CHICHEN ITZA MEXICO - Tour & Guide + CENOTE Ik-Kil 🔥 (MUST WATCH)

Hola! Bienvenidos! Welcome to beautiful...Chichen Itza! Good Morning Country Collectors! Today we are taking you to one of Mexico's most visited locations. One of the seven wonders of the world, the Mayan city of... Chichen Itza! One of the most popular ways to visit this beautiful archaeological site is by organized tour. We looked online to book one from Cancun and when we saw how long the day was going to be we realized that it wasn't going to work for us. Chichen Itza sits three hours to the west of Cancun. So that would have put us in a car driving for six hours, totaling about a 12 or 13-hour day. How long ?!? Yeah, so we decided yesterday to get a bus from Cancun to Valladolid, which sits just 45 minutes to the east of Chichen Itza and do a day trip on our own. Right now it's a bit before 7am and we are heading to the bus station to pick up a Colectivo. Which is a shared mode of transportation and also the most budget-friendly way to get to Chichen Itza. Hola Señor. Es para Chichen Itza? Claro que si. Quanto questa? 40 pesos. A qué hora en 10 minutos. 10 minutos.... Mexicanos...(LAUGHTER) Right down from the ADO bus station, you will find the colectivo stop. It is 40 pesos from Valladolid to Chichen Itza, which is 2 USD. Sometimes you have to wait a little bit until it fills up but everybody got here early, so we are gonna hit the road right now. Come along with us! WooooooHOOOOOOO We made it! It's a bit before 8 a.m when Chichen Itza opens. If you're enjoying this so far, press that SUBSCRIBE BUTTON. We would truly appreciate it. Now let's head in and buy our tickets. Let's Go! We just entered the grounds of Chichen Itza and it is gorgeous but i want to start you off with some information. It is open from 8 until 5 pm every day and it costs 533 pesos or around 26 us dollars for foreigners. If you are a Mexican citizen it's 237 pesos and if you are a resident of the Yucatan it costs 80 pesos. We would advise you to get here early. It gets packed especially when the tour buses arrive around mid-morning. So plan to get here at opening. You're also going to avoid the extreme heat in the midday. All right, now that you know that information let's get started! Right in front of me is El Castillo or the Temple of Kukulkan. If you've seen pictures of Chichen Itza chances are you've seen this pyramid. It is beautiful! This is the main structure here in Chichen Itza. Each side represents one season and there are four staircases with 91 steps on each one, and one extra step on top that totaled 365 for the days of the year. They actually used this as the calendar that determined when they would sow and harvest their crops. Another fun fact, there are actually three pyramids that you are looking at right here stacked on top of each other like Russian nesting dolls. This outer pyramid is 30 meters tall, the next one down is 20 and the last one is 10. They recently discovered the final pyramid inside using Lidar. They think this is going to be the key to discovering some unknown facts about the Mayan culture that they just have never even knew existed We always talk about the importance of knowing information when you go to a place so you can appreciate it a lot more. Right outside the entrance there are guides that you can hire for the day. Adam went online yesterday and actually found an audio tour. It works offline. It was six dollars. You just walk around and it will automatically turn on whenever you get close to one of the structures. It's supposed to be really good and I can't wait to learn the history of this beautiful place. So we're gonna pop in our headphones and get going on this tour. We're gonna tell you a bunch of cool facts along the way. So come along with us! In front of El Castillo, if you stand right in front of the steps with the serpents and clap your hands you hear that sound... It actually mimics the Quetzal bird which is a super important bird in the mayan culture. Let's go! Let's stop MAYAN around and get this tour started! Mayan cities featured ball courts like this one. Chichen Itza has no less than 13 but this main one is the largest one in all of the Americas. It is twice the size of a football field. The game is called POK-A-TOK. The goal is to get a 9 to 20 pound rubber ball through these tiny little rings that you see up here using anything but your hands and feet. It was a serious affair. Literally life and death! Mayans believed that being sacrificed was a direct route to heaven. So a lot of historians believe that the winners actually had their heads chopped off. Seems like an odd way to reward the winning team but that's history! You also had to be very, very careful about what you said in this ball court because the acoustics here are remarkable. If you said something at the north end it could be heard at the south end. That's over 200 yards away and it was so clear that you could actually distinguish voices. SHHHHHHHHHH Let's continue on. Oh let me get that for you. What a GENTLE MAYAN. (LOL) You enjoying the tour? You like the mayans? Us too! Behind me is the Wall of Skulls, and it is pretty freaky! Along the entire thing you can see skulls depicted. When the Mayans would behead someone, they would take the heads and put them on wooden spikes and stack them along the top here. The smell must have been horrific. Here you can see depictions of Mayan warriors carrying skulls, snakes and eagles. This wall showcased the successes and the victories of the mayans in the Yucatan. Behind me is the Platform of Eagles and Jaguars. Mayan warriors were broke up into either eagles or jaguars. The eagles used bows and arrows, and the jaguars used knives and clubs. While they were both respected, the jaguars were considered the most brutal and received the