Johnny and I decided to go on a daytrip/excursion once a week while we are here in Merida because there is SO MUCH to do and we are so happy to live in such a culturally rich and lively place.
This week's excursion was to the Dzibilchaltun ruins about 8.5 miles from our neighborhood near the center of Merida, so about 40 minutes to drive because it takes quite a while to get out of the city, even on a Saturday (which is when we visited).
Dzibilchaltun (roughly pronounced tsee-beel-chahl-toon) is a Maya archaeological site that was occupied for about 3,000 years. The earliest constructions found at the site date back to around 500 BCE, and the site was still occupied when the Spanish showed up in the 1500s and, like all Mayan sites, that's when things went pretty downhill for the residents of Dzibilchaltun.
But in it's heyday, Dzibilchaltun was a bustling port and a cultural center. Archaeologists estimate the peak population at around 40,000 - 200,000 residents (not sure why there's such a discrepancy in those estimates but these two numbers came up on multiple websites), and with more than 8,000 structures. When Chichen Itza rose to power around 800-900 BCE, the population at Dzibilchaltun declined. Fun fact! While the Maya reign was powerful and spread out through Southern Mexico, they were not an empire. They were autonomous city-states who kept solid communication with other city-states in their area, hence all the impressive ruins scattered across the country.
There is also a cenote at this site, Xlacah (roughly pronounced ish-la-kah) and we were excited to swim in it, as it would be only our second time in a cenote!
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| The drive toward the ruins |
We grabbed our backpacks full of bugspray, suntan lotion (we already lotioned up before as well), 4 water bottles, and our swimsuits. We paid our entrance fee at the little booth of $118 MXN each ($10.00 USD) and headed up the stairs to the entrance. Immediately a guide asked if we wanted his services and we declined, though we will definitely come back and get a guide next time. We started to walk towards the entrance but then he told us we had to check our backpacks. This was a bummer but now we know! We checked them with a nice lady and Johnny grabbed his camera but that's all we grabbed WHICH WAS STUPID OF US.
More on that in a second.
The first portion is a museum which is very cool and has amazing artifacts and is very well-designed. It isn't in English at all, so we practiced our Spanish and tried to read the plaques.
After that the are is not laid out very clearly and there are not maps available, but this seems to be the norm of the archaeological sites we have visited around Merida so we just looked around to find a path and figured "this must be it" and away we went.
We headed left after leaving the museum, and walked along a shady path. To our left was a very jungly forest, and to our right was a large clearing that ended with another jungly forest wall. I realized that the clearing was actually the "white road" that connects these ruins and used to be covered with limestone when the site was in use. We continued in the shade because it was already very humid, and I watched a cloud of mosquitoes form on Johnny's back as he walked. Wish we had some bug spray...
Tip one: bring bug spray to this site. Very humid, lots of mosquitoes. We were there in July so maybe it was a humid and mosquitoey season but anyway, we should have put on the bug spray or brought extra.
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| Me in front of a monument of some kind |
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| Me on the ruins surrounding the Temple of the Dolls |
Anyway. The temple was also filled with rubble sometime around 800 CE and then another pyramid was built on top of it. The Maya did this often - building temples on top of temples, maybe when there was a new ruler or for a political reason. For example, the famous El Castillo temple at Chichen Itza was built on top of another, pre-existing temple.
We headed back down the long stretch of the "white road" and boy oh boy was it hot and man oh man did I wish we had some damn water.
Tip two: Bring water. Even if you have to carry it all annoying-like. Bring two, honestly, per person.
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| It is a road that is long and white |
As we walked and started to really wish we had some water, we saw a little plaque off to the side so we went over. There was a little road into the forest and the plaque described some ruins of habitations, which also had the inhabitants of these homes buried beneath them. We set off into the jungle. SO MANY MOSQUITOES. It was so so so pretty though and it was really cool to feel like we were actually explorers or something.
