30.04.2022 | Mexico, Travel

Explore Valladolid, Chichen Itza and Cenotes

–

When you visit the Yucatan Peninsula, you should definitely not miss the beautiful city Valladolid with all the colorful walls and entries! There is a lot to do around this city. First of all it’s the starting point for the famous Mayan archeological site Chichen Itza, one of the 7 New Wonders of the World. But there are also a lot of really nice cenotes around. Our favorite cenote was the less known Cenote Secreto Maya, for one hour we’ve been the only people there while jumping from a rope into the water! Cenote Suytun with a platform in the middle of the cave is more touristic, but still very cool!

____________________________________________________________

1. What to do around Valladolid?

1. Walk around the center and explore the colorful buildings

Valladolid is such a beautiful city, I think it’s my favorite city on the Yucatan Peninsula. There are so many cute buildings with colorful walls, really good cafés and restaurants. The area around Le Kaat restaurant is really beautiful! Also don’t skip the church Iglesia de San Servacio in the center and the building Convento de San Bernardino de Siena. The city looked so beautiful in the soft light of the setting sun.

2. Visit Chichen Itza

There is so much mystery about this place. Many sections have still never been excavated. After the Spanish conquest of the Maya, this powerful city was almost a ghost town. Probably overpopulation may have depleted environmental resources and cities were constantly in war. This place is one of the New 7 Wonders Of The World! I think this place looses a bit of its magic due to the hundreds of tourists coming here every day and the fence around the pyramid (it’s not allowed to climb it) and the well groomed lawn. Therefore we highly recommend to visit other pyramids, like Calakmul, where it’s still allowed to climb the pyramid. Be at Chichen Itza at 7 am to line up in front of the entrance. It will get crowded very fast! The entrance fee is 533 MXN.

3. Climb Coba Pyramid

This place is only 45 minutes West of Tulum and you can still climb this pyramid! The largest pyramid at Coba is 42 meters tall and was the heart of the city. You can still climb this pyramid. It says that Coba had a population of over 50.000 at its peak. There are a lot of female stelae. The city was first inhabited around 100 AD and was abandoned when the Spanish conquered around 1550 AD.

4. Jump in the best Cenote Secreto Maya

We highly recommend this still unknown cenote, it’s definitely the best at the Yucatan Peninsula. While the famous cenotes like Oxman is very crowded because of all the tourist busses that arrive daily, you will likely be alone at the Cenote Secreto Maya. We had at least 1 hour on our own, until a few other people arrived. The cenote is just perfect, blue water in the middle of the jungle, lianas hanging down in the water and a swing you can use from a platform. This swing actually felt very high ;). There is also a jumping platform from the top of the cenote, but that was too much for me.

They just built this new place around the cenote, that’s why this place is still very unknown. The entrance fee for only visiting the cenote is 150 MXN, but you can also book incredible evening tours with torches and even sleep in one of their villas.

5. Visit the beautiful Cenote Suytun

Well, this cenote is very touristic, but it’s still worth it, since the cenote is so beautiful. If you want to have this platform int he middle of the cenote on your own, be there early at 8am, before the tourist busses arrive. However, the famous light rays appear from the hole of the rock ceiling around 12-2pm in December (when we’ve visited this place). Depending of the season of the year, sometimes the platform is covered by a lot of water, so you have to swim there. Sometimes you can just walk to the platform. The entrance fee is 120 MXN per person.

6. Visit the Cenote Ik Kil

We recommend to visit the Cenote Secreto Maya and to skip Cenote Ik Kil, since Ik Kil is one of the two famous cenotes all the tourist busses visit every day. You have to be there very early, otherwise you will be surrounded by at least 50 other people. The lianas are very beautiful, but you have to wear a life jacket.

7. Other cenotes

There are other cenotes like X’Keken y Samula, Sac Actun and Zaci in this area. However they are all touristic cenotes. We recommend to visit the unknown ones, like Cenote Secreto Maya, which also has beautiful lianas, a swing and they don’t force you to wear life jackets.

____________________________________________________________

2. Where to eat in Valladolid?

1. Eat at the vegan Elela

Oh, this one is so good! Our favorite vegan café and restaurant in Valladolid, obviously for other ones too, since there were guests all the time. It feel like a beautiful comfy living room with just 6 tables or so and an open kitchen. You can watch the owners preparing the incredible food and they are so kind! The best thing is, that everything is vegan and everything tasted so good!! It’s the best place to chill here around midday drinking a cold smoothie or iced coffee while the sun is really hot outside. They also sell cute little postcards.

2. Casa Maca Real Food

Another beautiful looking restaurant. Unfortunately it was closed when we’ve visited, but the pictures and the rating looked really good.

3. Le Kaat

We also tried this vegan friendly restaurant. It’s very famous and located in the best area of Valladolid. Give it a try.

____________________________________________________________

3. Where to stay in Valladolid?

1. Stay at Casa Bamboo

We didn’t want to spend a lot of money for a hotel in Valladolid, although there are hundreds of good hotels and airbnbs! We found this cute little place Casa Bamboo for 35 USD per night, which was just perfect for us. The rooms are clean and very well designed, there is a kitchen free to use for everyone and a cute little patio with a pool. Also you can just walk in the city by foot.

Anzeige / ad: Most of the hotels, restaurants and companies we mentioned above didn’t sponsor us. All our recommendations are always based on our own opinion.