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| Secrets Maroma |
So with much preparation and only a 24-hour period to get into, spend in, and get out of Chichen Itza, how much sight-seeing and unexpected "adventure" can one get into? A lot.
This was the original 24-hour proposed itinerary:
5:30pm - Land at Cancun airport and pre-arranged pickup by rental service.
8:00pm - Arrive at Mayaland Hotel (210 km drive from airport) at entrance of Chichen Itza.
8:00am - Enter Chichen Itza for a guided tour.
12pm - Check-out at Mayaland Hotel and drive to nearby cenotes (fresh water sinkholes).
3pm - Drive back to Cancun airport for car drop off by 5pm.
5pm - Pickup by airport shuttle to final destination: Secrets Maroma in Playa del Carmen.
What actually happened:
5 pm - Our plane landed at Cancun airport and we deplaned with much excitement. Including going through immigration, money exchange and baggage claim, it took us only 15 minutes from the time the plane landed to exit the airport. Prior to our trip, friends warned us not to speak to or go with anyone who did not have a sign with our name (easyway car rental greeter) at the terminal because we could be waylaid with timeshares sales pitches. Sure enough, while trying to find our greeter, inside and outside the terminal, other greeters and drivers swamped us to try to gain our business and our attention. We politely refused people’s offer of assistance. After looking for our greeter at the airport exit for 30 minutes and trying hard to ignore that inevitable panic feeling, a rep for a competing company told us that someone on the other side of the terminal gate was holding a sign with our name. It turned out the easyway greeter was waiting at the terminal entrance, not the exit, and thus not visible from where we exited. We felt relieved to have been given genuine assistance and not led astray.
6pm - We arrived at easyway car rental company's office located outside the airport. We followed the routine provided online and that made filling out the paperwork very easy. They charged us $45 in US dollars. They showed us our car and it was a model I’ve never heard of: Nissan Tsuru. I would describe it as a beaten up 15 year old Toyota Tercel with no power anything. Worse than that, I found that the car had 3 pedals! It was a manual and not an automatic transmission. Although my friend booked an automatic VW Gol, they did not have one on hand and claimed that the Nissan Tsuru was an "equivalent" car. After some discussion, we decided to take the car but switch drivers. I couldn't drive a stick shift car but my friend thankfully could. This car switch wasn’t totally unexpected because we had read online reviews that this could happen. Travel Tip: If you want a guarantee that you would get the car you reserved (especially automatic), go with the well known companies like Alamo, National, etc for extra $25.
6:30pm - After receiving directions to get onto the Merida/Valladolid Cuota (toll road), we drove off the car rental place. But, before we could hit the road, we still had to go to the first Returno to do a U-turn and follow the overhead signs. We missed the first three Returnos before we finally made the turn. We also spied a Pemex gas station with 7Eleven. We pulled in to put in gas (gas tank was almost empty). As we parked our car, the car in-front of us reversed and ran smack into ours. Shocked and what felt like slow motion, I reached over from the passenger side and started honking (my friend, who was in the driver's seat, was frozen in shock and could not find the horn). Nevertheless, the car that hit ours took off and ran. I jumped out of the car to chase them on foot in the rain - yes, it started raining - but lost them. I checked our car and, luckily, it did not sustain any damage... at all. I was grateful for the car switch and that the 15-year old Nissan Tsuru had a real bumper that could take a hit.
8:30pm - We drove uneventfully on the well-maintained Merida/Valladolid Cuota 180 for 210 km. We made good time and exited 180 immediately after the 2nd toll booth per the pre-printed hotel directions. It was dark when we drove through the little town of Piste. The streets had very few signs so we thought it best to make a left at the town center at the round-about. The road signs took us to the main entrance to Chichen Itza. The written directions indicated that the hotels near Chichen Itza would be visible from 180 and that we would have to make a U-turn to enter. We spent the next hour driving in the dark - in drizzling rain - retracing our steps, stopping every so often to ask a policeman or locals for directions. None of the locals spoke English and the best Spanish I could muster was "donde es Mayaland?" We deduced from all the hand gesturing responses that we must be close by. Thinking we got off the toll road too early, we went back on it. A toll road employee told us to exit at the same place and pay the toll again. It turned out that 2 km from the main entrance of Chichen Itza, a fork in the road would have taken us to either “Chichen Itza” or “Valladolid Libre.” Only if we took the Valladolid libre road would we have seen the signs to the hotels. It would have been helpful to have the hotel signs at the fork in the road, not after! The misdirection came from the fact that the hotel directions instructed us to take the cuota from Valladolid instead of taking the 180 libre. Because we remained on the toll road, we had to exit and go through Piste. If we had taken 180 libre, the hotel entrance and signs would have been much more clear.
