Valladolid - more than a day trip destination.
- georgiaphillips210
- Jan 25
- 9 min read
All prices in Mexican pesos ($). £1 = $23.48 at time of writing - Jan 2026
Getting from Izamal to Valladolid was easy, but not as easy as we had expected. As the Merida to Izamal bus runs every hour from 9am to 1pm, we had assumed the buses would all continue along the route heading towards the bigger town of Valladolid - they don't. When we checked the Oriente bus schedule, we were surprised to see they only had two buses that would be any use to us; one very early in the morning and the other late in the afternoon. Thankfully Centro bus company, which is handily located next to Izamal's convent, had several buses leaving mid morning so we decided to give them a try.
Unlike most bus timetables, the one in the Centro station was at least honest and stated in bold that the bus schedule was at best an estimate - so although we turned up at 10:50 in hope that our 11am bus would be on time, we were unsurprised that didn't arrive until 45 minutes later. Although we had purchased our tickets at the counter ($102 per person), the bus operated on a first come first seated basis, so we jumped into the queue as quickly as possible to get our favourite front row seats. Unlike with Oriente, here the bus driver tagged our bags and gave us the corresponding slip before stowing them away for us under the bus. The supposed hour and a half journey with the many many stops at every intersection of every village, ending up taking an hour longer than expected ... fairly quick compared to most journeys we had taken in Mexico so far.
As we walked from the bus stop to our hotel our first impressions of the city were pretty good. The town was bustling with people, and the streets appeared well cared for, mostly clean and the street dogs were happy. We had accidentally booked accommodation by the fancier part of town, the main street near us was filled with restaurants with more international themed menus (and higher price points) compared to those nearer to the centre - not really what we like to go for. The place we had selected for lunch was located nearer to the edge of town in a fully residential neighbourhood, but with its amazing reviews it was worth the 20 minutes walk out to investigate.
Hunab Ku is a small family run restaurant that focuses on traditional Yucatan food. Luckily when we
arrived there was no one else in the restaurant, allowing us to grab one of the three small tables that fill the compact roadside room. The owner came out to greet us, handing us some menus and (more bizarrely) a rubber chicken - the chicken was to be used as a bell to get his attention for when we wanted to order. Fun!
For drinks we chose home-made lemonade and went with his suggestion to add chaya - a spinach(ish) tasting tree leaf that can only be found in a small area of Central America. It was startlingly green and extremely delicious - I would honestly make it my drink of choice if I could. For food I went with Salbutes con quesillo; a light and fluffy deep fried mini tortilla with a salad and cheese topping, and Ben went with Empanadas. The food was amazing, some of the best we had in Mexico. So good in fact, that we went back the next day too when I tried the empanadas and Ben went for some cochinita pibil (slow roasted pork) tacos which we would also highly recommend.
Feeling full, we wandered the town. The main square (or to give it it's proper name Parque Principal Francisco Cantón Rosado) was busy, a market selling honey-based products ran round the outside edge. Nearer to the fountain in its centre was a troupe of dancers performing for the tourists scattered around the benches. There was also a range of vendors selling typical Mexican snacks, and although we were far too full to try any right then, we did come back in the evening to try the esquites and marquesita. The esquites were far better than the version I tried in Campeche , but they were ultimately still slightly watery mayonaise-y corn and were just okay. The marquesitas were far more interesting - the outside is very similar to a crispy wafer thin crepe which is then rolled around a traditionally sweet and savoury combination of ingredients. The vendor we chose was "El Tio Batman" and the flavour was "the Joker" an adventerous pairing of strawberries, cream cheese and edam. It was good. Not so good that we brought another during our stay, but we were glad we had tried it.
Our second day in Valladolid was spent outside of it. There are many interesting archeological sites in the area and we had chosen to visit Ek Balam. Although entry was more expensive than both our visit to Monte Alban in Oaxaca and Palenque, it was cheaper than the more well-known nearby site of Chichen Itza and was still climbable (and far less popular). We had searched round the town for a good group tour but as prices were more than double than going by ourselves, we decided that we'd make our own way.
We had two real options to get to Ek Balam which is roughly a 40 minutes drive from Valladolid: a taxi ($280 ) or a colectivo ($70 per seat shared taxi). As some kind soul had handily marked google maps with the colectivo departure point, we decided to try the cheaper option first. Unlike many accounts we'd read while researching this trip, our colectivo didn't fill quickly and we waited almost 30 minutes before we had enough people to go... just long enough for us to consider shelling out the full price but thankfully that didn't happen.
Entry to the archeological site was $561 per person, and the booth I went to only accepted cash - the most you can pay by card is only $100 anyway. Although it was a Sunday and entry was free for Mexicans and residents of Mexico, the site wasn't busy at all. It was however, hot. We started our explorations in area B - this had many of the smaller temples and structures like the oval palace, the ball court and the twins. From what we could gather from the infrequent informational plaques, Ek Balam (once the capital called Talol) is estimated to have been inhabited from 700 BCE to around 1100 CE, with most of the buildings we could see being built around 600-900 CE during the Maya late classical era.
