Chichen Itza

The next morning on December 25, we got up nice and early, had a quick breakfast and got on the shuttle.

The shuttle drove us to the Xel-Ha waterpark where we then switched to a nice larger bus for the trip to Chichen Itza.

This turned into one heckuva long bus ride.  Upside we got to learn a lot from our tour guide on the way.

Chichen Itza was settled, built, and developed by the Mayans and Toltecs and there's apparently a lot of scholarly fracas over who built it and what the relations were between the Mayans and Toltecs at the site.

Occupied from 500-1200 AD the city site was an important center and was later mostly abandoned by the 16th century. Archaeological research is ongoing. Only 12 of approximately 300 buildings have been uncovered so far. What has been uncovered is rather impressive.

On the bus, we learned about the Mayan numbers system and Leah solved a Mayan math puzzle, and earned a Coca-Cola as a prize.  The bus happily had A/C and complimentary drinks including water, soft drinks and beer which made for a civilized ride and we got a nice snack on the bus as well.

We then got to the site and there was quite a line to get into the archaeological park.  There's an additional fee if you have a video camera, but they don't charge for iPhones or standard cameras even if they can shot video. Kinda strange but that wasn't the only place we found in Mexico that had that additional fee for video-specific cameras.

After entering, you walk along a path with lots of trinket sellers.

You then enter and see the pyramid dedicated to Kukulkan which certainly grabs your attention.

Its rather impressive and there's an interesitng acoustical effect if you have a group of people clapping in unison in front of the entrance.

There is likely a cenote (a water-filled sinkhole, often part of an underground cave system - more on that later) below it were sacrificial victims, including children, were thrown in.   Other sacred cenotes in the area have been explored with lots of child skeletons within.

There's no taking the stairs on the pyramid anymore - both due to preservation and prevention of wear and tear and because people have been hurt or even killed falling off of it. The stairs are rather narrow.

There's quite a few impressive buildings to see such as the Platform of Eagles and Jaguars:

 If you click to embiggen you can see the carvings of the eagles on the buildings. Rather impressive.

There's also the Tzompantli a platform emblazoned with carvings of skulls -- back in the day, there were apparently multiple racks of real skulls on display to show their enemies' heads.

We also visited the famous ball game field where the acoustics are rather amazing - you can hear whispers from one end to the other and there's a neat echo as well.

Rather cool.

Quite a neat place to explore.

We then headed to a cenote to take a dip. Since the cenotes are part of Mexico's groundwater, you have to shower before entering. 

In this Cenote, after showering you had to get a life jacket as life jackets were required to be worn, lest you become a unintentional sacrifice to Kulkulkan. 

You had to walk into an underground cavern to enter.

 

 The entrance opened up into the Cenote, which  had a collapse in the cave ceiling so light streamed in, as did tree roots and vegetation searching for water It was a neat experience.

We had a very nice swim around the cenote.

After the cenote, we changed and headed to Valladolid, a town that looks like Spain was transplanted to Mexico.

We had an amazing lunch in Valladolid at a Mexican buffet that was quite simply incredible.

After that we took the long bus ride back.  Caught a few Zzzzss along the way.  

Certainly a great, full and tiring day, no problem sleeping that night at all.