After our certification we headed back to the mainland, to Valladolid close to Chichen Itza. So the next morning we were at the ruins before all the busses from Cancun and Playa del Carmen arrived. Also most of the stands selling tourist rubbish weren't set up when we entered. The whole site was nice, but the big pyramid was definitely the main attraction. On our way back the parking lot was full of buses and tour groups bustling around, come early!
Next we headed to Campeche, at the western coast of the Yucatan peninsula. We stayed two nights in the nice old colonial part of the town. We took a walk to one of the fortresses guarding the coast as recommended by the tourist info which got us the map, the didn't mentioned that it was closed for renovations...
After this we left the coast and visited Palenque, another place with a mayan heritage. Here you can climb the ruins, something which wasn't allowed in Tulum or in Chichen Itza. Also most of the ruins lay overgrown in the jungle beneath little rivers and waterfalls, nice! We visited the museum first and then took the walk/climb up with the biggest sites as the finish, highly recommended you do it this way. Again there weren't too much people around despite the fact we arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Furthermore there weren't even a tenth of trinket sellers than in Chichen Itza. This was definitely the nicest mayan site we visited so far!