Things to do
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Casa de los Venados
A restored colonial house a block from the main square holds a private collection of several thousand pieces of Mexican folk art, from Day of the Dead figures to Huichol beadwork, displayed through rooms the owners still live in. Visits are by guided tour only, so the rooms stay uncrowded.
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Cenote Ik Kil
Vines and tree roots hang the full drop from the rim of this circular sinkhole to green water far below, reached by a carved stone stairway and a tunnel. A jumping platform sits partway down. Life jackets are required and sunscreen is banned in the water. Tour coaches from Chichén Itzá fill it from late morning, so avoid midday.
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Cenote Suytun
Inside a closed cavern east of town, a circular stone walkway reaches out over shallow water to a platform under a hole in the roof. Around midday a single shaft of light lands on it, which is why a queue forms along the walkway and a guard times each turn at the centre. Stalactites hang low. The floor is slick, and the cave stays cold.
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Cenote X'keken
In the village of Dzitnup, a low tunnel drops into a domed cavern where a single hole in the roof lights clear blue water and a hanging mass of stalactites. Cenote Samulá, across the road, has its own roof opening and a tree root reaching the water. A cycle path runs out from Valladolid, about twenty minutes by bike.
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Cenote Zací
Three blocks from the main square, a half-collapsed cavern holds dark water under an overhang thick with hanging roots. Steps cut into the rock lead down to a swimming ledge; small black catfish keep to the shadows. The Maya name of the town itself was Zaci, white hawk. Quiet on weekday mornings, and the obvious swim when the famous cenotes are full.
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Chichén Itzá
Kukulcán's pyramid stands at the centre of a walled plaza, its stairways casting a serpent of shadow near the equinoxes. Around it: the largest ball court in Mesoamerica, a cenote used for sacrifice, and a round observatory whose windows track Venus. Climbing the pyramid is no longer permitted. Coaches from Cancún and the vendors lining every path make midday the busiest time.
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Convento de San Bernardino de Siena
Calzada de los Frailes, a straight colonial street of painted houses, leads southwest from the centre to this fortress-like Franciscan convent in the Sisal quarter. Its plain church keeps carved wooden altarpieces, and the cloister garden covers a cenote that once fed the friars' well. On Tuesday to Sunday nights a free video show is projected onto the façade, in Spanish and then English.
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Ek' Balam
Rubble packed against the Acropolis preserved a stucco doorway shaped as a jaguar's open jaws, flanked by winged figures that look like angels and predate any European arrival. The climb to the top of the mound is steep and still allowed, with forest running unbroken to the horizon. Half an hour north of Valladolid, and often almost empty. Cenote X'Canché waits a short cycle ride away.
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Hacienda Chichén
A sixteenth-century hacienda inside the Chichén Itzá zone, used as the base for archaeological expeditions in the last century and now run as a hotel. Rooms sit in stone cottages built for those researchers, set in gardens with a pool and a spa. It lies about forty minutes west of Valladolid by road.
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Las Coloradas
East of Río Lagartos, the evaporation ponds of a working salt company turn pink from algae and brine shrimp, beside a small fishing village. The ponds are private land, so access is with a local guide hired at the entrance, on marked paths only. Swimming and wading are banned. The colour is strongest under a high sun on a clear, windless day.
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Río Lagartos
Two hours north on the Gulf coast, this fishing village sits inside the Ría Lagartos biosphere reserve, a long estuary of mangroves and salt flats. Boats run by local cooperatives leave from the waterfront to the flamingo feeding grounds, past herons, crocodiles and the white mud flats. Boat trips are booked directly with the cooperatives on the quay, paid in cash.
