barbecue at chichen itza

One of the highlights of this Mexico vacation will forever be our visit to Chichen Itza, the once great center of Mayan civilization and culture. We got on a bus early yesterday morning and spent the next three hours or so on the road, picking up other tourists and making our way to the site.

The entrance to Chichen Itza was chaos--tourists everywhere, locals selling clothing and trinkets, tour guides yelling to their groups, and so on. Things were much quieter once we got past the gate, though. This is what greeted us once we got inside:



El Castillo, or the Temple of Kukulcan (Quetzalcoatl) dominated the portion of Chichen Itza that we were able to see. The temple's size isn't the most impressive thing about it, though. It was constructed according to astronomical observations, and is thus full of symbolism: four sides representing each of the seasons, 91 steps per side representing each day of the season (4 x 91 = 364 days per year--quite accurate for having been constructed 700-1000 years ago), and levels that were constructed to show a serpent's body on the side of the steps on the spring equinox.

People aren't allowed to climb the temple any more, so this is as close as we were able to get:



The Great Ball Court was a place where a game, probably like racquetball, was played. The ball court has interesting acoustical properties. A person whispering on one end of the court can be heard on the other side of the court. A noise made by a player in the court will echo 7-9 times. All of these things were supposedly done on purpose. Again, impressive for something built so long ago.





I always find carvings and sculptures interesting, regardless of what the site or culture is. Chichen Itza had no shortage of such things. The styles were quite different than the Greek, Roman and Egyptian styles we tend to learn more about in the U.S.







The Temple of the Warriors is another impressive part of Chichen Itza, primarily for the hundreds of columns that surround it.













By the time we'd seen a lot of this stuff, we were pretty miserable. Our resort is right on the beach, so even though it's been really hot (high 80's to low 90's) every day we've been here, it's been breezy enough that it hasn't mattered. Chichen Itza, on the other hand, is more than 100 miles inland. It was hot and humid, and the fact that we both already had sunburns didn't help matters. Not wanting to make matters worse, I wore long sleeves and long pants, and then bought a ridiculous looking cowboy hat from a vendor. I think I would have been sweaty and uncomfortable regardless of what I wore, so I'm glad I went with this completely out-of-place ensemble. Anyway, there was lots of complaining in our tour group, and I heard at least one couple fighting about what to see and what not to see due to the distance (like any city, Chichen Itza is not compact). We decided to see as much as we could in the limited amount of time we were given, though, and I'm glad we did. I always have a lot more fun when I get away from tour groups.

We walked to the Cenote Sagrado ("sacred sinkhole") on one side of the city. Offerings, including human sacrifices, used to be made here. Kind of weird to see a big hole filled with water dozens of meters down.



We took advantage of shade any time we could find it, which was not all that often. Here's Becca taking refuge behind a column in another temple complex we walked to.



We were out of time right after we visited this temple, so we had to head back. I wish we'd had more time, but with the heat, I don't know that we'd have lasted much longer anyway. Whatever the case, Chichen Itza was one of the coolest places we've ever been, and if you're ever in central Mexico, I highly recommend it.



After we were done at Chichen Itza, we were taken to the nearby Ikkil sinkhole for lunch and swimming. Unfortunately, we didn't know that the swimming would be part of our tour, and didn't have swimsuits. Too bad, because the water looked really clear and refreshing.



Lunch left quite a bit to be desired. It was a buffet of items that seemed to be the Mexicans' best approximation of what they think Americans eat when they're in America. I experienced this many times when I was on study abroad in China--you show up at some hotel or cafeteria, and then you're given a pile of fried rice and kung pao chicken. Um, great. I don't know about you, but when I'm in another country, I want to eat what the locals eat...At least, enough to know whether or not I'm willing to eat more of it. Alas, this is one thing in this trip that's definitely been lacking.

It took what seemed like an eternity to get back to our hotel. I slept, watched videos at my iPod, and occasionally looked out the windows at the flat Mexican countryside. We got back to our hotel just in time for a nice sunset, though.