Chichen Itza is probably the best known and most visited Mayan site in Mexico. It was in its heyday from 600 to 1250 AD. It is a long day trip from Cancun and Chetumal and by 11:00 tour buses fill the parking lot. We arrived yesterday afternoon and set up camp in a grassy shaded area at the Stardust Hotel in Piste. We have electricity but no hot water, only ‘agua regular’ – room temperature. There is a pool with coconut trees, a bit murky but a nice place to sit and relax. And that is just what we did. Connie took time out and made potato salad and baked scones while I scoped out the town and bought some ‘pollo asado’ for dinner. The final parade for the Virgin of Guadalupe passed by around eight with bands, hundreds of celebrants with candles and a line of cars with lighted shrines. If a celebration followed it was either subdued or quite distant.
We are only a kilometer from the ruins and we arrived at the gate ten minutes before the eight o’clock opening. Most of the other early-birds were Americans but we easily outdistanced them. We wandered through the entire ruins in about three hours but will return tonight for the light show. We enjoyed the lack of crowds and got some good photos.
Each structure has a Mayan name but most are known by the descriptions the Spanish gave them. El Castillo or Pyramid of Kukulcan dominates the plaza and was designed to serve as the Mayan calendar. Each of the four staircases has 91 steps which along with the platform on top makes 365. Eighteen terraces represent the eighteen 20-day months of the Vague Year while 52 flat panels mark the 52 years of the Calendar Round. On the equinox shadows creep along the north stairway like a serpent and serpent head carvings are everywhere.
The Grupo de las Mil Columnas connects the Temple of the Warriors, Temple of Chac-Mool and the Steam Bath. These are the first columns we have seen in Mexico. They stand about 10 feet high and what they lack in size they make up for in number. Near the Grand Ball Field, the largest in Mesoamerica, are the Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars and the Platform of Skulls. The former shows jaguars and eagles devouring human hearts (probably from captured enemies) and the latter is decorated with carved skulls and was once filled with the real thing from the same source. Mayans were not nice people.
We especially enjoyed the southern area. The Observatory or El Caracol (the snail) is a circular building with an internal spiral staircase. Once you could climb the stairs but a section has collapsed. You can access very few places at Chichen Itza today. Nearby the royal palace named ‘the nunnery’ because of its numerous small rooms has some of the most ornate and interesting carvings we have seen.
As grand as Chichen Itza is we prefer Monte Alban and, of course, Tikal. Monte Alban lacks the crowds and the gauntlet of vendors and very few of the structures are off-limits. Tikal gives you a real sense of discovery, rising as it does from the middle of the jungle. Each place, however, provides more information towards our understanding of pre-Columbian culture.
