Cuteness is not enough. There must be cake!: Chichen Itza

One of the seven wonders of the world.

According to Wiki, an estimated 1.2 million tourists visit the ruins every year with December being one of the high months. I am extremely impressed with Alma's LDS tours, they know how to play the tourist game. We had to get up and be ready to go really early in the morning. We arrived at Chichen Itza just as it was opening. Even with us getting there at opening, the parking lot was pretty full. We were able to get in and have our tour finishing just as the massive crowds of the larger tour groups were arriving. When we left, the tour buses were backed up horribly, it was probably at least an hour or more wait just to get into the parking lot. Because we started early, and were a small tour group, we were able to stay ahead of the crowds all day.....genius!!

Our tour of Chichen Itza was on Friday, January 2nd. I was so excited when our tour guide, David, explained to us what we would be doing that day. First stop was Chichen Itza, then lunch at an 18th century hacienda with authentic Mayan food and traditional Mexican dances, then onto the Cenote called, Ik Kil, followed by a tour of Ek Balam and lastly a stop at an old colonial Spanish town. This blog post will just be about Chichen Itza the other stops will be stories for another day. One of the ladies in our tour group commented that Chichen Itza sounded a lot like "chicken pizza". I called it chicken pizza the rest of the time.

David, our tour guide.

To say I was excited to see a Seventh Wonder of the World would be an understatement. The tour was fabulous, but one day I'd like to go back and spend an entire day or days exploring on my own. Our tour consisted of me, Nathan, Meow-meow, a mom, dad, and daughter from Fruit Heights, and a guy from Hong Kong.

Naturally we couldn't start off our day without some wild hair.

Before I begin, I will talk about some of the things David said during our tour, but I'm also using this web site as well: http://www.chichenitza.com/ It is a great web site and very informative. The main temple or El Castillo (The Kukulkan pyramid) is an impressive sight to behold. I was in awe as we came out of the jungle and was able to see it with my very own eyes. Pictures just cannot do justice to the impressive size of the temple

Chichen Itza means, "at the mouth of the Itza well".

The temple is approximately 75 feet tall.

The next couple of pictures show on one side of the pyramid, the sides of the steps going down end with snake heads. During the spring, starting in early March and ending on April 6th, starting at the top each day a square will light up with the setting sun. On April 6th, the entire snake will be lit up. There are many beliefs about why this happens. Our LDS tour surmised that it represents Jesus descending. It takes 33 days for the entire snake to light up and the entire snake is visible on April 6th. So, 33 days for the 33 years Christ lived and April 6th the day he was resurrected. It was an extremely hot day and I got chills when he talked about it.

At Cobe we learned that when a people were conquered, the conquerors would build a temple over the existing temple. Some temples are solid and some temples have chambers and such. The temple you see at Chichen Itza is one such temple that is a temple built on a temple and they are just discovering a third temple underneath. You'll see those pictures as you scroll down. There is hollow spaces between the outside temple and the one underneath. They used to take the tours into these hollow spaces but have since stopped the practice. :( That would have been awesome to see.

This is the doorway the tours used to go in.

Excavation of the third temple.

Back side of the main temple

More excavation.

The great ball court at Chichen Itza. This ball court was huge. It was used for the ritual game Pok-a-Tok. For these ritual games, the winning team's captain would be beheaded. It was considered a great honor because they believed that they would go directly to heaven and get to "rescue" their ancestors and take them to heaven as well. It seems to me to not be a wise practice of killing off your best people. The ball court is 225 feet wide and 545 feet long.

Entrance to the ball court.

The ball court.

Each end of the field has one of these temples, it was in these temples that the winning team captain was beheaded.

Closer view of the entrance.

Tzompantli or wall of skulls. They would take the heads of the sacrificed victims and stick them on poles. Then they would cover the skulls in honey and let the bugs eat off all of the flesh. When the skulls were cleaned off, a skilled artisan would carve their skull likenesses into the walls.

Eagles and Jaguars. This platform was located between the wall of skulls and The Temple of Venus. It had Eagles and Jaguars carved all over it. The figures of jaguars and eagles devouring hearts are said to represent the warriors who were responsible for obtaining victims to sacrifice for the gods.

Platform of Venus. There are two of these buildings in Chichen Itza. This one that we saw, was by the main temple and at the head of the Sacbe (or road) leading to their sacred Cenote. This platform is aligned with the planet Venus. When they would do their sacrifices, they would have rituals on this platform and then have a procession down the Sacbe to the Cenote. At the Cenote they would toss their sacrifice victim, usually still alive, into the Cenote. I marveled at this because the Mayan's were really smart about the movement of the moon, stars, and sun and they had knowledge for the amazing technology, however, it amazes me that they weren't smart enough to realize that the Cenote's are all interconnected with underground rivers and such? In essence, they killed themselves off by poisoning their water sources. I wonder why, with all of their knowledge, they didn't know this. Or maybe they did and just didn't care.

Thousand columns. There is an impressive temple with many many columns surrounding it. Our tour guide told us that each column had a significance to the armies that the people of Chichen Itza had conquered. The columns were erected to intimidate opposing forces.