Prior to the trip, I read somewhere online that if you aren't planning on visiting Chichen Itza while you're in the Yucatan peninsula, that you should ask yourself the following question: If you were within three hours drive of the great Pyramids at Giza, would you go? If the answer is yes, definitely visit Chichen Itza. We took heed and planned a trip there on a bus through a tour company.
Chichen Itza was a large Mayan municipality rising in the Late Classic period in the Yucatan peninsula. It's name, meaning "at the mouth of the well of the warlocks of the water" is related to the geography and function of the site as a center of human sacrifice. Surrounding the site are numerous cenotes or sinkholes caused by deterioration of limestone by water over time. Human remains have been found at the bottom of these cenotes, with cuts and injuries related to human sacrifice. The practice of throwing human sacrifices in the centoes is probably related to the fact that there are no rivers and above ground fresh water in the Yucatan peninsula. The cenotes were believed to be entrances to the underworld, the mythical realm of the afterlife, Xibalba, to which the hero twins journeyed to free their father, the sun god Hun-Hunahpu. Hun-Hunahpu later emerged from Xibalba as the maize god. To the ancient Mayans, ritual sacrifice was necessary to appease the many gods of Xibalba and bring the rain to replenish the cenote, their only source of freshwater.
Hun-Hunahpu, being reborn out of the underworld as the Maize God.
The Hero Twins.
After a two hour bus ride through mixed plantation and multicropped fields, we passed a few scattered farms and surprised some graceful deer grazing in a clearing as we bulleted past them in our huge gray bus. The tour director was constantly on the PA system speaking half in English and half in Spanish, which means it took twice as long for him to tell us anything :) The bus pulled haphazardly up on the shoulder when we arrived at the Blue Agave Tequila distillery, and there was much excitement and lamentation at our tight schedule. It was a little orange stylized building amid fields of giant, turqouise agave plants.
We stopped at a little "authentic Mayan Bazaar," which most definitely not. However, outside the little building full of trinkets and hammocks, there were a few authentic artisans making obsidian sculptures and selling Mayan chocolate approximating a traditional recipe. On contact with the tongue, the little balls of rolled chocolate seem to spark and fizzle with the purest definition of 'chocolate' I have ever tasted. We bought two boxes and had worked our way through one by the end of the trip :) You could also drop the balls into hot water with a little cream and create a kickin' hot chocolate drink. I don't have any pictures of them, due to the fury with which they were consumed....
Well once we finally arrived at Chichen Itza, we saw the following scenes:
The entrance to the famous ballcourt where ritualized games between neighboring communities served as an outlet for violence and an analogy for war. The game was won when the ball was hit (using only the hips) through a hoop on the side of the court. The player making the winning shot was beheaded and sacrificed to the gods. In the minds of the Maya, lood was required to grease the wheels of the universe.
Aforementioned hoop.El Castillo is the most visible and striking feature of Chichen Itza. It was from here that the magistrates made their decrees and announcements. It has some strange acoustic properties that may have given their voices a powerfully eerie quality. The structure was built so that on the spring equinox every year, the sun's light just barely touches one edge of the corner slope of the pyramid, creating the effect of a serpent descending down the stairs. Like all buildings at Chichen Itza, it used to be accessible to the public until a few years ago until someone committed suicide by jumping off the top.
A worker climbing the steps of El Castillo
Flowers growing below the face of a god guarding the entrance to El Castillo
It's like.....real big.
This is the entrance to the famous Temple of the Warriors. You can just see the figure known as Chac-Mool between the open jaguar mouths at the top. It was here that human sacrifices were made. The name "Chac-Mool" meaning "Red Paw" was coined by an archeologist, in reference to the structure's role. We didn't get a chance to get closer to it, because we had limited time and were more interested in the observatory.
Like many places in the Yucatan, there were huge iguanas scuttling about everywhere.
The real reason Chichen fell!
A beautiful bird we saw flitting about around the observatory. He had a long feather coming off of his tail (swept back in this pic by the wind) and was carrying a leaf in his mouth. A courting suitor perhaps?
Soon it was time to leave the site. We loaded into the bus and set off a short ways down the road to a cenote. We climbed down the spiral staircase embedded into the wall of the cave, more than sixty feet below the ground. A huge hole let us see the sky from the glassy green water and watch cave sparrows play in the sunlight, dancing around ancient hanging vines. We slipped into the freezing water and chased little black catfish, letting them slip through our fingers and around our legs. After such scorching day in the heat, this was pure magic.
Cleansed by the water (but kind of damp), I took a nice big nap on Steve all the way home. Then it was time for more pina coladas and wonderful food. I seriously thought this day could not be topped....but it was only Tuesday :)
More to come!
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