I hope you’re comfortable because this post is gonna be dense. I left Tulum on an early bus going further south to Chetumal and then got right into a taxi to take me to the airport where I rented a car for this next leg of the trip. Because a car equals freedom. But before driving out of Chetumal, I made a quick stop at their Mayan Culture Museum.

The museum was fairly small, but sure packed a punch. They had some really incredible Mayan stelae taken from many of the same sites I’ve seen and will be seeing in the area.

I had the whole museum to myself. Just me, a bunch of spectacular Mayan artifacts, and deafening jungle sounds blasting out of the speakers to put me in the mood.

Obviously, they’re going to put the best stuff in the museums as opposed to leaving them at the sites exposed to the elements, but the pieces in this museum were so incredibly detailed and well preserved. I was a very happy traveler!

There was also some Mayan drawings, which I had never seen before. I didn’t even know they did that. Up until today, I thought they just carved everything in stone. Below is a representation of the four directions.

Below left is the Mayan rain god causing a torrential storm. And below right are four depictions of four different other Mayan gods. There were several more, but these were my favorites.

After my quick visit to the Mayan Cultural Museum in Chetumal, it was time to hit the road to my next official stop, Xpujil, over in Campeche. It’s only supposed to be about an hour and a half drive, but there is so much road work going on. Mexico is REALLY trying to get something done down here! More on that later. The drive actually took me a little over three hours, but I finally made it, checked into the Cabañas Kukulkan, found some dinner and hit the sack. I need to make a very early start tomorrow.

I was up at 5:30am and on the road by 6. Supposedly it takes two hours to get to the next Mayan site on my list, Calakmul, but it ended up being about three. Calakmul is pretty remote and difficult to access. 38 miles of horrible dirt roads, pot holes, and now as I mentioned earlier, construction. It’s so hard to get to that they stop even letting people on the road at around 11am. Except being stuck behind a tour van that was going waaay too slow, I made it with no real issues and started exploring.

Calakmul was started somewhere around 1250BC, but it’s real heyday was around 700AD and it’s estimated that about 50,000 people lived here. It’s a pretty big place way out here in the middle of the jungle. Everyone else seemed to make a run for the big main attraction, so I instead started by exploring some of the side trails. Below are the remnants of the residential area.

Calakmul also had a ridiculous amount of stelae still standing all over the place. None were really complete, but there were many pieces of the original carvings still visible.

I definitely came at the right time, the dry season, because the mosquitos blissfully haven’t been a huge problem. They are here, though, as evidenced by the few bites I’ve gotten so far. Nasty little buggers!

Finally I reached the big pyramid at Calakmul. It was the perfect time too because most of the other people were now done with it. Not that there were many visitors here to begin with, but still. This is the tallest structure here and it’s quite a sight!

The climb up really wasn’t difficult, but that sun was brutal. Along the way was this really cool stelae dedicated to either a female queen or god, they’re not sure which.

The view at the top was fantastic! 360° of hot humid jungle and a decent look at the little pyramid across the way. Don’t worry, I climbed that one too.

Honestly, I thought the view from the little pyramid was even better, if only because of the great vantage point toward the big pyramid.

And of course I found even more amazing stelae as I finished up the rest of my visit to Calakmul.

Now about all that construction. Mexico is building a Maya Train. Some of it is already operating, but when it’s complete it will make a giant loop around the whole Yucatan Peninsula connecting all of these formerly remote archaeological sites. There are work crews and probably thousands of giant trucks absolutely everywhere working on roads and building train stations. In a year or two these places will be drowning in tourists. I imagine that’s when they’ll stop letting people climb all over these temples too. I’m glad I’m visiting now before they get inundated. Anyway, when I arrived at Calakmul it was early enough that work hadn’t started, but getting out of there took forever! There was a lot of delays.

I made it out of Calakmul and back to the main highway with just enough time to see another nearby site, Balamkú. I climbed a ton of Mayan temples this day. Holy Crap!

There were lots of remnants of carvings hidden around. You don’t always notice them right away as they tend to blend in, but it’s exciting when you do spot them.

The best part of Balamkú is the preserved stucco frieze inside of the main temple. It’s the only part of the site that’s kept under lock and key, for good reason.

This was a very good day. Getting to see such a remote place like Calakmul while it’s still remote was a real treat. Looking at the many Mayan ruins on my list for this trip, though, I realize I’m just getting started.

My next day at Xpujil was equally busy, though it involved a lot less driving. Today was a rapid fire exploration of several sites all within 10 or 12 miles of the city. First up, the furthest away several miles down a secluded and extremely mangled dirt road, was Hormiguero.

