Don’t wait for things to get easier, simpler, better. Life will always be complicated. Learn to be happy right now, otherwise you will run out of time.

– Unknown

We really enjoyed the paradise of Isla Holbox, but after 2 nights stay there, we left with a plan of traveling to Valladolid and visiting Chichen Itza. Our bus wasn’t scheduled to leave from Chiquila until late in the afternoon, and since there was absolutely nothing to do in Chiquila, we decided to bide our time on the beach again until it we needed to catch our ferry. We left our bags with the hotel, swam in the warm ocean water, and then we grabbed a late lunch at a cool little pizza and pasta restaurant near our hotel. We all had pasta which tasted amazing (or maybe it was just different from the standard Mexican fare). After lunch we grabbed our bags, changed our clothes, and then headed towards the ferry.

Both of the other ferries we’d ridden had taken credit cards, so at this time, we had no idea that our being low on cash was a problem. Unfortunately, the cell service is very spotty on the island, and the cashier couldn’t get a cell signal to run our credit card. So with 15 minutes until the last ferry left, we hiked 2 blocks back into town to the local bank to withdraw more money. By this time, I began to panic because we had already booked our bus tickets and a few nights in Valladolid. If we missed this ferry, we would also miss the once a day bus out of Chiquila for Valladolid too. While Brian talked to the cashier at the bank, Henry stood outside with me reassuring me that everything was going to be alright. As soon as Brian came out of the bank, we all jogged as fast as we could towards the ferry. Now, I have super short legs, and my pack is about 28 pounds of extra weight. Needless to say, me jogging with a full pack like this had to be comical to anyone watching us, although at the time, I found nothing funny about the situation. We were the last people they let on when we finally made it to the boat, but we did make it. As I sat down in my seat, I thanked God for getting us on board.

We made it back to Chiquila in time to grab a snack at the local market and head to the bus station. The station was packed, so we found a good place to stand under the awning where we could catch a breeze and wait. The bus to Merida pulled up, and we watched them load as we continued to wait for our bus. When I had bought our bus tickets online the previous night, I knew our bus would be mostly full, but looking around the station 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave and without the Merida travelers, the station was almost empty. As they closed the Merida bus up, Henry and I went to check the departure schedule board (which was blank by the way) to verify our bus time just in case we remembered the times wrong. The attendant walked in and asked us if we needed anything. I showed him our tickets and he quickly let us know that we needed to be on the Merida bus and that we needed to ‘Go now!’ Thankfully he was able to catch the driver, and they reopened the bus to let us on. Again, I made it to my seat and thanked God we had made it that far!

After two hours of driving through the jungle, we pulled into Valladolid in the middle of an absolute downpour. Our hotel was about a mile north of the bus station, and we debated hailing a cab or walking it. One look at the line for taxis in the absurdly hot station and we decided to walk it. Now, we were prepared for rain but we hadn’t been expecting it, so we found a corner of the station to reconfigure our bags and change into shoes that could get wet. By the time we got our gear swapped over and our bags back on, we stepped out to a wet but no longer raining street. With our bags on our backs, taking off a raincoat is an extremely cumbersome task, so we opted to keep them on for the walk even though we didn’t need them.

We had sidewalks the entire mile route, but sidewalks in Valladolid are much different than the sidewalks I’m used to. The steps were uneven, each home or business had a steep slope to get into their area, and it felt like every single home or business demanded a different height sidewalk. It felt much more like a hike down a rocky trail than a stroll down a city street; you had to watch your footing the entire distance. Also, many of the homes/businesses use smooth or glossy tiles instead of concrete, and those become very slick when wet. The walk wasn’t bad, but in the dark and rain, it felt a little treacherous.

We finally made it to the hacienda where we were staying and our rain jackets were more wet on the inside from our sweat than on the outside from the rain. Our third floor room was nice but we couldn’t get the air conditioning to turn on, so we waited in sheer exhaustion for the clerk to come help us. Thankfully he was able to quickly get it going, and we rested really well that night.

