Day 6: Chichén Itzá
Friday
My day
We got up bright and early again to hop on a colectivo to Cancún. From there we bought tickets on another ADO bus (charter bus) to Chichén Itzá. We were there about 30 minutes before it left. (We had pretty good timing on this trip, without even knowing what time the bus left beforehand.)
On the bus ride there we entered a new state, Yucatán, the ride was about 2 and a half hours and we arrived at one of the 7 wonders of the world! It was a little confusing getting all the tickets situated, but we made it in. You do indeed have to buy two. I asked the information guy who went on a long tangent in rapid fire spanish, which I could not understand, so I plainly asked him, instead of "What's this for?" "So we need two tickets?" He said yes and we went off to buy the other one too.
Chichén Itzá Mouth of the Well of the Itzáles
This is the most famous and best restored of the Yucatán Maya sites. And so crowded. There were SO many tour groups here. This is another site that if you happen to come to without a group and want to hire a guide the price drops dramatically once you're inside. Also, the site is lined with vendors and this is not an exaggeration. Yes, it's a huge site, but you have to walk off the beaten path a bit to find any space without vendors side by side yelling, "$1, almost free." At one point I asked Karen who taught them that saying because they all said it.
This city was so well designed as they throughly thought out structures in regard to acoustics and astronomy.
The beginnings of this city are still a bit of a mystery. Most archaeologists agree that the first major settlement at Chichén Itzá was pure Maya. In about the 9th century, the city was largely abandoned for reasons unknown. It was resettled around the late 10th century and shortly thereafter it is believed to have been invaded by the Toltecs, who migrated from their central highlands capital of Tula, north of Mexico City. The Toltec culture was fused with the Maya. Images of both Chac-Mool, the Maya rain god, and Quetzalcóatl, the plumed serpent, are throughout the city.
The Toltecs contributed both their architectural skills to the Maya and they elevated human sacrifice to a near obsession. There are numerous carvings of the bloddy ritual in Chichén showing this.
Then it was abandoned in the 14th century and no one knows why. So really... who actually founded the city?
I love this. I love that everywhere I look gives different ideas. There is no definite answer and I think that's what I love so much.
When you walk into the site El Castillo looms ahead. It really is amazing. It's especially amazing when you think that it was decoratively painted back in the day.
The structure is actually a massive Maya calendar formed in stone. Each of El Castillo's nine levels is divided in two by a staircase, making 18 separate terraces for the 18 20-day months of the Maya vague year. The four stairways have 91 steps each; add the top platform and the total is 365, the number of days in the year. On each side of the pyramid are 52 flat panels, which are reminders of the 52 years in the Maya calendar round.
We saw so many people standing in front of El Castillo clapping and we kept asking each other, "Why are they clapping?" Well, here it is. Clapping at the base of El Castillo produces a chirping sound as the clap is reflected. The chirp resembles the sound of the now endangered Quetzl bird. This bird was sacred to the Maya. Even more amazingly, if you stand directly in front of the Pyramid of Kukulcan and clap, not only can you hear the reflection off the Pyramid but there is also another echo off the steps of the Temple of the Warriors that sounds like a rattle snake. Get your position right and you will hear the chirp, resembling the call of the Quetzl bird closely followed by the faint rattle of a rattle snake. Both the quetzl bird and the snake were scared to the Maya. Can you say WOW!?
Mom & Karen gave it a try.
Climbing structures here is not allowed as everything is blocked off with ropes. =(
The largest Juego de Pelota in Mesoamerica is here. Which I loved. It really is huge!
The ancient Mayan ballgame is an mystery. Little is known about its rules or play and yet, in its day, it must have been immensely popular. The remains of over 1500 ballgame courts have been found throughout central America. These ball courts are all remarkably similar, although size and some aspects of the shape vary. Most have sloping walls and are significantly smaller then the ball court at Chichen Itza. The ball court at Chichen Itza is the largest found so far. It is also only one of two that has been found with vertical walls below the goal rings. Maybe this was a special ball court? Maybe this is where the World Series of pelota was played?
Chichén Itzá is huge and there are lots of different structures to look at. I think we covered everything... or as much as we could in about 4 hours.
