Ek Balam & Valladolid

This weeks adventure lead us inland to the Ek Balam archeological site. While Chichen Itza gets all the glory – and visitors, Ek Balam is just as impressive and far less crowded. After a 2+ hour van ride to the site, we stretched our legs as our knowledgeable and entertaining guide showed us around this fascinating pre-columbian site replete with pyramids, a ball court, tombs, and an oval palace (yes oval). Our tour began at one of the gates of the city – Mayan cities had walls and gates, who knew?  The walls strangely reminded me of Roman architecture with a concrete or compacted earth core surrounded by carved stones. The only difference being the Mayans used a stone veneer and Romans used bricks. However, some Mayan sites like Comalcalco utilized fired clay bricks.  This all makes me wonder if the Romans, Egyptians, and Mayans weren’t in cahoots somehow. Ancient Aliens, hmm…

Our next stop was Las Gamelas or the twins pyramid.  This was also an interesting structure due to its twin towers that were topped with stucco masks back in its day. After a walk through the ball court, where the Mayan version of high stakes football/basketball was played, we arrived at the most amazing feature at Ek Balam – the acropolis. Measuring 160 meters (525 feet) long, 70 meters (230 feet) wide, and 32 meters (105 feet) high, this structure is immense and impressive in many ways. First, unlike most Mayan pyramids, you can climb to the top of this one.  Even though it’s only 105 feet, it’s a steep arduous climb that rewards your effort with a great view of the entire city including two massive pyramids that have yet to be excavated. You can also see for miles since the Yucatan Peninsula is pretty darn flat and pyramids are the highest points around. After catching our breath and taking in the view, we made our way down all those steps while exploring the various levels.  The highlight being an incredibly well preserved tomb about half way up the pyramid.  The tomb was built for King Ukit Kan Le’t Tok and is incredibly well preserved with reliefs, carvings, hieroglyphs, and a giant jaguar mouth at the entrance. 

The entire structure of the Acropolis was more akin to a small town with over 200 residents living there at its peak. It even had a huge cistern built to store water since the area lacked sufficient ground water. All in all, Ek Balam was absolutely fascinating that’ll be sure to bring out the inner armchair archeologists in us all. 

After working up a sweat at Ek Balam, our small group piled into the van and headed to a Mayan village and cenote. We were first greeted by a Mayan religious leader who blessed us in a small ceremony to protect us while we ventured into the cenote and near the underworld.  The shaman was a truly genuine man and we felt quite privileged to experience his culture in a small way. 

And the cenote! At over 47 meters deep, it was the most incredible shade of blue-indigo we’ve ever seen. Getting to the water required a steep climb down wooden steps that clung to the side of the cenote walls.  Despite my reservations about their sturdiness, they proved to be quite solid and we were rewarded with a cool refreshing dip in the stunningly cerulean waters of this cave like cenote. 

For more information on Ek Balam, click here.

Well, that’s it for this episode. We hope you’ll join us again next time when we take to the seas and try our hand at being chocolatiers, until then hasta luego!