highest esteem from the people. It is said that Chichen Itza was built between 400 and 680 A.D. So it's about 1500 years old and it served as the main economic and political center of the Yucatan Peninsula. At its height over 50, 000 people lived here. That's wild! It even had its own suburbs on the outskirts of the city. And i'm talking about a diverse people. People from as far as central America came here to live and trade, to be artisans. It must have been like a Renaissance. Right now we are walking down Sac Bay, which translates to white road. This connects the main mayan pyramid to the sacred cenote. This is the actual road they used to take their sacrifices down to the cenote to appease the rain god. When there were times of drought here, this is when they would do the sacrifices. They would actually paint them blue. Because they believed it would appeal to the rain god more! Well I should paint you blue we could use a little rain right now. Hey! Come with us to the cenote. Wow! We have made it! Look it's right there. This is incredible! An important thing to mention is that sacrificing people in the Mayan religion was actually a huge honor. Normally, after you die it would take around 21 levels that you would have to pass through before you could get to paradise, or heaven, but when you were sacrificed, died playing a ball game or giving child birth, you got to skip the line and head straight to heaven to live out the rest of your days. Now we're heading away from the sacred cenote to the Temple of Warriors. We would recommend wearing comfortable walking shoes. It is a very big place. Flip-flops would be no bueno. The ground is super uneven and there are lots of rocks. Also bring a lot of water, a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and bug spray. Behind me is the Temple of the Warriors. It's one of the main pyramids here at Chichen Itza. It gets its name from the reliefs that are carved of warriors in all of these columns here. To the right of the Temple of the Warrior you can find the Hall of 1000 Columns. And it was originally used as a marketplace. On top of the thousand columns was originally palapa, which would have shaded everyone in the marketplace from this heat in the midday. All right! Let's keep going. And i can't say for sure but i'm pretty sure these are some Mayan weed whackers. 😉 (ROAR sound) When you're walking along you're surely going to hear the sound of a jaguar. Don't worry! It is not an actual jaguar. It's one of these guys. OH! There's another one! They have these whistles and mimic the sound of the jaguar growls, owl hoots and other animals. They're really cool and a great souvenir. So we are on our way..... (Unknown mysterious whistle sound long and drawn out) What was that! I'm scared! (Laughing) So we are on our way to the Observatory and Adam just mentioned... When Heidi said we were going to Chichen Itza today, I swear she said chicken pizza! Food is always on his mind. That's right! (Growling sound) (We mimic the same sound) Right behind us here, is the Observatory called Caracol, which means shell, because of the shape of this dome. They were very religious and spiritual people, who studied astronomy. They literally used the stars and the planets to plan everything in their entire lifetime. I wish I could come here at night and gaze up into the heavens like the Mayans did here. That would be so incredible! Right behind me here, is the Nunnery. Which is one of the largest, and most imposing structures in all of Chichen Itza. So you may be wondering now, what happened to the Mayans? We're still not 100% sure why they left Chichen Itza. It could have been due to drought, or the spanish or that they relocated to another city where the power shifted. Yeah, but what we do know is there are still six million Mayans in this area today. It's actually the largest indigenous group north of peru. We are just finishing up our tour of the beautiful Chichen Itza. It took us about 4 hours but we were stopping and filming along the way. So I would dedicate at least two to three hours for your visit here. Remember that quiet place we came to this morning that nobody was at? Well the tour buses have arrived. It's just after 12 pm and there are a lot of people here. I could kill to cool down! Well good thing, because we are heading to cenote IK-KIL. Which is one of the most beautiful cenotes in the area. We're gonna head to the parking lot right now and catch a colectivo there. We'd love for you to come. When we came here this morning it was like walking through the jungle to get in here. Now it looks like a giant mall! Yeah. There are throngs of people everywhere and all the merchants have set up their tables. So come early if you want it to feel a little more magical. So this right here is the exit of Chichen Itza we are sitting at the waiting point for the colectivos. That is going to take us to the cenote. So you just have to wait until another one comes around. Hopefully it's no more than 5 or 10 minutes. We just got dropped off at cenote IK-KIL by the colectivo. It was 20 pesos. So 1 USD each. And there is nobody in line here. We don't see any tour buses either. So I think we have beaten the crowds which is great. They offer two packages. The first one is 150 pesos, or 7 USD. That includes your access, life jacket and a locker. You can pay 300 pesos around 17 USD. which includes all that and a meal. We're at the entrance let's head in! I cannot wait! I'm so excited! This cenote has definitely been developed for tours. There's a lot of stuff here. Restaurants are on site and it's very manicured. It's beautiful. Wow! Check this out! This is gorgeous! Get here before 1PM because right as we were walking in the first tour bus pulled up. Right now we are heading to get our life vest and our locker. Here