What to expect from a visit to Ek Balam Maya Ruins

Your visit to Ekpilam ruins will start here in the parking lot which has free parking and then a short walk to the Palapa building which has bathrooms, a few drinks and you pay the entrance fee. After that there's a short walk, you'll pass by some souvenirs and you'll enter into the ruin site. So how is a visit to Ekpilam ruins different than the other big ruins you can visit? Here it's really quiet, there's less tours and you can enjoy the ruins. There's only a few places for souvenirs outside. You can climb the pyramids here or temples unlike other ruins so that's something and of course if you come here you're probably on a tour so you can go to other places like cenotes. There is a cenote attached to the ruins here which we'll show you very soon and also if you're going to another cenote there's some really great ones. There's a whole new route of beautiful cenotes you can visit so we'll put the links in our article so you can find out about some of them and if you're self-driving you can continue on to Rio Lagartos, you can go to the town of Espita, you can be a base in Baile, you can visit here and Chichen Itza. So there's a lot of things that are around Ekpilam that you can visit if you're self-driving and we'll put all those details in our article. Now let's climb up to the top of the main pyramid and show you the view. It is a great view of the entire Yucatan peninsula and on your way up you can stop and see some of the restored parts of this temple which are unique to Ekpilam. And this is one of the great things about Ekpilam is you can actually climb the main temple pyramid and you get this great 360 view of the green carpet of the Yucatan peninsula. For now you can still climb here and get this great view. And going down sometimes is a little hard because it is steep and you might just want to scoot on your butt. Now let's take a look at the cenote which is right next to Ekpilam. It is about one kilometer from the ruined site. You can either rent bikes, you can take a bike taxi, or you can walk. And of course cenotes are the groundwater of the Yucatan which people use. We want to keep it as clean as possible so don't use sunscreens or other chemicals on your body to keep the water clean. You can always apply them afterward when you leave. And there's also changing rooms here so make sure you bring your clothes with you so you can change. And a towel is always good. That's just a few tips about coming here. If you come here with a tour sometimes the tours allow you to come here but because it is over a kilometer in distance from the ruins sometimes they go to other cenotes because it's easier to take a bus group. But if you come by yourself you can easily pay the entrance fee and that includes the bike so you can bike down here. What's really nice it's a really quiet area in the woods and it's a really nice big cenote that's open and very deep. There's a swing you can swing into the water and if you want to do some activities there is the zip line, there's rappel, there's a kayak and you can swim. There's also a small restaurant here so if you want to take a little bite to eat some local food you can do that and really enjoy yourself if you have some time because it's a really beautiful place. For more information see our article attached to this video.