Coba and Valladolid Trip Report

Our trip to Coba ruins, Punta Laguna, Valladolid and Ek Balam ruins

In January of 2010, Mark and I decided to do an overnight trip from Playa del Carmen in order to see some of the ruins.  This was a great way to experience the ruins, as well as some of the other sights along the way.  We decided to rent a car for the trip, which we normally don't like to do.  We prefer to let others negotiate the crazy Mexican traffic for us.  But this gave us the most flexibility, which we needed in order to do everything that we wanted to do.  The best tool we had to plan our trip was the Mayan Aventures map set from Mapchick maps.  These are the best guides to the area that you will ever find - we can't live without them.  And we certainly wouldn't have set off on our own on this trip without their expertise.

We decided to visit the ruins of Coba and Ek Balam, even though we have not yet visited the grandaddy of them all, Chichen Itza.  You can still climb the great pyramids at Coba and Ek Balam, but who knows for how long?  So we thought it would be best to visit these now.  CI isn't likely to change much over the next few years so we can always visit there.  This turned out to be a great decision.

We started out by spending the night in Tulum the night before our adventure started, just to be sure that we were early to the ruins the next morning.  We found a charming boutique hotel in Tulum that we absolutely recommend, the Secret Garden Hotel!  It was only $20usd per night with lovely owners.  It was new and this was indeed a bargain.  Their prices are up some from 2010, but this is still a charming and great value hotel for a night or two in Tulum.  

Click on the pictures to see them enlarged.

We got up early the next morning, around 6am, in order to be at the Coba ruins close to when they opened that day.  Coba is about an hour from Tulum.  We rented bikes at the ruins (excellent decision) and spent a couple of hours enjoying the site.  It is large and very spread out, you really need the bikes.  And climbing the pyramid was definitely a highlight.  Wear tennis shoes, this is not a good place for flip flops!  And be sure to have bug spray and bottled water with you as well.  The climb to the top of the pyramid is not for the faint of heart - the stairs are tiny (the Mayans are smaller than most Caucasians) and very very steep.  There is a rope, but I didn't use it because I wasn't confident enough to trust how it was fastened to the rock.  The view from the top is amazing and you can transport yourself back in time quite easily.

We had an early lunch at the restaurant at the ruins (nothing remarkable) and then set out to find the monkey preserve, Punta Laguna.  We spent a little over an hour here enjoying seeing the monkeys with our guide (must have here) who helped us to find the families of monkeys.  They have given the monkeys names, and we enjoyed hearing about their different personalities.  Even though they are in the wild, these guides are with them every day and know a lot about their personalities.  Two highlights were seeing Lola with her new baby, and seeing the alpha male, Tula, jump across a wide path to another tree!  Highly recommend this adventure, bring sunscreen and bug spray.  

Next, on to Valladolid, a charming colonial town in the interior.  This was about an hour from Coba.  We found our hotel easily and had a nice meal and explored the town.  We will be back some day to spend more time there as we really enjoyed the town square, the market and the people.  We ate at Zaci and saw the large cenote there, and also visited the "farmer's market" in the middle of town.  These are always fun to visit - lots of local women there to sell their fresh produce, men there with their chickens, and lots of other everyday items on sale.  

Early the next morning (yes, early again!) we set off about 20 minutes north to the ruins of Ek Balam.  These ruins were our favorite because they were (1) much closer together than Coba and easier to visualize the "town", and (2) they are still being uncovered so many of the ruins are still overgrown and being explored.  We can't wait to go back in 5 years or so and see what else they have found!  Mark couldn't believe that I wanted to climb this pyramid also since we had already climbed one - but he did it for me and immediately declared his pyramid climbing days to be o-v-e-r!  They are steep and quite scary, but these were also on my bucket list and I can't explain how exhilarating the experience was!  The view from the top was 360 degrees, unlike Coba which was about 180 degrees.

This was a wonderful, two-day excursion from Playa del Carmen.  We enjoyed every minute of this little side trip.  Enough to know that we will be returning again some day!