9:30pm - Exhausted, we finally checked in at Mayaland Hotel and had an expensive (by Mexican standards) yet bland dinner at the hotel. We had a fantastic junior suite with a wide balcony but had no time to enjoy it.
7am - We ate an expensive but convenient breakfast at the hotel.
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| El Castillo @ Chichen Itza |
8am - The entrance to the Chichen Itza ruins was on our hotel's grounds. We paid the 238 pesos entrance fee, and hired an official guide for 550 pesos for 90 minutes. We had a lovely tour of the ruins. The weather was nice, breezy and slightly overcast from the storm the night before. The tour buses from Cancun did not arrive until 10-11am so we had much of the grounds to ourselves. Even the local vendors had not yet set up their crafts. Although we hoped to hear some tall Mayan tales, our guide stuck to verified historical facts. 3 hours was more than sufficient to explore the site.
11:30am - After freshening up in our room, we checked out and headed to our next destination. On the plane, my friend and I decided to modify our initial itinerary and add more sights to visit: go to cenotes in Dzitnap just 7km outside Valladolid, explore town of Valladolid and then check out Ek Balam ruins just to the north.
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| Cenote Samula |
12noon - It only took us 30 minutes to drive 50 km towards Valladolid to get to our destination via the 180 libre. From 180, we turned right onto a dirt road at the Dzitnap sign. Cenotes X'Keken and Samula are side by side and are two of the most photographed sinkholes in Yucatan. The large signage outside the complex was well worn and not very visible. When we saw the large fenced in parking lot with thatched buildings on the right and left side of the road, we knew we have arrived. The ticket booth for both cenotes was on the right side where the parking lot was located. We felt safe leaving our valuables in the trunk because there was a parking lot guard in front. We paid 59 pesos per ticket. They had very clean bathrooms. Life vests could be rented onsite but I did not find them necessary. The fresh water was surprisingly crystal clear and populated with fish. The swim was a refreshing respite, and a nice way to break up a day of ruins touring. Travel tip: Just before Dzitnap, check out the prison where they sell prisoner-made hammocks.
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| cochinita pibil |
2:30pm - We drove up to Ek Balam from Valladolid, and went straight north on calle 40 in the center of town to connect with 295 libre towards Tizmin.
3:30pm - We arrived at Ek Balam, which had free parking. We paid the 110 pesos entrance fee. Visitors could climb the well preserved ruins at Ek-Balam. The Acroplis - taller than El Castillo in Chichen Itza - housed a very well preserved stucco frieze, which had been uncovered from the jungle only in 2000. Its original limestone facade remained intact. I thought climbing it was not for the faint of heart - several visitors had difficulty climbing down. I saw one guard but the site had no real safety features in place. Travel tip: use alternate legs when climbing up and down; otherwise, it may be too much pressure for one knee and ankle (as I later discovered).
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| relief on Acropolis |
4:30pm - We left for Cancun and had an uneventful 150 km drive until the outskirts of Cancun.
6:15pm - 15 km from the car rental place, we took the wrong fork on the toll road and got lost. We made too many returnos to remember, including two illegal returnos on a dirt patch on the toll road. At one desperate point, my friend wondered out loud if she should just reverse on the one way toll road - she did not do so!
7:30pm - We arrived at the airport to drop off our car. USA Transfer, a private shuttle service using a comfortable van, drove us for 30 minutes to Secrets Maroma. The private shuttle cost $50 US dollars for 2 people. Although we arrived later than our pickup time, USA Transfer had a rep on hand who could call a car for any early or late arrivals.
8pm - Finally, we checked in at Secrets!
Driving vs Tour/Private Service Car
Originally, we had planned to go to Chichen Itza via private airport transfer for $250 per car. Resort to resort transfer proved trickier to arrange. The best we could find online was $250 per car for a door-to-door transfer from Mayaland Chichen Itza to Secrets Maroma Playa del Carmen, which was our next stop. Paying $500 for round trip seemed overpriced. And, that would not have given us opportunity to explore areas in between. We had an option of doing a private day tour for $180 pp from Secrets Maroma. The tour would have picked us up at 7am (5am pst!), driven us for 3 hours to Chichen Itza, and dropped us off at the hotel by 7pm. The prospect of waking up so early on vacation and being shuttled through a popular tourist spot with the rest of the bus hordes, however, held no appeal. So we went with the 3rd option of renting a car. Despite all the misadventures that happened, I still recommend this option.
Cost breakdown:
Car rental for 24 hrs: $45 (inc. insurance)
Gas: 450 pesos ($40)
Tolls: 258 + 63 pesos ($29) each way
If you would like additional detail on my road trip or want to share your own driving experience, please leave a comment ;)
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