Instead of Cancun, Chichén Itzá
Your Tour of the Mayan Ruins Starts Here
Leave Cancun behind for the charms of this millennia-old city on the Yucatán Peninsula, a great place to begin a trek along the Riviera Maya.
Conventional wisdom has it that when visiting the Mexican Caribbean, it’s best to stay in Cancun or Playa del Carmen and take day trips to the ruins. But if you don't care about conventional wisdom, you may want to rent a car in Cancun and make Chichén Itzá your home base instead.
Great Reasons to Stay in Chichén Itzá:
- It's one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.
- You have the freedom to come and go at will, not an option with organized day trips.
- You can visit Chichén early before the crowds and the heat overwhelm.
- Chichén is the center of the Yucatán, halfway between Mérida, Uzmal and the Gulf of Mexico to the west and Xcaret (ish-ka-ret), Xel-Ha (zjhell-hah) and Tulúm along the Atlantic to the east.
Where to Stay
Hotel Mayaland, which sits on 100 acres of gardens, has its own private entrance to the Mayan temples of Chichén, and tour buses regularly stop at the hotel’s restaurant for a buffet lunch that includes a performance of traditional songs and dances by the local Maya. You can start here and work your way back to Cancun.
How Old are the Ruins?
The festivities in the Yucatan Peninsula began more than 2,000 years ago in the Mayan cities near Cancun, the ruins of which are the area’s second-biggest attraction after the beaches.
Chichén Itzá, which means “in the mouth of the Itzá’s Well,” was the social and political center of the area from about 400 to 1400 A.D. Today it’s the most-visited Mayan site, mostly because of the astonishing size and intricacy of the temples and public spaces.
The Great Ball Court
The Great Ball Court of Chichén Itzá, for example, is 551 feet long by 229 feet wide and has acoustics that would be enviable in a concert hall today – you can hear a whisper from any point throughout the court.
The court was used, as best as anyone can tell, to play a kind of combined ancient precursor to soccer and basketball.
There are stone sideways “hoops” on either inclined side of the court, but how exactly anyone would have gotten a heavy stone ball through the high hoops remains a mystery. A spectacular dinner show at the ecological park, Xcaret, recreates a choreographed version of what this game might have been like – with rubber balls, of course.
Best Time to Go: Spring or Fall Equinox
Prime Mecca time at Chichén is during the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, when the setting sun creates a shadow along one side of the 75-foot tall Kukulkán’s Pyramid, or El Castillo, that is clearly in the shape of a 37-yard-long snake that slides down the side of the pyramid until it reaches a stone snake’s head at the bottom of the pyramid stairs.
What’s astonishing is not only that the pyramid, built sometime between 900 and 1200 A.D., was constructed in honor of Kukulkán, the feathered serpent, but that it also acted as both a sophisticated calendar and an astronomical system. It’s a marvel of precise architectural alignment that is unrivalled by any modern building.
The snake sightings are visible for a few days before and after the equinox. You can climb the pyramid, along with thousands of others; best to check it out early in the day before the tour buses from Cancun show up, and also before the punishing heat kicks in.
For more on the Mayan ruins and the Riviera Maya, see:
