Chichen Itza

It was an early rising to meet tour van for a day packed with adventure. When I say early, we were up at 5:00 am to get to el Centro by 6:00 am. There were 5 others joining us for the day and as you can imagine, there wasn’t much conversation until much later in the morning. There were 3 events/destinations for the day and we were all looking forward to it.

First stop was Chichen Itza, with the goal to arrive at 7:30. I thought it was because of the heat, but instead, it was to enter right at 8:00 to beat the crowds. We spent almost 2 hours at the ruins with a great guide who was extremely knowledgeable of history and traditions. One of our favorite sites was the PakTaPak court where teams of players had to hit a very hard rubber ball through a round circular hoop high on a wall, but only with their hips. It seemed like a combination of soccer and basketball. Oddly, the winner was beheaded as it was the greatest honor to serve the leader with a win. All the beheadings were memorialized in their own structure. There were a lot of them.

(note: there was an exhibition of this game in el Centro the following night, minus the beheading - see that blog for more pictures and details).

The sacrificial cenote, where archeologists found hundreds of bones from small children. The Mayans believed human sacrifices pleased the gods and brought prosperity.

All the ruins are roped off to protect them and there are still excavation sites with new discoveries. As with most things, time changes the landscape and this place is no different. The ruins remain the same, but today, there are large tourist buildings, vendors everywhere, and even a Starbucks. By the time we left at 10:00, the place was packed with long lines waiting to get in. I was glad we were on our way out. Next stop is Sotuta.

Vendors racing to set up their tables of wares to sell. There were hundreds of them, all hand carrying their items.