Chacchoben vs. Kohunlich

[Chickpea19]

Has anyone been to either or both of these Mayan ruins? I was wondering which one was more worth while to see while in Costa Maya.

[Chelsea_mom]

We visited Cacchoben last week. It was an interesting visit and I wish that we had had more time there. We used a private tour guide who was wonderful. There is a web site for Cacchoben if you do a web search.

 

We decided to not go to Kohunlich because of the travel time- over 2 hours each way. I'd really recommend that if you go to Kohunlich, you take a ship's tour in case you are delayed along the way. They will either wait for you or make arrangements for you to rejoin the ship if you are delayed on a ship's tour, while you are on your own if you are an independent tour.

 

If you take the morning tour to Caccoben, you can stop in the village on the way back and hang out on the beach for a couple of hours before heading back to the ship. :D

 

Enjoy your trip!

 

Have fun!

[Chickpea19]

Thanks so much :-)

We have decided to go to Chacchoben because it is closer, just like you said. If both sites are comparable, I'd rather not spend 4 hours of my day driving around, instead of enjoying my vaccation. It's cheaper anyway.;)

[Chickpea19]

Did you happen to go to Santo Tomas de Castilla as well? I know this is the wrong port of call board for this question, but I've been through the "others" board and I'm still not quite sure what to do there. Thanks!

[Thoth]

Has anyone been to either or both of these Mayan ruins? I was wondering which one was more worth while to see while in Costa Maya.

In May I'm going to Kohunlich. After that I will add my thoughts.

[suezcruise]

Just back from 7 night cruise with stop in Costa Maya, Dec. 22. This was our first time visiting Costa Maya. Through reading these boards we had pre-arranged a tour of the Chacchoben Ruins with Native Choice, http://www.chacchobenruins.com. A big thumbs up for this tour!

 

There were a total of three ships docked that day. After a lengthy walk down the pier you enter the cruise ship center, where you are essentially gated in.

 

We walked through it to the outside, still gated, and where met by David. We rode in an air conditioned van approximately one hour, arriving at the ruins at about noon. Our guide was a young man named Eilu (sp?), who spoke beautiful english, with a Mexico City accent.

 

Once at the ruins, there are clean rest room facilities and some vendors. Eilu purchased our tickets and we began our tour with a total of about 16 of us.

 

There were no tour buses there yet. Photo opportunities were great as there were no hordes of tourists. Eilu was very well spoken and informed on the Mayan history, culture, religion, astrology, flora and fauna. He really brought the ruins to life! We learned about Mayan calendars, culture, arcitecture, chicklet gum production, and medicinal plant life, and the spiritual quandrant of the Mayan religion, and the spiritual tree with 13 branches representing the phases of the journey of life.

 

The jungle itself was so beautiful and peaceful. The ruins are amazing and still very much unexcavated. There were steep steps to climb, which my Father, 80 years old chose not to climb. There were covered benches to wait on below.

 

On the way down the wall we saw a odd shaped rock on a step with a hole through it that caught the first sun off the angle of the top ruin that marked the winter soltice.

 

The pace of this tour was very relaxing. We spent about two hours there, with plenty of photo ops and time for shopping at the end. Wear comfortable foot gear, as there is climbing and some slippery spots.

 

Our family consisted of six, two grandparents, two parents, and two teenagers. We all loved this tour. My son said that this was his favorite stop ever. We loved it, came out of it with so much new found knowledge of the Mayan culture, and country. Very informative, educational, and enjoyable, worth every penny of the $43 pp we paid. Our ship offered the tour for $79 pp. When leaving the site, there were three tour buses there, so I would imagine that those tours would not be so intimate.

 

The driver of the van gave us the option to go to the village, or back to the dock center. We had wanted to snorkel, but were advised that there was not much snorkeling available from the shore. I was out voted in our family and we went back to the ship. We got back around 4:30pm Next time I will visit the fishing village.

 

Sue Z.