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Uncle Ebeneezer
After our lunch the van headed back towards Valladolid, stopping just North of the city to visit the Mayan temple at Ek Balam. This was the first temple we would see on our trip.
The entrance to the Ek Balam grounds is particularly photogenic and very popular for tourists doing their best Instagram poses.
Once you get through the entrance the first thing you see is the Oval Palace which you can climb. The steps are pretty steep and it was very hot and muggy but the view from the top was worth it.
From the top of the Oval Palace you can see the Acropolis to the North, which is the big star of the site.
As I said, these steps were pretty steep, though at this point it was really the heat we were feeling more than anything. 3 pm in the Yucatan is pretty hot, even in January!
The Acropolis, on the North side of the site, is breathtaking and the most interesting of the temples at Ek Balam:
“On the north end of the North Plaza is located the most noteworthy structure at the site known as the Acropolis. This imposing structure is 480 feet/127 meters long and over 90 feet/30 meters in height. It contains a number of structures superimposed over each other in successive construction phases as was common at the time. It contains numerous rooms, passageways, courtyards, temples and stairways across six levels.
A massive, central stairway leads up from the south side of the Acropolis directly to its summit. Situated on this stairway are two monuments that feature serpent heads with extended tongues, the whole covered with glyphic inscriptions.
On the fourth level is a self-contained structure unparalleled in the Maya world. This temple has an intricately worked stucco façade that is near perfectly preserved. This state of preservation is due to the fact that it has only been recently excavated and freed from protective exterior stone walls. The main element is the huge open fanged mouth of an earth deity through which a passageway leads deeper into the structure. There are molded masks, decorative geometric motifs, and most striking, winged statues termed “angels”. These are elaborately costumed and are unique in the Maya world. The complexity and beauty of this façade is breathtaking. Inside this structure is a chamber, Sak Xoc Nah, which translates to “White House of Reading”. It was the tomb of the ruler Ukit Kan Le’k Tok, and held a vast amount of funerary items.”
The steps on the Acropolis are also quite steep so many people (my wife included) only go part way up to the first landing. I couldn’t resist going all the way to the top though, and I’m glad I did because the view was spectacular. In the distance you can see the Oval Palace from earlier in this post. And a whole lot of jungle!
Here is a more zoomed in view of the Oval Palace and the jungle to the South.
As the sun began to set we made our way out of the temple grounds and towards our first cenote, that is just outside of the temple entrance on the way to the parking lot.
Cenote Xcancha sits right next to the Ek Balam temple grounds. The water is crystal blue and about 30 meters deep. There is a rope-swing, zip-line and a jumping platform. The steps down to the water are very steep and slippery so we were very glad we had some neoprene footies to keep our grip/balance. Since it was almost dusk, there weren’t too many people there considering the location. The site has showers, lockers, bathrooms, towels etc. that you can use for changing or rent (lockers) as well as life-vests if you aren’t a great swimmer. I did the rope-swing but got a big shock when I hit the water, knocking my breath out of me and causing me to inhale water. I spent the next several minutes coughing but then was fine. It was exhilarating!
If you ever visit the Yucatan you MUST visit the cenotes! They are so cool. And it’s really wild to swim in these gorgeous waters that were more or less created by the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
After about 45 minutes of swimming we dried off and headed to the parking lot to hop in the van back to Valladolid. We were pretty exhausted by this point but still managed to head out to a brewery for dinner and beers (see previous post).
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p.a
Wonderful! That site looks fantastic.
You can’t climb the Chichen Itza pyramids’ steps any more, whether from liability or preservation issues, or both.
Kristine
Wow what views.
Taking a plunge in the cenote sounds like a great way to cool off after your climbs.
p.a
Also too, re: cenotes
“Ring of cenotes is a geomorphological formation created at the end of the Cretaceous period by the impact of a meteorite. Not only did it cause the extinction of the dinosaurs, but also the formation of this network of sinkholes and caverns typical of the Yucatan.”
Baud
I’ve only been to Tulum, but yeah, there was no OSHA in Mayan culture that could have said no to those steep steps.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a: I can assure you, it isn’t liability. Mexicans have an entirely different attitude on liability than we do. Down there it’s more like, “If you get hurt or killed it’s your own damned fault.”
On one trip to Golondrinas during the Mexican Xmas break I saw hundreds of kids playing around the edge of the pit. I also had to repeatedly chase them out of my rigging gear as I rigged the pit. It was insane. I fully expected some of my biners to become “souvenirs,” but even if they didn’t respect my boundaries they respected that it was my gear.
I swore, I would never again go there at that time of year. As it worked out life took a hard left turn and it was my last trip there.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Holy cow, those steps look challenging. But what views.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Heh, at Cascades de Tamul we climbed down a rickety wooden ladder hacked out of the jungle and wired together so we could see the falls from the bottom. It looked sketchy as all f, but despite the climate and mists from the waterfalls it was solid, all 400′ of it. They probably replaced the whole thing every year.
Mai Naem mobileI
That looks incredibly well preserved for something that’s around a couple of thousand years old. I’m always amazed at these very old sites where the building was done when the tools they had must have been really rudimentary and of course no electricity or power tools.
JPL
@Baud: My son and DIL love Tulum, and the nearby cenotes.
Albatrossity
We were at Ek Balam just a few months after it opened for tourists; there was still a lot of surveying and excavating going on (I suspect that is still true). It is indeed a gorgeous site. Thanks for jogging those memories!
UncleEbeneezer
@Albatrossity: Yes, the mound in the back by the big temple had only been discovered a year or two ago and they have already found some cool stuff.
UncleEbeneezer
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The tough part is that they are fairly shallow. Maybe only 5-8 inches deep, so you have to turn sideways and do a zig zag pattern to make it easier to ascend/descend.
UncleEbeneezer
@Kristine: The cenotes were so cool! There’s another one (much smaller) in an upcoming post. They are definitely unlike anything I have ever seen/experienced.
way2blue
Uncle Ebeneezer. I had to backtrack to read your earlier Yucatan posts as I was traveling in June. Your first one—describing your arrival in Cancun—made me laugh. We flew into Cancun (years ago now) with our two sons to find that our luggage hadn’t arrived on our flight. Long wait in line to fill out paperwork. The airline staff said they’d deliver the bags to our lodging the next day. We were overnighting an hour to the south, but the next day we explained—we would be another 4 hours south. Near the Belize border. So 2AM, a knock on our door. Our luggage had arrived. From then on, I always bring a toothbrush & toothpaste in my carry-on… And so it goes.
Uncle Ebeneezer