Chichen Itza, Mexico
…commonly referred to by holiday reps and tour guides as ‘Chicken Pizza’!
One of the main reasons for holidaying in Mexico a few years ago was to visit the famous historical Mayan sites. Not knowing much about Mexico we opted to stay in Cancun – it seemed to have a good choice of hotels (we stayed in the Moon Palace - more of which later) and plenty of things to do in addition to being within reasonable striking distance of a number of key architectural sites. All of which is true, but with hindsight I would have stayed further down the coast (south) in Playa del Carmen, but that subject deserves a blog in its own right.
Not being one for organised tours we decided to get a hire car for a couple of days and make our own way there. The organised tours seemed to give only a few hours at the site and weren’t sure it would be enough, besides I have an aversion to being herded like a sheep! For us it was the right decision. The drive from Cancun was pretty straightforward – dual carriageway most of the way and the site was signposted towards the end. Also, we found we wanted quite a bit of time there – from memory we spent something like 6 hours there and I am not sure we saw everything.
Temple of Kukulcan / El Castillo
My first tip is take plenty of water in with you – we polished off 6 litres between 2 of us in no time and ended up buying more drinks within the complex. We visited in October and it was baking hot – my guess is pushing 40 degrees C and humid.
The place certainly left quite an impression on Kevin and me, with the over-riding feeling being that the place is all about death – but don’t let that put you off! I won’t describe all of the buildings in detail – you can refer to guide books for that – but I will pick out some of the highlights and try to give you a feel of the place and why you should visit.
El Castillo (also referred to as the Temple of Kukulcan) – this is the main structure that greets you as you enter the complex. It is a steep pyramid with stairs going up each side topped by a temple. At sun-rise and sun-set of both the spring and fall equinox the north steps cast a serpent like shadow that ‘slithers’ down the pyramid with the movement of the sun. In the 1930’s a second temple was discovered buried underneath El Castillo that housed a Chac Mool (rain god) status and a jaguar shaped throne inlaid with jade. The steps are incredibly steep and not for the faint-hearted. There is nothing much to hold onto and the steps are barely deep enough to accommodate an adult foot. Going up is not so bad – it’s the descent that’s scary if you don’t like heights – we didn’t go right to the top. On the day we went there was an ambulance at the bottom treating people with heat exhaustion. In 2006 INHA (the organisation who manage the site) stopped tourists going up the pyramid after an American woman fell to her death.
Temple of Warriors – this is another (smaller) stepped pyramid with rows of columns in front that are intended to depict warriors. At the top of the pyramid is a Chac Mool statue, where ritualistic human sacrifices were made. Many of the tourist photographs of Chichen Itza are taken from the top of this pyramid with this Chac Mool statue in the foreground and El Castillo pyramid in the background. It was a great disappointment to us that we could not go up to the top of the pyramid as it was all cordoned off – I am not sure if it is permanently out of bounds to tourists.
The Great Ball Court – where games were played to the death. There is a small (practice?) ball court in the complex – but you have to see the main one. There is much speculation as to the exact rules of the game but it is widely believed that players had to use wooden belts (not their hands) to try to project the ball up towards the rings built high into the sides of the court. Whether the losers or winners were killed is a matter of speculation – but there are murals depicting decapitated players here and in other sites.
The Cenotes – or ‘sink holes’. These were caves with water at the bottom where the cave roof has collapsed inwards – leaving a natural ‘well’ with practically vertical sides. Again, this was another place of death and sacrifice. People were thrown in alive with no hope of climbing out themselves.
There are many other structures including a nunnery and an observatory, but one other I would like to mention is a plinth with relief work of skulls all around it – allegedly to ward off enemies.
At Chichen Itza it was very easy to imagine a human sacrifice scene – people dragged up to the top of the pyramids, no chance of a swift escape down the steep steep steps, with elaborately dressed and painted Mayans surrounded by jungle. It must have been quite terrifying.
In the evenings there is a sound and light show (starts at, or after 8.00pm depending on the time of the year) – we didn’t see it ourselves because we didn’t know about it before our visit and had made other plans, but I would put it on the agenda for a return visit and would like to hear from anyone who has seen the show.
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