Day 25: Piste to Chichen Itza

January 23, 2026

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Our hotel in Piste, the Casa de las Lunas, does not look like much from the street.

But inside it is an oasis of nice plants, good level entry rooms, and a decent pool.

In Mexico in the central squares Great tailed Grackles gather in large numbers to roost in the trees. In the evening, their screeching can be deafening. We are used to that, but this morning we arose at the hotel to find the trees full of a different kind of black bird - the Bronzed Cowbird.

Our schedule for the day allowed time for a stroll down the main street of Piste, which is also the highway to Chichen Itza. We stopped into a little grocery, looking for hot chocolate powder. Dodie always chats with the checkout staff. Since they are invariably Mayan, the chats are always so sweet and pleasant. They are just a totally sweet and pleasant people. In the photo below, the man is teaching Dodie some words of Mayan. We find them always eager to do this, as they remain proud of their heritage and language.

It's probably still in our gear somewhere, but we can not find my floppy sunhat. So on our walk we stopped into one of the many shops, and picked up a replacement. 150 pesos, but it does say Chichen Itza in embroidery!

Piste has a bit of a central area, with a small church, and the required coloured sign.

It also has this critically important OXXO. Critical, that is, if you are lacking purified water or food or snacks with three or more health warnings.

Sometimes when we meet people on the road, I have the passing immodest thought about how lucky they were to have somehow encountered the famous "Grampies". But as we were leaving Piste, the tables were turned as we encountered the only other touring cyclists we have seen on the trip so far. But these were not any old touring cyclists, they were Grace and Nath. Nath, we see, has written a pile of cycle touring books. Have a look at his web site: "Nath off the leash". But hey, the site says he has cycled 24,000 kilometers. We have cycled 80,000 kilometers. Maybe he was still lucky to have met the Grampies!

They had been heading for Mexico City, but some kind of health problem is making them rethink. They certainly took off at a great enough speed!

While we were chatting someone stopped, asked if we spoke English, and got directions for how you get into and park at Chichen Itza. All of us knew these answers very well, and in fact within a short time the Grampies had put a further two cars on the right road.

Just for fun, we ourselves cycled up the road toward the ruins. For about a km before the gate there are people wanting to wave you into their parking lot. With only a slightly longer walk you could actually park on the road for free.

The actual site has tons of souvenir sellers, but even here at the approaches you can buy stuff.

Here are ones like what I bought in Piste. It's cute that there is a pink one and a blue one, and yellow one, etc. like in "Little Boxes".

Here is a back way in, if you can beat the barbed wire.

We went around the the Hacienda where our birding tour will be tomorrow. We wanted to be very sure that we know where to go, early tomorrow morning.

We carried on to the nearby hotel where we will spend this night. It called the Dolores Alba, and although much cheaper than the Hacienda, is still very nice.

This is what they are calling the eco pool. It is finished like a pool, but has a natural bottom.

After dropping our stuff at Delores Alba, we walked directly across the street to the Ik Kil cenote. Ik Kil is one of the nicest and most dramatic cenotes and sites that we know. It is the type that is open to the sky, with plants and vines trailing far down to the water level. The grounds are lush and tropical, so pleasant.

Ik Kil is quite expensive, but it's worth it. We went for the luxury offering, which includes lunch for an eye watering 290 pesos each extra. That compares to the already high 150 pesos normal meal cost in a restaurant. But for a one time treat it can be said they did pile our plates high!

Ik Kil has a long list of rules. Ones like no towels by the water cause quite a bit of friction, but there is a no nonsense enforcement staff.

Let's walk over and look in to the pool, and we'll look at the most amusing, but reasonable, rule.

We chickened out of bringing the phone into the water, and given the no backpacks rule, we could not bring it or a camera down. So we are lacking photos for the next bit. Something "interesting" that we would not photo anyway is the fact that most women here seem to if not totally forgetting to put on swimsuits, at least were not investing in any but the smallest wisps of fabric. I can't say what the men were wearing, because that's not what I am looking at, eh!

We did have some amusement involving men, as three super tall and fit Dutch boys attempted to descend toward the water without the mandated life vests. "But we are professional, Olympic swimmers" they protested. Of course they were getting nowhere with this with the stern guards, but they continued to argue. That is, until Dodie took them in hand and gave them their marching orders. "Ok, Mama", they dutifully chimed.

The water is so pleasantly deep and cool, and the surrounding plants are so lush, that you would have to believe this place has healing properties. We stayed in quite a long time. Also healing in this current world seemingly gone mad, was observing the people from many countries and of varying ages, all thoroughly enjoying the experience. Much fun in this was watching oriental people taking selfies and group photos in the water, putting aside for a moment their baby pink swim goggles and snorkels. One man approached us and began to chat, and we found he was from Korea. He had visited Vancouver before shifting to down here. He told us he thought Korea was a good place to cycle, but the country is small, so you can spin around it in two weeks.

The included buffet is not a buffet in the way we understand it. Rather the plates and food are behind glass, and you indicate to a server what you would like. The trick then to getting enough is to keep pointing to stuff. But the capacity of one plate is the limit to how much you can pig out. This is what I got. There was salad, fried fish, cochinita pibil, and pork loin in plum sauce in there.

Our walk back through the grounds was a continuing pleasure. We are not even slightly tired of this tropical environment as yet.

Tomorrow is our historic return to the spot where a lady first showed me a Nikon P950, and where on spotting an Aracari, remarked that she had not seen that since Costa Rica. All of which famously sent us careening toward Costa Rica with a P950. As always, we are curious to see what tomorrow will bring this time around.

Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 918 km (570 miles)

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