Piste

Home to one of the modern seven wonders of the world "Chichen Itza", Piste is a small town that is overrun by large coaches. We stayed down the road from the site to beat the package tourists and get to the site early. The town itself seems to shut down after the site closes and food options are limited. That said, if you have a tent then camping at the Pyramid Inn and making use of the pool is a great option. Coming during shoulder season (we went in June) will also help your chances of getting some great photos.

Getting There

Our next stop was another Mayan ruin (much to Kate’s dismay). This one was Chichen Itza, one of the modern 7 wonders of the world. I particularly wanted to see what the fuss was about!
After a sleepless night in Coba and being up early to see the ruins we were already pretty tired. We got the 12pm Oriente bus from Coba to Valladolid (only the 4:30 bus apparently goes to Piste directly) and enjoyed the cooling air-con of the bus and a nice sit down. Buses leave from Valladolid every hour, but we only had to wait 15 minutes.

I gave Kate my camera to look through my photos...

Where We Stayed

Pyramid Inn - Camping - $100 pesos per person

Where We Ate

Hotel Chichen Itza - $$ - about $400 pesos

Journal

We got off the bus at the end of town and had about a 10 minute walk to the Pyramid Inn where we were going to camp for the first time. It was blisteringly hot off the bus and the walk with our bags had us dripping in sweat in no time. we were pretty relieved when we got there. It was 100 pesos each to camp, and we could use the facilities including a view nice pool. I was very chuffed with our saving, though would the tent be adequate?



The man at reception showed us where to pitch our tent, next to the outdoor bathrooms. I’m not sure if we misunderstood but he seemed to be telling us to camp on concrete. We walked away and we put up the tent in the shade of some trees on a grassy area beside the concrete. That was a lot nicer, and in the shade! I only put the inner fly net up to begin with as it was so hot, and we then jumped in the pool to cool off. It was the perfect temperature and we had it all to ourselves!
After we cooled off I did my washing and strung up a washing line. As a backpacker you always need some twine to string up your own line, ours had already come in very handy! Before long it looked like there were some clouds coming in, they looked particularly dark and mean. I put on the outer layer of the tent and just as I had finished it started to pour and the wind really got up. This was a great first test for the tent!

Testing the tent

We chilled out in the tent for a bit before our tummys started grumbling. We had hardly eaten anything at all! When the rain started to die down we went to look round Piste for dinner, it soon became apparent that the place was deserted. We are now in low season (June) when it rains quite a bit, usually once a day, but there is often a storm as there was on this night. We looked around and eventually decided to check out Hotel Chichen Itza. It’s definitely one of the more expensive places, but my tummy wasn’t feeling great so I didn’t want Mexican food. We found the reception which is round the back and they showed us into the deserted resturant. We walked in to be greeted by a large circle of hotel employees, it appeared we had walked in to a staff meeting. We awkwardly sat down at a nearby table and tried to be discreet. Eventually the meeting finished and we were able to place our orders. We both went for Carbonara pasta, it seemed to help settle the stomach.

We went back to the tent, and fell asleep immediately to the sound of the rain. So far the tent had done well! When we woke up in the morning I decided to hand the tent up to dry while we went to Chichen Itza. I didn’t want to put away a tent that was so wet.

We walked down to Chichen Itza which was about 3km away, even in the morning it was already very hot and we were very sweaty when we go there. We got there around 8:15, it opens at 8, and it was already pretty busy with a queue to get in. I ran to the toilet as my tummy had started to feel a bit off (maybe Carbonara hadn’t been such a good idea). We went in after paying about 350 pesos, which we felt was very expensive but I guess it is a 7 wonder…

As you walk in many people offer you guiding services and as we were there early there were a lot of people setting up their market stalls. It’s apparently a good idea to get there early so you avoid everyone yelling your ear off every 2 seconds to sell you a skull or predator carving. We decided against getting a guide as it was an extra expense but from what I could hear their information was very cool.

After the guides and street vendors it’s a short 50 metre walk to the main temple. It’s in the middle of a big grass area so very different to Coba, and very photogenic. Chichen Itza is more than just a pretty face though, there is lots of very cool things about the temple one of which is the acoustics. I’d been told and read about the acoustics of the main temple before. Apparently when you clap the echo you hear back sounds exactly like the chirp the sacred quetzal bird. Every 2 seconds you’d hear a group of people clapping though you have to be standing in the right place to hear the chirp. At the time I thought it was a practical joke and it was the guides making the sound, it really does sound weird. Afterwards I did a bit of reading and apparently it is true. I did hear it myself too… not when I clapped though.

We walked around for about an hour but in that time I started to feel pretty ill and had several trips to the toilet. Luckily there is WiFi at the entrance so Kate was kept entertained. We also had a look round some more of the ruins, the playing field, which is impressive (I wish I could have a go at the game) and the cenote, where apparently the Mayan priests would offer human sacrifices. After that we’d had enough of the ruins and wanted to head back to pack away the tent properly.
I’d though Chichen Itza was awesome but I really preferred Coba, that said, you can’t not go to Chichen… I was glad I did both.

The Cenote inside the grounds of Chichen Itza

If we thought the walk to the ruins was hot, the walk back was horrendous, the sun had come up and there is little to no shade. We fell through the doors of the Pyramid Inn and sat down to cool off. We had stored our big bags at the inn while we were at the ruins so we got them back out and I packed away the tent.

From there we walked back up to the bus station where we waited for a bus to Vallidolid, and from there we were heading to Playa Del Carmen to get the ferry to Isla Cozumel (Cozumel Island).