Mexico: Day Three - On to Chichén Itzá

In spite of traveling alone, the concierge has convinced me it’s safe to take the bus to Chichén Itzá.  It’s a direct route - no need to change buses - and a lot cheaper:  only 25 pesos for Adrian, the taxi driver, to take me to the bus station, and then just 380 pesos for the ticket.  That’s about $23 U.S. in all.
       The bus station is laid out like any bus station elsewhere, but it’s hotter and there aren’t any bums.  One surprising detail is the Subway shop in the waiting area.  Cancun is decidedly American territory for businesses.  The wait in the ticket line is long - because I’m afraid to miss the bus and there’s only one a day.  When you buy your ticket, you pick your seat, and I’m lucky that one front seat is free so I’ll be able to see out the huge front window as we drive along.

       When our bus arrives, it’s a fancy new Mercedes, equipped with a movie screen above the front windshield.  The movie today?  “Penguins of Madagascar” in Spanish, followed by episodes of  “How I Met Your Mother”.  I watch off and on because most of the road is straight as an arrow through trees waiting hopefully for the rainy season to begin.  The only people we pass are a crew cleaning up litter, two separate bikers and one man crossing the highway pushing his bike, appearing seemingly out of nowhere.  I learn a new phrase in Spanish to go with topes:  maneje con precaución - drive carefully.
       The bus is full of young people studying lessons as we travel; they all get off in Valladolid, probably for special regional schools.  After that, we’re only a handful of tourists passing through small, rather rundown towns with police booths at either city limit, and strange names:  Cuncunel, Kaua, Ycakacoiop.  How are you supposed to pronounce those?!

My room, at least the section on the left

The two and a half hour trip (cab + bus + cab + hotel golfcart) deposits me at The Lodge, a fancy hotel with bungalows and much greenery.  Photos on the walls boast of illustrious past guests:  Pavarotti, Elton John, Jackie O, Grace Kelly, etc. etc.   And there’s even a resident pavo real (peacock) named Pancho, whose wife died two years ago, as did his five children, so he cuts a lonely figure.

       The entire ruins of Chichén Itzá were private property for 500 years, the owners of The Lodge, and it was only in 2010 that the Yucatán government bought all 200 acres from the Barbachano family for $17.6 million.  I see old photos of cars driving around the pyramid and among the ruins in the 20's and 30's; before that the hacienda grazed its cattle there.  It’s mind-boggling.  But you must remember that, in a past life, Chichén Itzá was the first capital of Yucatán, and a very busy place, even before the archaeologists and tourists arrived.  Now the ruins have been voted one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.
       The day is a bit cloudy.  It rained heavily here overnight (but just a bit in Cancun).  I settle in, passing on the National Geographic magazine I’ve finished to the front desk staff.  (I’ll see them thumbing through it later.)  My room isn’t ready yet - it’s only noon, so I take refuge in the bar, where the bartender teaches me how to say “thank you” in Maya:  Yom bo’otik (pronounced you’m beau teak).  Another employee on the lunch patio teaches me “you’re welcome”:   Mish bah.  All this digested with a good lunch of Maya fried things with veggies & chicken plus a glass of French wine.  And then a short but well-needed nap.

Caracol:  ancient Mayan observatory,
seen from the hotel entrance