Mexico - Part Three - Chichen-Itza and a Cenote Maya adventure

Hello and welcome the the third part of our adventures in Mexico. This promises to be a big blog so lets just jump straight into it as we have some Mayan ruins to visit and a Cenote to rappel down into.
Also note as Kyran is the history buff of the two of us so I have asked him to co-author this blog so look forward to Kyran's commentaries.

First up the journey to visit the famous Mayan ruin temple site called “Chichen-Itza”. 
We booked it despite people saying “oo no it’s like 3 hours there and 3 hours back!”, there was a long drive and we had to leave at 6:50am from the resort but we slept half the way so it was an OK drive.

We met our tour guide whose name was Marco de Leon from the tour company “Alltournative” (a play on the word Alternative, I suppose!). We hopped into the van to be met by an old southern-state American couple, and a young British couple. Later we picked up a German bloke, to round out a solid tour team.

The drive was about 2 hours to Chichen-Itza, and we stopped along the way for chicken sandwiches – but because of our vegan inclinations, we opted for some fruit instead.

After a brief nap in the van, we arrived at the front gates and battled or way in, skipping the queue because our guide had a colleague already pre-bought our tickets (~164 pesos, about $9 USD each). 

We were later glad that we got to the site so early as there was what seemed to be a constant stream of tourist what arrived later from the Cancun resorts (they were further away then ours), plus it just got hotter later in the day and there were more and more street vendors arriving and setting up, making it quite crowded and busy-looking. 

Below: Some of the street vendors, the wood carvings were being made by the vendors while they waited for sales. 

About Chichen-Itza

Chichen-Itza is an UNESCO listed site, and is one of the “New” 7 wonders of the world.  

NOTE: New7Wonders of the World was a campaign started in 2000 to choose Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments. The popularity poll was led by Canadian-Swiss Bernard Weber and organized by the New7Wonders Foundation based in Zurich, Switzerland, with winners announced on 7 July 2007 in Lisbon.

They are:

• Great wall of China
• Petra 
• The Colosseum 
• Chichen Itza
• Machu Picchu
• Taj Mahal
• Christ the Redeemer

Honourary status

• Great Pyramid of Giza 

So really there are 8 wonders

See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New7Wonders_of_the_World for more information. 

...Back to the story...

The Mayan step pyramid structure which forms the main attraction of the site is a post-classical building, probably completed around 900 A.D. when the Mayan civilization was at (one of) its peak. The area surrounding Chichen-Itza supposedly was home to around 75,000 people at one point in time (according to the guide). 

Below: A map of the site that I stole off the internet 

www.destinosvividos.com/chichen-itza-maravilha-maia

There was an important cenote off to the side of the site - but we didn’t end up seeing the cenote here as we didn’t quite have time. 

The name Chichen means something along the lines of "edge of the well", referring to the cenote, and the Itza is because the site was constructed by the Itzaes group of Mayans.  

The major buildings and features of this site we saw were... 

The Castle- or "El Castillo" which served as a temple to the god Kukulkan, the Yucatec Maya Feathered Serpent deity inspired by the god Quetzalcoatl known to the Aztecs and other central Mexican cultures of the Post-classic period.

Below: The Castle is only partially restored, here you can see the before and after (left side and right side).

This is where we start to get into just how awesome this civilization was and how advanced they were with science and astronomy!

During the spring and autumn equinoxes, the late afternoon sun strikes off the northwest corner of the pyramid and casts a series of triangular shadows against the side of the northwest stairs, creating the illusion of a feathered serpent "crawling" down the pyramid (See below). 

Above: Obviously we were not there during the equinox so this photo too is stolen from the internet. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichen_Itza#/media/File:ChichenItzaEquinox.jpg)

So that was cool but keep reading!

Each of the pyramid's four sides has 91 steps which, when added together and including the temple platform on top as the final "step", produces a total of 365 steps (which is equal to the number of days of the Haab' year).

Then...

A long story short there is thought to be a smaller temple with in the larger temple that we see today and a Cenote under all of that. For more information see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Castillo,_Chichen_Itza

Another thing to note is that the temple has 9 levels which are thought to represent the 9 levels of the Mayan under world. More on this later with the Ceiba Tree.

So everything about this castle is not a coincidence and it is freakishly accurate!

The guide told us that each year a teenager from the Mayan upper classes was chosen to be the yearly sacrifice for the ritual to bring rain and good crops for the year. The kid played a new flute instrument each of the 365 days, and on the day of sacrifice he has to walk up each of the 365 steps of the pyramid and break each flute for each day. 

Then when he finally made it to the top he was sacrificed! by the way this was thought to be a great honor!

Finally, the other awesome part of this building is that when standing out the front of it, if you clap your hands or make other loud sharp noises, it makes an acoustically modified echo which has a very strange sound to it when it reflects back to you. You gotta be there to hear it and understand!

I have inserted a video that we made when we were there but you really have to listen to hear the acoustic mirror. Also that is our guide Marco who as we mentioned before was amazing and blew my mind with his understanding of EVERYTHING!! 
Give that guy a pay raise!!

The early original temple- mostly ruins now (Below right side of photo). 

On the corners of the building closest to the camera you can see "faces" of gods depicted with long noses poking out (representing beaks, like birds). The midle one shown is Chaac, the god of thunder and lightning with penises coming out of his ears! Better photos of each of these features that I stole off the internet below.

Above Left: Chaac, where the holes are is where the Penises would have been.
Above Right: The bird nosed gods

The Observatory - Mayan astronomers knew from naked-eye observations that Venus appeared on the western and disappeared on the eastern horizons at different times in the year, and that it took 584 days to complete one cycle.

They also knew that five of these Venus cycles equaled eight solar years. Venus would therefore make an appearance at the northerly and southerly extremes at eight-year intervals.

Of 29 possible astronomical events (eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, etc.) believed to be of interest to the Mesoamerican residents of Chichén Itzá, sight lines for 20 of them can be found in the structure. Since a portion of the tower resting on the Observatory has been lost, it is possible that other observations will never be ascertained.

More info at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Caracol,_Chichen_Itza

The various ball courts - Archaeologists have identified thirteen ballcourts for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame in Chichen Itza, but the Great Ball Court about 150 metres (490 ft) to the north-west of the main temple is by far the most impressive. It is the largest and best preserved ball court in ancient Mesoamerica. It measures 168 by 70 metres (551 by 230 ft).

The ball game was played by the priests or nobility of these temple establishments, and was a ritualistic event. The players had to bounce the ball around using their hips, elbows, and knees - never letting the ball touch the ground. The game's rules and the court design (like adding the stone hoops) appear to have changed over the centuries. 

The ball they would have used for the ball games was made of solid rubber and would have weighed something like 3 or 4 kilograms. That's pretty heavy to have flying around! That also justifies why they didn't use their hands, they would have broken them! so they used the harder stronger bits of the body.

The players are shown in depictions on the stone walls wearing protective equipment on their body parts used to impact with the ball.
Below: I traced some of the outlines so that it was easier to see the armor that the ball player won. But also that there are the two team captains. One is holding the others head and you can see the blood gushing out!
The winner of this game was sacrificed - also an honour.

More info on the mayan ball games available here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Ballgame

The court also has interesting acoustic properties - if you talk from the northern observation area for example, you can hear it clearly while standing at the southern part.

Below: Smaller Ball court, behind the tree in the way

The priests who played the ball game, plus any other royalty/aristocracy, typically had deformed heads. Their heads were purposefully deformed, possibly using bandage wraps while still babies ( < 18 months old), to form their heads into elongated 'cone head' shapes. The bones of dead priests show this, and would have been seen by the commoners watching the games being played, and would have made the games appear even more amazing and reinforce the ritual significance of the games.