On Wednesday morning, we woke up to an alarm for the first time in a week. We were going to see Chichen Itza. Our plan had been to get up early enough to make the mile long hike and get on the first Collectivo to the ruins. A collectivo is a hybrid between a bus and a taxi. It is a 12-15 passenger van that drives a particular route and picks up/drops off people anywhere along the route. The van leaves whenever they get enough passengers, so you might leave immediately or you might have to wait. They open at 7:00, so if there is enough interest, you may be able to leave immediately and beat the crowds at the tourist attractions. Unfortunately, we were tired from the night before, and we drug into the parking lot at about 7:20 after the first van was gone. The attendant let us know that Chichen Itza was closed because of Hurricane Grace that would be coming through on Thursday, but he said (or maybe we thought he said) the Ik-kil cenote would be open. We had planned to go to the cenote after the ruins anyway, so we decided we would just go there instead.

Apparently there wasn’t much interest in the second van, and it took until around 8:30 before we finally had enough passengers for them to leave. Thirty minutes later, we saw the gates to Ik-kil and asked the driver to stop and let us out. As we crossed the street to the entrance, we were glad to salvage our day, but as we drew near, we were informed that the cenote was also closed that day because of the storm.

At this point, I started laughing just to keep from crying. We were 30 minutes outside of our town and it looked like the day was just doomed. We were still recovering from nearly missing our ferry and our bus the night before, and this wasn’t helping. And did I mention that this was Brian and my 20th wedding anniversary?

As we stood on the side of the road waiting for the Collectivo to drive by on its way back to Valladolid, a couple from Utah was pulling back out onto the road in their little car. They had also come to Ik-kil and had been turned away disappointed. They were on their way back to Cancun where they were staying, and they offered to give us a ride back into town. My parents will probably die to hear this, but we hopped in and talked nonstop all the way back to town. They were students in college who were taking a bit of a break before they completed medical school. We told them about our plans, and they were really excited for us. It was the first time we’d had a real conversation with someone besides ourselves on the trip, and it felt so good to really talk with someone!

We safely made it back to Valladolid, and they let us out near a beautiful church in the downtown area we wanted to see. We toured it and then walked around the downtown area for a while exploring the quaint little town. Once we returned to the room, we swam for a bit, and then cleaned up for a nice anniversary dinner. After dinner, Brian helped me handwash some of laundry in the bathroom sink and we went to bed with our makeshift laundry lines hanging over our heads.

On Thursday morning, Grace hit the area around 4 am. We cracked open the windows and enjoyed the cooler temperatures as we watched the wind whip the trees. Henry caught up on his schoolwork as Brian and I tried to work through our plan and the few items on our to do lists. By lunch, Grace was gone, and we ventured out to find some lunch. We struggled to find food as almost every business was closed that day. The hotel had put out bread, cheese slices, and coffee so that we could at least have that if we wanted. We did find a great meal in the downtown area, though. After lunch, we walked through town in search of a rental car business, but we never could find it. In the process, we got caught in a thunderstorm and got absolutely drenched on our 20 minute walk back home. As Henry splashed in the puddles, I tried to laugh at the absurdity of our situation.

By dinner, most of the businesses were back open again, and we had a really good meal at the hotel restaurant. Henry had pancakes and you might have thought he’d never eaten anything quite so good. After dinner, we sat outside under the breezeway by our room and taught Henry how to play Hearts and laughed about how much misadventure we’d been through during the week.

On Friday, we had a lazy day at the hotel, and we found a plan B on our laundry. Due to the humidity, our laundry that we worked so hard to wash wasn’t drying, and we needed to get on the road again. We found a laundry service that would wash our remaining clothes for us, so we dropped those off and hung out at the hotel most of the day. We picked up our laundry that evening, and it was like Christmas in August to get my stack of freshly laundered clothes back. We decided to stay in Valladolid another night just to try one more time to go to Chichen Itza. Thankfully, this time we were able to make it!

Saturday we toured the ruins and spent the afternoon at the Ik-kil cenote, and it was worth the wait. Henry’s favorite thing about the cenote was jumping in from the platform; he probably jumped in 50 times. The cenote was absolutely beautiful, and we swam with the fish in the freezing water for a few hours.

On Sunday, we packed up and left Valladolid behind. It was bittersweet for me, though, I must admit. There is so much more I want to see, and I know we’ve got to get moving if we want to see it all. However, I really liked this little town. It was beautiful with its colorful buildings and wide doorways, and the people were very kind to us. I remember a posting that I had shared on Facebook recently about Choosing Joy, and I decided that it was a perfect quote for this week. The past few days haven’t worked out like we had planned at all, but if we can find a way to choose joy through the chaos and disappointments, we can remember this as the adventure it was instead of the ordeal it could have been.