Cenote Sagrado is the well that gave the city its name. There are ruins of a small steam bath next to the cenote. Yes, really! When the cenote was excavated gold and jade jewelry from all parts of Mexico and as far away as Colombia was recovered... hmmm? Along with other artifacts and a variety of human bones. It appears all sorts of people, including children and old people, the diseased and the injured, and the young and the vigorous, were forcibly obliged to take and eternal swim here. Also Wow.
While we waited for our bus back to Cancún I took some money out of the ATM so we could have water. At that point it was very necessary. Oh I wish I had a photo of Karen's face when my card failed the first time because I pressed the wrong button. =)
On our way this group of high schoolers asked me if they could interview us in English. Oh my, I forgot about these. Basically any time I went to any place somewhat touristy in D.F. I was interviewed. I think all high schoolers get this assignment where they have to interview 10 native English speakers. I said ok, like I always do. The boy who interviewed me was nervous and hard to understand (and they have you on camera) so it was a little difficult (at some points he whispered the questions to me in spanish). While in D.F. I always tried to speak slowly and kept my answers short because they have to go back and translate them. I broke that rule. Woops. We talked off to the side while they interviewed Karen and they said my spanish was good. Which was very nice, but I feel like when you're in the middle of learning another language your standards are low.
Then I stopped and bought a blanket before Karen almost killed me for not running to the water immediately after the ATM. It's a good thing we got water too because the bus ride back was like 3 and a half hours! Wshew.
When we arrived in Cancún we immediately walked across the parking lot and hopped in to a colectivo. We thought we were dirty and tired after Cobá, but after Chichén Itzá we found out what it was to really be dirty and tired.
Dinero (in pesos):
$90 colectivo (3 people) resort-Cancún
≈$1200 ADO bus Cancún-Chichén Itzá (3 people round trip)
$57/person admission to Chichén Itzá
$120/person admission to Chichén Itzá (I have no idea why we had to buy this one too... I think it was a state tax or something)
$180 blanket (I think I got a little ripped off with this one, but it's pretty)
$75 colectivo (3 people) Cancún-resort
$20 big water
Friday
My day
We got up bright and early again to hop on a colectivo to Cancún. From there we bought tickets on another ADO bus (charter bus) to Chichén Itzá. We were there about 30 minutes before it left. (We had pretty good timing on this trip, without even knowing what time the bus left beforehand.)
On the bus ride there we entered a new state, Yucatán, the ride was about 2 and a half hours and we arrived at one of the 7 wonders of the world! It was a little confusing getting all the tickets situated, but we made it in. You do indeed have to buy two. I asked the information guy who went on a long tangent in rapid fire spanish, which I could not understand, so I plainly asked him, instead of "What's this for?" "So we need two tickets?" He said yes and we went off to buy the other one too.
Chichén Itzá Mouth of the Well of the Itzáles
This is the most famous and best restored of the Yucatán Maya sites. And so crowded. There were SO many tour groups here. This is another site that if you happen to come to without a group and want to hire a guide the price drops dramatically once you're inside. Also, the site is lined with vendors and this is not an exaggeration. Yes, it's a huge site, but you have to walk off the beaten path a bit to find any space without vendors side by side yelling, "$1, almost free." At one point I asked Karen who taught them that saying because they all said it.
This city was so well designed as they throughly thought out structures in regard to acoustics and astronomy.
 |
| they even had an astronomy building (El Caracol-The Snail), one of the few round buildings built by the Maya, with a spiral staircase within. It has 8 tiny windows precisely aligned with the points of the compass rose. The Maya were able to accurately predict the orbits of Venus and the moon, and the appearance of comets and eclipses. |
The beginnings of this city are still a bit of a mystery. Most archaeologists agree that the first major settlement at Chichén Itzá was pure Maya. In about the 9th century, the city was largely abandoned for reasons unknown. It was resettled around the late 10th century and shortly thereafter it is believed to have been invaded by the Toltecs, who migrated from their central highlands capital of Tula, north of Mexico City. The Toltec culture was fused with the Maya. Images of both Chac-Mool, the Maya rain god, and Quetzalcóatl, the plumed serpent, are throughout the city.
The Toltecs contributed both their architectural skills to the Maya and they elevated human sacrifice to a near obsession. There are numerous carvings of the bloddy ritual in Chichén showing this.
Then it was abandoned in the 14th century and no one knows why. So really... who actually founded the city?
