Mexico, vacation... Chichen Itza, part 2

To read previous part click here - Mexico, vacation, sun, sand and palm trees, part 1

First thing next morning... did you say "they went to the beach"? If you say so... you just don't know us at all! How can we go to the beach when we are on vacation? But before I tell you where we went first thing next morning, let's take a look at the place we just landed and planned to spend 10 days.

 

The Yucatan peninsula has been inhabited by people for more than 3000 years. This is the huge limestone plateau in most of the places and there are no rivers here. And a lot of sun all year around... How was it possible to survive in such a climate without rivers? Due to sinkholes :) During the years, there were many cracks in limestone and many sinkholes which accumulated rainwater in a span of thousands years. Finally the huge system of sinkholes (Mexicans call them cenotes) with underground rivers was built and was full of water. It helped to survive millions of people living in this area.

Some of these cenotes are small (maybe just a couple of feet wide), some are huge (think about a hundred feet wide) and all of them filled with clear water. There are about 12 thousand cenotes discovered on the peninsula, but only about one third well known. This is funny, actually, because there we didn't see any cenotes the second day and, probably, I shouldn't be talking about them, should I?

Maya is the most famous and known civilization that occupied Yucatan for almost 3 thousand years and they built many towns and pyramids and the most famous one is Chichen Itza, the place where we went this morning. Not too far away, just about 130 miles out of the coastline of the peninsula, but we tried to start earlier to avoid crowds and heat. You can definitely ask, why were we doing this just the day after we came here, why didn't we wait and relax on the beach first. The reason was very simple... Just search for "Chichen Itza spring equinox" on YouTube and you understand why we were in such a hurry and didn't want to share the place with thousands of people.

We didn't enter the place from the main entrance, instead we took the "back door", through the nice hut style hotel. So we successfully avoided the crowd, but not the heat. It was hot and there was no wind there, but it was still bearable in March... I am not sure if we would be able to walk around this place in August though.

Before reaching the main plaza we passed by the rows of the columns... There are 200 of them but it looks like there are at least a thousand. The columns were built between 900 A.D. and 1200 A.D. and show the remains of stucco covering, which would have been painted in different colors. All columns once supported a frieze and a roof which have since collapsed. The exact nature of the roof is not certainly known. It may have been made of mortar, wood or thatch. It is believed that these were great meeting halls. Remains of the painted frieze indicate that it was decorated with motifs and Chaac masks representing an earlier priestly class who governed the city.

The most famous building of Chichen Itza is El Castillo or Temple of Kukulcan (a Maya feathered serpent deity similar to the Aztec Quetzalcoatl) dominating the North Platform of plateau. 

This step pyramid stands about 30 meters (98 ft) high and consists of a series of nine square terraces, each approximately 2.57 meters (8.4 ft) high, with a 6-meter (20 ft) high temple upon the summit. 

On the Spring and Autumn equinoxes, in the late afternoon, the northwest corner of the pyramid casts a series of triangular shadows against the western balustrade on the northside that evokes the appearance of a serpent wriggling down the staircase, which some scholars have suggested is a representation of the feathered-serpent god Kukulkan.

The Great Ball Court was the next thing we explored. Measured 168 by 70 meters (551 by 230 ft) it is huge and highly impressive. 

The walls are 8 meters (26 feet) high and slightly lean inside. It creates a great acoustic in this place - single clap clearly returns up to 7 times and some experts think this is absolutely amazing. At the base of the high interior walls are slanted benches with sculpted panels of teams of ball players. 

In one panel, one of the players has been decapitated; the wound emits streams of blood in the form of wriggling snakes.

This is the loop the ball should come through. The ball was barely smaller but very heavy and it wasn't easy to throw it through the hole... Especially because by the rules the ball should not touch the loop... Penalty for it was the death of the whole team. So - if you throw the ball clearly through the opening - your team won... if the ball touched the stone - you not only lost but also would be dead before sunset. Nice game, huh?

The Tzompantli, or Skull Platform (Plataforma de los Cráneos), shows the clear cultural influence of the central Mexican Plateau. Unlike the Tzompantli of the highlands, however, the skulls were impaled vertically rather than horizontally as at Tenochtitlan.

Templo de los Guerreros (Temple of the Warriors) complex consists of a large stepped pyramid fronted and flanked by rows of carved columns depicting warriors. At the top of the stairway on the pyramid's summit (and leading towards the entrance of the pyramid's temple) is a Chac Mool.

This place is filled with history and legends. It would be easy to spend all day here, but we still had some other plans and places to see. Also we were already almost boiled alive and the air conditioned car looked like a lifesaver so we left Chichen Itza and moved towards new adventures...

To read the next part click here Mexico, vacation... Passing the town of Temozón, part 3    

Pictures were taken in March 2018.