Artificial cranial (head) deformation was practiced quite a lot in the ancient world, among many tribes and peoples. It's a pretty interesting topic, and you can read more about artificial cranial deformation (and see some neat pictures of skulls) from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation 

Apparently because of these deformations most of the time their eyes woulds not develop evenly so having uneven eyes was also a sign of the rich and powerful!!

The impaled-head platform- The Tzompantli, or Skull Platform (Plataforma de los Cráneos), shows the clear cultural influence of the central Mexican Plateau. Unlike the tzompantli of the highlands, however, the skulls were impaled vertically rather than horizontally as at Tenochtitlan.

According to our guide a warrior would bring his captive and the priest would behead him, then the warrior got his captives head and had the honour to stick it on the spikes.

Below: The wall with the heads depicted (I highlighted some of the outlines) followed by my not-so-gory artistic interpretation of what it might have looked like. 

The guide told us that this little short building off to the side of everything. 

The bone-repository - Was used to store the bones of those who were priests, nobles or somehow rich or important, yet not important enough for their own fancy tombs. 

The bones were put in here once cleaned, to keep all the bones in one place so people wouldn't forget where their ancestors were buried. 

So the skulls that you would have found in here would also have had the deformations.

The "Plaza of a thousand columns" - is a (probably) public area with long, wide sections of raised platforms with a grid of mostly-intact stone columns to hold up thatched roofs. 

Around the borders of the market area platform in the image below you can see a jaguar and an egale depicted in the stone, holding hearts of the enemies or the captives. Mercedes did some photo-shopping to outline the hearts and hands of the Jaguar and the eagle!

The temple of the Jaguar is the 'warriors' temple, and this is where the sacrificial alter is located on the top level with the pillars and walls. There is a statue of a guy laying down with a bowl/pedestal on his belly where the heart or head or other organs of a recently sacrificed person would be placed.

Turns out the statue of the guy to hold the organs appears quite often all around meso-america, and was dubbed "chacmool" and he is meant to be one of the mayan's greatest warriors. read more about it in the article here if you are interested: http://www.americanegypt.com/feature/cities/chichenitza/chacmool.htm 


Below: Front of the Jaguar Temple. Close up of the organ-holding part in the photo after this one.

Below: Close up of the statue which has a bowl/pedestal part around its belly area, to hold recently removed organs for rituals. Image stolen from shamanicdrumm.wordpress.com/tag/chichen-itza

Extra Random things:

Below: Background was thought to be a sauna and the foreground well-looking thing was though to be the cold pool

Mayan Roads - I asked if the Mayans built roads, despite them not having horses or carts or anything of that nature (he hold us this) and he said yes, and showed us an old mayan road at the Chichen-Itza site, and told us how the Mayans would clear out roads through the jungle and flatten the terrain for the roads to allow more efficient foot traffic for trade. They also had the concept of a toll road, where the city states would charge toll to travelers using the roads to help pay for maintenance and building of the roads.

The mayan roads were sometimes edged with low stone edge walls, or could have no defined edges, but they were typically built and then a lime based white plaster called Stucco would be applied. Imagine their white roads snaking through the jungle!

Below: Our German friend on the left walking on the Mayan road, over a thousand years old.

The Sacred Ceiba Tree

The guide tapped on a large tree with a bloated trunk which sounded hollow. The guide informed us that the tree was in fact not hollow and was porous, like cork. The tree was an old Ceiba tree, which is sacred in the Mayan culture. This tree is used in representations of the link between the heavens and the watery underworld. In our previous blog about Rio Secreto we took a picture of a younger Ceiba tree which had big thorns/spikes coming out of the trunk, but these older trees do not have any spikes anymore.






The illustration below is a graphical representation of the 12 layers (or planes) of the over-world, the middle plane where people live - the land of the living - and of the 9 layers of the underworld. The picture shows a cyclic diagram related to the day-night cycle, and how the mayans considered the Ceiba tree as the link between the worlds.  The ceiba tree can grow to be very tall, and the roots deep, probably why the mayans thought that it was the best representative to link everything as the 'tree of life'!