The temple above is a representation of Itzamná, the Mayan earth god, or the creator. It’s one of the most intact buildings in the Mayan world. And it gets almost no visitors. I had the place all to myself.

That wasn’t the only impressive temple there though. For such a small place it sure had a lot of details still intact.

Next, on the other side of town, I headed to Chicanná. Each site has some basic informational signs around, but this was a new one. My theory is if they have to make a point of saying that they didn’t get help from aliens, that means that they probably got helped by aliens. Ha!

Anyway, Chicanná had some really amazing details as well. Most people stick to only a handful of popular Mayan sites, but some of the coolest things I’ve seen are at these out of the way hard to reach sites.

I can’t remember now, but I think there were four pretty spectacular temples at Chicanná. It’s a great day so far!

Chicanná was another place I had all to myself. Just awesome!

This next temple is the main temple. It represents a serpents mouth, which is where Chicanná gets it’s name. Chi=mouth, can=serpent, ná=house.

Right across the main highway was Becán. But first I had some of the best quesadillas at The Best Restaurant in Calakmul (that’s it’s actual name). I don’t know if it’s actually the best restaurant, but my lunch was delicious.

Becán is a pretty big site. They don’t know the original name of the place, but archaeologists named it Becán because for some reason, the Maya dug a big ditch surrounding the center of the city. Was it a moat, or just some kind of irrigation system?

This “road” was once covered by an arch and leads to Becán’s biggest pyramid. Yes, I climbed it. Of course!

I also climbed the smaller pyramid right next to it. Of course! I have to admit, though, these old knees ain’t what they used to be.

Even from the little pyramid, it’s a long way down. My knees aren’t bad enough to need the rope yet, thankfully.

Becán also had a Maya ball court. It seems only the most important and well to do cities had them.

Finishing out the day I stopped at the ruins right at the edge of Xpujil, where the modern town got it’s name. I got there with just enough time to explore before they closed for the day. Xpujil’s big draw is it’s three spired temple. This should probably be a morning stop for future reference because in the afternoon when I visited the sun was right in my face.

The modern day Xpujil is a fairly typical dusty Mexican pueblo, but it was nice to be able to just walk the streets after dark without being on guard. I also found probably the best taqueria I’ve been to so far in Mexico, Tako Keto. Yummm!

Did you think we were done? No no no, not yet. Hang in there, though, we’re close. The next morning I had to leave Xpujil and start heading back to Chetumal. I stopped at two more sites along the way. First, Kohunlich, which is thought to have been a major regional hub given its central position between several different Mayan kingdoms.

The name Kohunlich is not the original Mayan name. It was known in English as Cohune Ridge, after the Cohune palm trees that grow here.

No major regional Mayan hub would be complete without Maya ball.

Here’s a flower break from all the ancient ruins. I think these were the first flowers I’ve seen anywhere so far. Also, there was a significant little heat wave today. And when the heat gets cranked up here, the humidity and mosquitoes get cranked up with it. I left the skeeter repellant in the car so I got absolutely devoured walking around Kohunlich. Ouch!

Kohunlich is primarily known for it’s Templo de Mascarones. Five out of the eight original stucco masks are remarkably preserved on what was a temple to the sun god. They’re covered with scaffolding and being worked on currently, but I got what pictures I could.

Finally, across the highway and several miles into what seemed like endless farmland, Dzibanché. The site is controlled by the local farmers, so I had to pay their “tax” before proceeding. On the map they’re labeled as the Dzibanché Highwaymen. Intimidating! 110 pesos and four miles of a shitty dirt road later, I arrived.

It was worth it. And now coated with Deet, I can relax a little bit and not have to rush.

This is pretty much all that’s left of the decorations on the stairs. There was also alot of other hidden faces staring at me as I wandered around. People are really missing out by not making the effort to come to some of these lesser known sites.

And NOW, we’re done! Congratulations if you made it this far. There was one other site that I wanted to see, but that closed at 3pm and I just couldn’t make it. Oh well, next time I guess. Anyway, I arrived back in Chetumal, returned my car, then got a taxi to my hotel. A hotel which I booked and paid for online, and which apparently no longer exists. What?! That’s right, the sign is still on the building, but it looks to have been abandoned years ago. The hotel across the street said they shut down during all the covid nonsense, but apparently you can still book a room online if you want. Luckily the other hotel had a nice room for a decent price and now I get to fight the website to get my money back. Wish me luck! Tomorrow, a shuttle, a border crossing, and…