great place to enjoy the afternoon outside of the burning sun.

After lunch, we journeyed over to the cenote Ik Kil which was definitely worth the entrance. This grand cenote has massive stairs leading down to the open cenote. Once you get down to the cenote, you have the option of just climbing in from multiple wooden ladders, jumping off the main platform (about 1.5m height), or climbing the staircase along the outside of the cenote and jumping from any height you desire up to 5m! Evan and Keith both jumped from the 5 m height a couple of times, Jodie and I only jumped from the 4.5m mark…that last .5m seemed massive when you are up there looking down!

Plan your visit to this cenote carefully as to when the tour buses will be arriving. When we arrived, their were many buses leaving which was great. However, after about 30 minutes, more buses arrived filling the place and the diving areas. We had been able to jump when we wanted to earlier without a wait, but with all the people filling the landing it got very busy quickly so we left. These images are from the top looking down, I did not take my camera into the cenote. There are great bathrooms/changerooms and lockers here to store your things but very little room down below, especially when a couple buses of crazy tourists show up!

Cenote Ik Kil

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