Illustration above of Ceiba tree showing the worlds taken from www.vgarthnorman.com/ 

A side note about the source of the picture above: Garth Norman is an Archaeologist, Archaeo-astronomer, Epigrapher, and Art Historian with Graduate degrees in Anceint Studies and Archaeology- Anthropology from Brigham Young University. Check out his website if you get the chance!





Every Mayan building site was first leveled and prepared, huge areas cleared and flattened with rubble and rocks and dirt until there was a nice flat platform. Then each building had its own platform/slab built as well, before building it. 

Left: shows the different platforms










The time we spent at Chichen-Itza was pretty amazing, and we definitely could have spent an additional few hours there to see more of the site including the cenote there, but we only had 2 hours to do the 'express tour' of select things to see there. Our guide Marco did an excellent job at showing us the major aspects of the site, and gave fantastic explanations and was very informative.

We were soon shuffled into the van again and drive another hour to the next part of our tour which was to a cenote (sink hole - cave with water in it!). They refer to the cenote as "Cenote Maya", in the tour. 

Above: We arrived at Cenote Maya! 
Below: Inside the cenote, you can't really see the zip-lines. We rappelled down the opening at the far side of the cenote from this picture's perspective.

source: https://www.cancunadventure.net/tours/chichenitza-cenotemaya/

We had the option of rappelling down ropes into the water, or walking down the zig-zag stair-case tower which descends into the cenote approximately in the center. 

We chose to rappel of course! 

Above: The rappel ropes come down from a platform above one of the openings in the roof of the cenote. Photo stolen from: www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g2093488-d3518917-i80305596-Ek_Balam_Mayan_Ruins-Ek_Balam_Village_Yucatan_Peninsula.html 

It was fun and exhilarating, and the first time either of us had done this before. While descending I (Kyran) found it was hard to keep my right hand below my hip line, to keep the rope tension under control while letting it slowly go through the metal loop to descend. 

While suspended in mid air, Mercedes noticed the spots of sunlight had little black cat fish in them, which was cool to see. Crystal clear water made it pretty easy to see them!

Before we could enter the cenote though, we had to pass through a little jungle walk and do a mayan ceremony just like we did for the Rio Secreto tour. Below is a cute little sculpture/ altar we passed, showing a representation of a mayan temple.

Below are some pictures we managed to take at the top of one of the three holes looking down into the cenote. We weren't allowed to take pictures anywhere inside, because they have a photography service which as usual was very expensive and was not willing to haggle or be flexible with their offerings, so we didn't purchase any. 

Below: Steps leading into the Cenote

Below: The rappelling platform is just visible at the top of the picture - the ladders are where you put your feed as you begin 'sitting' in mid-air. 

After rappelling into the Cenote, we spent about 45 minutes just swimming around, traversing the rope slack lines "trepachanga", diving off a 3m high diving platform into the clear and cold waters, and going on two zip lines, 3m and 5m above the water. The water was pretty deep, I believe I heard it was up to 20m deep in some sections of the cenote.

Swimming with and watching the little black catfish was nice too!




After our swim and adventures into and out of the cenote, we had a buffet lunch at the local kitchen at the tour site. We got to try some interesting food, like the Potato with mustard and honey which was really tasty - you can see it as the orange/yellow stuff on the left of the plate in the picture. There was also a soy textured vegetable protein with tomato, which was great for us vegans. (I know about the honey! but you do what you can!)
We also got to hang out at the bar and try some of their tequila and margaritas followed by some coffee with cinnamon added which was nice.

Well that brings us to the end of another blog post. It has been an information-filled blog but there was not near as much information that I would like to have added. Nonetheless I hope you have enjoyed it and stay tuned for the fourth and final part of our time in Mexico as we share what SCUBA dives we did, and the trip home. 

I leave you with some Mayan saying!