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| Beautiful, bright green moss on the path into the jungle |
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| Ruin of a living space. Johnny told me to stand in the middle but there was a spiderweb so I stood to the side and ended up looking like a wood sprite which is cool with me |
We resumed the main path and ended up in a really gorgeous set of ruins. Just beautiful. Unfortunately, we were extremely hot and mosquito bitten and not in the best mood. We stopped in the shade and I wanted to climb up these ruins (they were accessible) but felt too tired and hot. I was mad because at Uxmal we paced ourselves, drank water throughout, applied sunscreen, stopped to rest, but we weren't really able to do so here because we didn't realize we couldn't bring in our backpacks. It was our fault, in the end, and I am very excited to come back again knowing what I know now. I am going to climb all over these darn ruins. More information on the different ruins can be found here and here.
We rallied a bit and were able to climb up the huge palace along the Central Square which is extremely impressive. From the top, we could see the cenote and hear people swimming. I was very excited for this and hurried Johnny up so we could go swimming. We also stopped to look at the Open Chapel - a church built between 1590-1600. The portion of the site had all the ruins and the cenote clustered together and is fairly shady, so a fun place to wander around and climb up the ruins.
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| The Open Chapel |
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| Lil ol me on a ruin |
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| Johnny on top of a large palace along the Central Square |
See, I look up all these ruins and can barely find the names of them or what their uses were. I wish I had a big book of all the ruins. Maybe I will look and see if I can find one online.
After all our exploring, I was a bit snappy and hot and tired so we went back, got our bags, changed into our swimsuits, chugged water, took the bags back to the car, and then went back in to swim in the cenote (the large cluster of ruins around the cenote are extremely close to the site entrance, the Temple of the Dolls is about a 15 minute walk and is quite hot).
We get to the cenote and holy cow it is gorgeous. It is a large oval with a huge mass of lily ponds floating in the center. Many people were sitting in their swimsuits dangling their feet in the water so that the little fish in the cenote could nibble them. I wish I had pictures, but we left our cellphones and it was for the best because we could just be in the moment and enjoy the beautiful cenote. But you can find a picture here. In that picture, the water is super clear. When we went, the water was very muddy but it was still super pretty overall.
One side is very shallow and rocky, and gradually becomes very deep by the time you reach the other side. We sat and put our feet in the water and it was definitely a weird experience. Most of the fish were little and cute but some of them were big and their nibbles felt soooo weird. I went to the shallow end and waded in and touched the lily pads and it was great and so cool. By the time I got to the deep end where Johnny was dangling his feet, he jumped in and we swam around together. There were many people sitting around the cenote and enjoying the shade and the view, a few families were swimming as well, and a father and son were jumping off the rocks into the deep end. It was lovely.
Like many ruins, Dzibilchaltun was built near a cenote for its access to fresh water as well as the use of the cenote as a sacred site. The Maya believed that cenotes were passages to another realm and would through offerings of gold and pottery in, as well as human sacrifices. Evidence of all these types of offerings were found in the Xlacah cenote in the 1940s when divers were able to explore the waters. They also found that this is one of the deepest cenotes, at about 144 feet deep, though they aren't really sure where it ends (the deepest portion turns into an underground cave).
:)
If you visit Dzibilchaltun and Xlacah:
- Do not bring a backpack. I saw many ladies with larger totes, so that must be ok
- Bring plenty of water, it is very hot and humid even early in the day. Stay hydrated so you can explore both the Temple of the Dolls and the other cluster of ruins near the cenote
- Read up on the site beforehand and/or hire a guide (they are at the entrance) as the information on the plaques leaves you with a lot of questions
- Wear walking shoes to explore so you can climb, but bring sandals for the cenote
- Bring bug spray and apply bug spray before you go
- Same goes for sunscreen
- Wear long, baggy pants and a long shirt, if possible. I read about this later after getting bitten to death and apparently the baggy pants and long shirt are the way to go
- Be careful of feeling the effects of the sun. I am from Phoenix and am well-versed in staying hydrated before exerting myself, pacing myself, and knowing when that little tiredness or that little headache is a sign to immediately sit and drink water. Take it very easy, this is a big site and the "white road" has zero shade, unless you want to take the shady path that is full of mosquitoes
- 100% swim in the cenote. The fish really weren't that bad and when you were swimming they didn't even come up to you. There were zero mosquitoes here as well, though you will want to wear shoes because the bottom of the cenote is very rocky
:)
TIL what a cenote is. :-)
ReplyDeleteTIL what TIL stands for (I had to google it)! :)
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