The road from Cancun to Merida is the best, due to touristic reasons. Hail to the best road of Mexico. Because, I have been terribly irritated by the roads until here. I love to drive, but the 3,000 kilometres I have driven in all made me tired like I have driven 20,000 kilometres. And the parts Nur and Fikret can use in a car are the ones which don’t have a steering wheel. Thanks to them…

It’s hard to trust the signs on these roads. You should remember the distance marks I mentioned before. And the roads are erroneous in terms of construction, too. The slopes are erroneous in many curves, and a speed bump can pop up anytime and anywhere. It’s not wise to drive at nights. And the drivers have an attitude resembling the ones in the US a little. But since the roads are not like the ones in there, this attitude sometimes leads to catastrophic situations. And the drivers’ sense of pride has so much in common with the drivers in İstanbul. You see the ones who get angry when they are overtaken, or who refuse to yield. There was one time that I was overtaking a convoy, and a driver tried to block me while I was getting in between cars – what he deserved was to be beaten with a lever.

Yet, the road to Chichen Itza is sweet. Correct signs, wide lanes, and a real highway, something which is very rare here in Mexico. Otherwise you are charged for two way roads.

Chichen Itza is the most famous antic Maya city in Mexico. And, naturally, it’s one of the biggest Maya cities. The huge pyramid at the centre, which bears the name of Cuculcán, the God of winds, has a very gorgeous look. Thank God that it is forbidden to climb the stairs. We could have lost weight, you know. This pyramid is a sanctuary, as the ones in Mexico generally are… They are not tombs like the ones in Egypt. This sanctuary is a calendar at the same time. Every corner, the number of the stairs and the platforms… They all have meanings. Some indicate the number of months, and some indicate the number of the days, and etc…

For example, all the four façades have 91 stairs each. 4×91=364. And when the platform at the top is added, it indicates the number of the days in one year. Like Fikret mentioned before, the Mayas are very clever about these calendars. They found the right calculation: 365 days and 6 hours.

This sanctuary, and Chichen Itza in general, has a bunch of other tricks. But what impressed us the most was the playground.

It’s not clear how this Mesoamerican ball game was played. I got this information from Wikipedia. There are various stories. The balls weighted 4 kilograms or more. Although it was played for more than 3,000 years, I think no one sat down and wrote the rules anywhere. The rings on both edges of the field were so high that, it’s impossible to assume the games ended with sides scoring more than one goal. If anyone knows any facts on this, please write a comment and forgive my illiteracy.

Don’t make the mistake to pronounce the name of this one of the Seven Wonders of the World as “Chicken İtza” like I did. It’s a shame. It is pronounced Çiçhen Itza…

Mayas came here, settled down, and then left, somehow. Then after some centuries, maybe because they saw here in their dreams and remembered, they came back and built the site we know today. Some buildings were already here, and some of them were constructed later.

After we filled ourselves with Maya culture again in Chichen Itza, some girls in folkloric dresses danced at the restaurant we ate. But then they did one of the few things they shouldn’t have done in front of us: they danced with beers on top of their heads. We asked one of them to give us one of the glasses and put a rakı glass on top of her head instead…

We told her she could drink it as well, but I think it wasn’t allowed to drink while on duty. Otherwise, who could say “no” to rakı?

Then we headed to Valladolit, which is very near to Chichen Itza. Valladolit is a very nice place with its zocala, cathedral, sympathetic people, and economical prices. Yet, all we could think about was Tulum, our next destination.

Tulum is a Maya city too, but I assume you don’t get surprised by this fact. Yet, the ruins in here are very rambling compared to the ones in Palenque or Chichen Itza. The entrance fee (51 pesos), which was same as in Paenque, even made Fikret, who is a fan of Palenque, take it personally and consider this as a huge insult to Palenque.

This place, I think, answers the expectations of tourists in need of a little culture while lying under the sun and swimming.

If you leave the ruins aside, it has a delightful beachside. The sea has a tone of turquoise colour, which I have never seen. It’s like you are watching an awesome painting constantly. It’s like the places pictured from the helicopter in the American series or the kitsch video clips of Mahsun Kırmızıgül filmed in Maldiv, but only more beautiful.

The sand is as white as it can be, and the sand is very thin, like flour. You want to bake a pie. And it doesn’t stick on your body.

Palm trees, coconut trees, iguanas… It’s a place for pure delight. There is no electricity until evenings. There is no wireless. The bungalows with grass roofs are elementary and comfortable at the same time. You feel a little humidity and considerably strong wind. But those defects are ignorable. Even this is enviable enough for those who are living the winter time in Turkey, I guess…

In short, we swam in the Caribbean sea and lied down a bit on the beach, and then went down to the city and walked around. There was a carnival, and we danced with the dancers passing in the street for a while.

Then we headed back to our beach, opened a bottle of rakı in the garden of our bungalow. We will do the same after we finish this entry and update our blog.

If everything goes by the plan, tomorrow the road will take us to Isla of Mujares, right next to Cancun. The road is coming to an end, as does rakı… Oof…

Long live rakı. Long live Caribbean. Long live gentle Mexicans. Long live their delicious meals.

Yet, I keep saying the same thing: no place like Chiapas.

Fotographs: Fikret Bekler