Nya b’a’n tu’n tcub’ neje, ex tu’n tcyija cyi’jxjal, aj toc ten b’etil ku’n b’e’x chi xjetw’elix timi× a mo tjosa.
It is not good to go forward and back while walking because this will cause abnormalities in your breasts (women) or testicles (men).

Nya b’a’n tu’n toc amle ti’ja, ku’n b’e’x cy-elil× miley.
It is not good that you wear a skirt if you are a male unless you want to menstruate.

Nya b’a’n tu’n t-xi t-xon tsmal twiy, t-xcy’aka, mo tstey, ku’n ka mina× i jet aj tcyima, ocx cok’ila cyi’j.
It is not good to throw away your hair, fingernails or teeth because if you don’t find them upon your death, you will regret it.

Well of all the things that I thought I was going to regret on my death bed!! Hahaha!

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Also if there is anything that is around where we are and you want us to see it/review it please do let us know! we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at:
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Mexico - Part Two - Diving refresher and Rio Secreto

Hello and welcome to day 2 and 3 of our time in Mexico.

If you're just joining us now Kyran and I are down in Mexico on the east coast in the Yucatan peninsula, near the city of Cancun for a week at an all-inclusive resort and these are the adventures that we have embarked upon so far. Lets get straight into it! 

Below: A photo first thing in the morning (before everyone was out of bed) of the area leading to the swimming pools.

First off on Monday morning we had to do our SCUBA dive refresher course as it has been 4 years since we last went diving (in Fiji, Feb 2014). We had two hours in the pool where we re-learned how to clear our mask and take off our BCD (Buoyancy Control Device - the jacket that makes you float), drop weights etc.

Below: Kyran and I and our friends James and Laura all doing our refresher quiz/test before heading out to the pool. 

It was good to do the refresher as we had forgotten some of the hand signals and even this new teacher had some extra stuff that she taught me that I don’t think I had been shown before. Kyran reckoned we had learned it before but I must have completely blanked it from my brain… and that is why it is good we did a refresher course.

Below: All kitted up and ready to head out to the pool! Extra dude on the right was learning for the first time.

After our two hour course we headed off to get an early lunch as we had booked a tour that would be departing at 12 pm. We managed to locate one of the many lunch buffets that are scattered all over this resort and we ate pretty quickly and got moving as we only had 15 mins till the bus was leaving.

What was the tour that we went on, I hear you ask? Well it is a secret!

Yep a secret river!! The tour was call ‘Rio Secreto’ (translated from Spanish means secret river).

Below: Us at the beginning of the tour at the entry sign.

If you want to find out more information about the Rio Secreto I have added a link below to their website.

www.riosecretomexico.com.mx

Below is some photos that I stole off their web site just so that you can get an idea of what we went to see. I had to steal from the internet as there was no photography or videography allowed. There was a dedicated photographer that tags along with your tour and takes photos of everyone and then at the end you get to review them and buy them if you like.
But we didn't buy any so enjoy these stolen photos!

So let me give you a quick run down of the "river" and how it works.
The "secret river" is an underground water system of caves and pools running a total of 35km, which have a slight gradient (1cm deeper per metre of distance) ending up feeding into the ocean. Water is collected through filtration by porous rocks comprising of limestone, which forms calcium carbonate stalactites and stalagmites and many other interesting formations in the caves. The fresh water is clear and a cool ~24 degrees (but feels colder!). The calcium carbonate powder and dust is everywhere, and makes for an interesting ambiance. We saw some bats, and small stunted catfish while doing the tour. 

So I guess I should summarize the tour:

Cost: $109 USD per person – Through our agent at the resort - prices may differ

Time: less then 5 hours (12pm pick up at resort 30 min drive and back before by 5)

Experience: Water was cold but it was a cave so… The tour guide Adriano was fantastic if there was a question that he didn’t know the answer to he found it out as soon as we got out the cave, and told us the answer while we were eating.