As much as we enjoyed wandering around area B, the Acropolis (Area A) was truly awe inspiring. The gargantuan former palace and temple is unique among ruins that we've visited in that not only did it tower 30 meters into the air, but the structure is also 137 meters in length. As the acropolis follows the standard Maya building practices of building structures over structures, during the excavation some very intricate stucco facade work was discovered perfectly preserved one layer down on what was once the outside of the building. Don't worry, they've since built shades over the areas to protect the stucco from the elements, along with the Steles found near the base of the pyramid.
Of course, as we could, we had to climb to the top... have I mentioned yet how scary I find pyramid climbing? Going up was easy, well, I was a sweaty mess and gulping in air like a racehorse at the end of the track, but mentally not too hard. As I recovered my breath and stared out at the dense jungle I found myself in, I enjoyed the sense of accomplishment climbing had brought me. The view was more than worth it... as long as I ignored the steep and unforgiving steps going down.
Eventually, I did have to leave. Going down my legs were shaking. Hard to take the next step levels of shaking. Annoying really, that pesky fear making walking down some steps that much more difficult. We'd left exploring the various levels for our return, so we didn't have to tackle the whole way down all at once. The building, from what we could see was filled with different rooms scattered across different levels - most of which would have been hidden from view when the final iteration of the building was whole. We wasn't allowed to explore more than the areas branching directly off the main staircase - but the structure was still the most impressive we'd seen.
With the acropolis seen, we'd explored the whole site - it wasn't the most expansive with our visit, only lasting two and a half hours, but we thoroughly recommend it as great site to visit. We headed back to the car park where another $70 each brought us a seat in the colectivo back to the city, with just a five minute wait this time.
Still on a history binge, we headed to "Convento de San Bernardino de Siena": a 16th century Franciscan convent which is one of the oldest colonial complexes in Yucatan. The convent and the monks within were once a power in the city of Valladolid, playing an important role in converting the local populace. The convent also served as a fortress during the revolution, which is why canons and other arms were found and recovered from the cenote the convent is built over. To get inside we paid the rather grumpy ticket lady $20 each. The explorable areas of the convent weren't overly expansive but we still enjoyed wandering the hallways and learning about the contents on the cenote in the small museum that fills one of the convents rooms. We particularly enjoyed wandering around the garden, peering down into the cenote and seeing the impressive hyralic wheel that once used to supply the convent with water from the cenote below. We were slightly surprised and confused as to why there was a clean but covered swimming pool at the far end of the garden... but decided to leave it as a mystery.
That evening, like every evening apart from a Sunday, a projection show was cast onto the front of the convent. It told the story of the Yucatan and Valladolid in particular. It begins the story when the Yucatan was home to only the Maya, the subsequent colonisation, then through how Valladolid became the spark that started the revolution, ending with a slightly rose tinted view on the current day. To be completely honest, we had seen the show the night before, arriving too early at 9pm and catching it in Spanish. The images do tell most of the story but it was definitely a more well-rounded experience watching it at the 9.20pm English viewing the following evening.
The last activity we did in Valladolid was visit a cenote and we didn't have to leave the city to achieve this. Yucatan in covered in cenotes, as the main bedrock of the area is limestone, this often crumbles away to a sinkhole, exposing pools of groundwater beneath. There are three main types of cenote, closed (fully underground), semi-open (some cave like characteristics but with sunlight filtering in) and fully open. Cenote Zaci, the one we visited was semi-open. We really ummed and ahed about whether we were even going to visit any cenote - the price seemed quite steep for what we thought would essentially would be a swim, but eventually decided we should give it a go.
The entry was $150 per person, and i'm glad I arrived in my swimmers as there was an additional fee for the changing room! Although the changing room (and toilets) weren't included, mandatory life jackets were. I'm normally loath to don a lifejacket (I'm a fairly strong swimmer and I find them clunky and awkward) but in this instance we found they really aided in laying back and relaxing... while floating over an unfathomably dark hole. At first we stuck to the edges, and from what everyone else was doing, this seemed to be the norm. After a while we decided to strike out, floating in the middle of the pool, half under the stalactite covered cave ceiling far above. Some people even braver than us jumped in from the walkway that hugs the curve of the cave - no thank you!
Once we'd finally had enough of cooling off, we collected up our belongings that we'd stashed along a ledge (there are no lockers available) and made our way back up. Although it might have made more sense to get changed into our dry clothes in the small dark chamber we'd passed through to enter the cenote... we decided to do it above ground instead - preserving each others modesty with a strategically held towel.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Valladolid; its vibrant atmosphere, charming colonial architecture and convenient location to nearby archeological sites made it clear winner for us as our favourite place in the Yucatan. It wasn't perfect, the two pricier restaurants we tried in the area we were staying were pretty awful, but all the cheap local restaurants (Hanub Ku and María Luisa Quesadillas) we tried more than made up for it by being not only affordable, but some of the best food we had while in Mexico. The main plaza was vibrant over the weekend, but honestly pretty dead in the evening come Monday - but it was nice to have a contrast and see what the locals experience.
So while some may only see Valladolid as a stop on a day trip tours to Chichen Itza, we spent three nights and thoroughly enjoyed our time.
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