October 2019 In this second part of the post on Uxmal I'll focus on the archeological site itself, which is the second most visited site in Yucatan after Chichen Itza -- and with good reason.  It's immensely impressive and gave me for the first time a clear sense of just why places like Uxmal deserve to be called cities.  When one considers that the excavated structures at Uxmal represent only a fraction of the [...]

October 2019 Uxmal, together with Chichen Itza, is one of the major Mayan archeological sites on the Yucatan Peninsula.  It also has in its vicinity two other major attractions, the Museo del Chocolate (Chocolate Museum) and the three principal Mayan sites of the Ruta Puuc: Kabah, Sayil and Labnah.  I was so entranced by the Puuc region that I visited one full day and then went back for two more days.  As a result [...]

October 2019 What, you may ask, is a cenote?  Since it's an object of primary interest to us in this post, allow me to explain. Here's the dope from the Wikipedia page (here): Cenotes are surface connections to subterranean water bodies. While the best-known cenotes are large open water pools measuring tens of meters in diameter, such as those at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, the greatest number of cenotes are smaller sheltered sites and do not necessarily have [...]

October 2019 With a base in Merida you have any number of easy day trips available to sites in the vicinity.  That's the reason I based myself in Merida for the first five days of my two-week trip to the Yucatan Peninsula.  I had wheels the whole trip so I was free to go in any direction I chose.  After going north to Dzibilchaltun I decided on a lark it was time to go [...]