Cancun : Day 4

 

Today was all about the tour of Chichen Itzá.  First off the tour has its advantages but it left me wanting more time at the ruins and a desire to check out leas commercialized Cenotes.

First stop was Xcajum Cenote.  It was amazing with its clear waters, clean edges down into a large hole.  Love the vine filled edges just gave it that classic look.  They said it was 150 ft deep.

Life vest was required so put that on and jumped in.  It was a little hot out so it felt very refreshing.  You could also see some little fish.  It was a little busy as multiple tour groups where there but decirle leaves you wondering what other ones look like.  Supposedly there are over 10k.

I’m going to skip over the annoying sales pitches and stores you have to stop at.  But at least they didn’t make you go in.  Just part of tour reality unfortunately.

Next stop was Chichen Itzu.  First you walk through the barge of sellers, annoying but not too pushing in my opinion.  You come out right at the giant pyramid.  It lines up with the solstices to show off a snake which due to its skin shedding cycle is an important piece of their history.

We learned about the sacrifice of breaking a guys back then cutting him open and pulling out his heart.  But they only did this to enemies or as punishment so at least it wasn’t sacrificing inocentes.  Will need to read more on this.  Went to a large playing area which had the circular rings like in the Harry Potter movies.  Wonder if they lady got the idea from this history.  Each area had carvings that seemed to explain the purpose of the area.  One part had a bunch of skulls which I guess use to be lined with real ones that were blanched kn lime before being put on display.

So if you look at this large area it’s impressive but off to one side there is a narrow path it leads to a cenote.  Cool right.. yah no it was brown water no good view, kinda wonder if a lot look like it.  Next there is another little path around the columns at the back.. walking through jungle if it wasn’t for the vendors lining the way.  You come across some over grown ruins.  Parts of it gives you a feeling of what they looked like before they were rediscovers.  

Next was another path but this time walking through the tree grove all of a sudden you come out into a meadow with numerous temples and an Observatory temple with a round telescope looking thing and all.  Lists to see back in this corner I hope to come back.

After the ruins we stopped in Valladolid to checkout the town square and a Catholic Church.  Being Sunday service was actually in session.  The church was supposedly build from brinks of a temple that had previously resided near there.  This church also is the only one to display Mayan symbols.  The snake is a live a fish stain glass.