I love this. I love that everywhere I look gives different ideas. There is no definite answer and I think that's what I love so much.
When you walk into the site El Castillo looms ahead. It really is amazing. It's especially amazing when you think that it was decoratively painted back in the day.
The structure is actually a massive Maya calendar formed in stone. Each of El Castillo's nine levels is divided in two by a staircase, making 18 separate terraces for the 18 20-day months of the Maya vague year. The four stairways have 91 steps each; add the top platform and the total is 365, the number of days in the year. On each side of the pyramid are 52 flat panels, which are reminders of the 52 years in the Maya calendar round.
We saw so many people standing in front of El Castillo clapping and we kept asking each other, "Why are they clapping?" Well, here it is. Clapping at the base of El Castillo produces a chirping sound as the clap is reflected. The chirp resembles the sound of the now endangered Quetzl bird. This bird was sacred to the Maya. Even more amazingly, if you stand directly in front of the Pyramid of Kukulcan and clap, not only can you hear the reflection off the Pyramid but there is also another echo off the steps of the Temple of the Warriors that sounds like a rattle snake. Get your position right and you will hear the chirp, resembling the call of the Quetzl bird closely followed by the faint rattle of a rattle snake. Both the quetzl bird and the snake were scared to the Maya. Can you say WOW!?
Mom & Karen gave it a try.
Climbing structures here is not allowed as everything is blocked off with ropes. =(
The largest Juego de Pelota in Mesoamerica is here. Which I loved. It really is huge!
The ancient Mayan ballgame is an mystery. Little is known about its rules or play and yet, in its day, it must have been immensely popular. The remains of over 1500 ballgame courts have been found throughout central America. These ball courts are all remarkably similar, although size and some aspects of the shape vary. Most have sloping walls and are significantly smaller then the ball court at Chichen Itza. The ball court at Chichen Itza is the largest found so far. It is also only one of two that has been found with vertical walls below the goal rings. Maybe this was a special ball court? Maybe this is where the World Series of pelota was played?
Chichén Itzá is huge and there are lots of different structures to look at. I think we covered everything... or as much as we could in about 4 hours.
 |
| Yes, that's a big yawn. (Thanks, Mom.) |
 |
| But I'm good. Don't worry. Let's go to Cenote Sagrado. |
While we waited for our bus back to Cancún I took some money out of the ATM so we could have water. At that point it was very necessary. Oh I wish I had a photo of Karen's face when my card failed the first time because I pressed the wrong button. =)
On our way this group of high schoolers asked me if they could interview us in English. Oh my, I forgot about these. Basically any time I went to any place somewhat touristy in D.F. I was interviewed. I think all high schoolers get this assignment where they have to interview 10 native English speakers. I said ok, like I always do. The boy who interviewed me was nervous and hard to understand (and they have you on camera) so it was a little difficult (at some points he whispered the questions to me in spanish). While in D.F. I always tried to speak slowly and kept my answers short because they have to go back and translate them. I broke that rule. Woops. We talked off to the side while they interviewed Karen and they said my spanish was good. Which was very nice, but I feel like when you're in the middle of learning another language your standards are low.
Then I stopped and bought a blanket before Karen almost killed me for not running to the water immediately after the ATM. It's a good thing we got water too because the bus ride back was like 3 and a half hours! Wshew.
When we arrived in Cancún we immediately walked across the parking lot and hopped in to a colectivo. We thought we were dirty and tired after Cobá, but after Chichén Itzá we found out what it was to really be dirty and tired.
Dinero (in pesos):
$90 colectivo (3 people) resort-Cancún
≈$1200 ADO bus Cancún-Chichén Itzá (3 people round trip)
$57/person admission to Chichén Itzá
$120/person admission to Chichén Itzá (I have no idea why we had to buy this one too... I think it was a state tax or something)
$180 blanket (I think I got a little ripped off with this one, but it's pretty)
$75 colectivo (3 people) Cancún-resort
$20 big water
Day 5: Snorkeling & Resort
*I used two library books as references on the trip so we knew what we were looking at:
Lonely Planet's Cancún, Cozumel & the Yucatán 2008
Fodor's Cancún and the Riviera Maya 2012
I also found the reviews on Trip Advisor to be very helpful.
I used this website for information on Chichén Itzá
I used this website for information on Chichén Itzá
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