are the lockers and the bathrooms to change. After we change we will go get our life vest. Very cool. They're sizing us up to see how big we are. Es Americano? (Laughing) Gracias! Make sure to shower before you go in! WOOOOO! Well that was refreshing. All right it's time to head down to the cenote. Come with us! We are descending right now. There are 91 steps down to the cenote. If you remember at El Castillo, the main pyramid at Chichen Itza, it had 91 steps on each side. So this is in reference to that. And this was built completely by hand. It took a year and a half to create this tunnel. Wow! It looks incredible. Wow, look at this. This is definitely the most beautiful cenote i have seen in the Yucatan Wow, this is gorgeous and very slippery. So be careful! WOW! Check it out! WOOOOHOOOO! So there are actually two platforms you can jump from here, one at 14 feet and one at 17 feet. Which one would you jump off of? Leave us a comment down below. This place is beautiful and i am so hot. I can't wait to get in! WOOOOOOOOO! It's so refreshing.These beautiful vines hanging down. You can definitely see why the Mayans highly regarded the cenotes. You can hear mayan music playing in the background and the sound of the conch shell. The.... (Mimicked conch shell sound with hands) That was a good one! Thank you. Thank you. I've been practicing. (laughter) This cenote is 164 feet deep. You could stack two school buses vertically and it still wouldn't reach the bottom. WOW! Yeah! Thats Deep! They've actually held red bull dive competitions here. Which is really cool. That's so cool! I feel like we're in an outdoor shower. I love it! Hey, this is inappropriate on the youtube channel babe. Why? We're showering together! (Laughter) So glad you could come along with us today. This has been incredible. I know you're hungry because.... Yo tengo mucho hambre! (Laughter) I can hear his stomach rumbling from under the water. Wait! Was that your stomach? YES that was my stomach! So we're gonna go change, hop in a colectivo and head to a nearby town, where i found a restaurant that serves up some traditional Yucatecan food. Oh, I love me some authentic Yucatecan comida! He loves any type of comida! I do love all comida! Let's go! So we just walked out of the front gates of the cenote and we are waiting for the next coletivo. The driver who dropped us off said they come around every 30 minutes or so... Buenas tardes. Buenas tardes So that only took about five minutes for a colective to pick us up to go to Kaua. And we are headed there to get some pokechuk which is a regional dish here in the Yucatan can't wait. Ohhhhhh, we're here! Time to eat! We've arrived in Kaua. It was 50 pesos for us to get here. That's about 2.50 USD for the both of us together. And we're going to be going to La Tia De Kaua for some Poc-Chuc! They just let me take a little tour of the facilities. They are making the tortillas by hand. They look so delicious. Then they took me to where they're preparing the meat. It is a giant grill with pounds and pounds of meat that's been marinated in citrus, that's just sizzling away. My mouth won't stop watering! They're cracking eggs into the middle of tortillas and cooking them. Oh here it is! Our beans just came! (Laughing) HOLY FRIJOLES! HOLY FRIJOLES! WooooHoooo! It's arrived! Gracias! They brought us two types of tortillas, regular and then especially which means they're cooked in pork fat. Look how shiny and delicious those look! Well let's jump in! Those look TORTILLA-TASTIC! I'm so glad we made this stop and so glad you joined us. (Adam Singing) oooooooo. Im gonna put some onions, on there tooooooo. With a little squeeze of the lime, And some spice... to make me nice! WOW! That's like the best tortilla I've ever had! That meat is so tender. I think I'm in love! I have never heard of this before. They're called Encamisados. They take a regular tortilla before they cook it, and they crack a raw egg into it and then cook the egg inside. This thing looks delicious! It's still piping hot but i'm just gonna give it a shot. Mmmmmmm! It's like a tortilla egg sandwich. Delicious! That's EGG-CREDIBLE! And check this out. We got some Longanisa. (Laughing) It's a Yucatecan pork sausage, that they just roasted for us, and it looks phenomenal! I can't wait to jump in! (Laughing) That's so weird! My pork dance It's my mexican hot dog! It's smoky....delicious....the beans are perfect and again, that tortilla is the best i've ever had. Wow! This food is making everybody very, very happy. Of course Adam, saved room for dessert. He got 2 desserts. POC_CHUC! WOW! Cremisa de Coco! Cremisa de Coco! That looks FLAN-TASTIC! Wow, that is FLAN-TASTIC! That entire meal cost us 350 pesos around 17 USD. We had four drinks, two desserts, two Pot-Chucs, the sausage..... (Laughing) and that egg dish. We definitely recommend coming here if you're in the area. I know that Chichen Itza is one of the new seven wonders of the world, but i feel like that meal we just had, could be the new eighth wonder of the world! Give this guy some food and he is happy. Man! Especially food that good! Yeah! As you know we're here in the rainy season and.... sometimes it rains! Yeah, it started pouring! We heard thunder and then all of a sudden... The sky just opened up! (Laughing) So we are just gonna wait out for a little bit and then go to the road and either catch a colectivo, or a taxi back to valladolid, which is just 20 minutes to the east from here . We've had such a wonderful day with you today. Thank you so much for joining us. If you like this video give us a big thumbs up, comment and subscribe. And don't forget to...RING, RING, RING, RING the bell! Thanks again! We'll see you, next time. Adios! Please would somebody get Adam a chicken pizza! Seriously! That's all I need! (LAUGHING)