Side note: The Caves themselves had various rock formations and it was interesting to see and walk through. Compared to other cave tours that we have done it was good to actually be able to get into the water as other tours usually have the cave very restricted to maintain environmental equilibrium. I have been to other caves that had a wider variety of rock formations but this one was not disappointing it just did not have a "fried egg" or anything rare.

Photography: I must add this one here I usually make a point not to say anything negative in my blogs, but.... the photographer was fantastic and happy and friendly but once you see your photos he was asking $25 USD per photo. I felt that this was a bit expensive. As with most things in Mexico I tried to make a counter offer, but he would not budge so unfortunately no photos of us inside the cave. But you can see what the cave was like from the photos above. We still managed to grab a few selfies before and after in the staging area!

Overall: I think it was a fantastic thing to see. The caves were a good experience. The cost of the experience for the time that we spent there was perhaps a bit excessive. On the other hand I wouldn’t want the tour to go any longer, as the water was cold and you really start getting cold! also the rock formations all start to look the same.

Glad we did it, but would I do it again? Probably not, because we had mostly exhausted what was there to see.

Some additional pictures and commentary about our trip to Rio Secreto;
The drive there and back 7km into the jungle from the main road was a wild and bumpy road .See photo below.

We saw this spiky tree while in the staging area, it was intriguing! We later found out that this is a young sacred Ceiba tree. The Ceiba tree is important in the Mayan religious/spiritual world but we will cover that on a later blog entry. 

Below is the walking path towards the Rio Secreto entrance, and the Mayan purification ceremony we do before entering the underworld.

The picture on the left shows two trees in the foreground - the left tree called Chechen or the "Black sap poisonwood"(Black outline) it has a sap which burns your skin and gives you rashes with the same chemical as poison ivy, and is quite horrible. The tree on the right is called Chaca (White outline) and is the 'cure' to Chechen's poison, its bark has the healing sap which counteracts the other tree's sap. These trees are almost always found together, and it's not a coincidence! One theory I heard from the guide was that the left tree makes the ground around it difficult for others to grow nearby, except the cure tree, who as we know has a chemical agent which neutralises the other's defences. So they are found together because it is one of the only trees which can grow next to it!
The other theory is they have a similar fruit/flower and the same pollinators always end up visiting both trees and depositing in the same place, which causes them to grow commonly in close proximity like this.

There is also Mayan mythology about these trees: 

The Mayan legend tells of two great warrior princes who were brothers of enormous strength and skill but of completely different nature. The younger brother, named Kinich, was kind and merciful and loved by all, while the elder brother, named Tizic, was sullen, and drew strength from the hate and anger nursed in his heart. As legend has it, they both tragically fell in love with the beautiful Nicte-Ha.  The brothers declared a battle to the death to see who she would choose.

The battle was longer and more hideous than the world had ever seen.  The Earth was torn and the Heavens went into hiding.  Eventually both brothers died in each other’s arms. In the afterlife, they begged the gods for forgiveness, and a chance to return to the world of the living and see their beloved Nicte-Ha once more.

The gods granted their wish and Tizic was reborn as the Chechen tree, which seeps black poison from its branches and burns anyone who touches it, and Kinich was reborn as the Chacah tree, whose soothing nectar neutralises Chechen’s venom. They solemnly watch over Nicte-Ha, who having died of grief, was mercifully restored to life as a beautiful white flower.

Above story stolen from cancuntravel.wordpress.com/2016/04/01/the-mayan-legend-of-the-chechen-and-chaca-tree 

We had some food at the Rio Secreto little buffet area after the adventure in the caves and you can see some of it in the picture below, but there was also a vegetable/tomato based soup with limes in it, which is a local dish. "Sopa de Lima".

Below shows the common building style we see around here, which is a 'mud and straw' style walls and/or roofs. Pretty cool!

Hanging around on the beach after we got back to the resort

Well that bring us to the end of another blog. I hope you are enjoying our visit to Mexico as much as we are!

The next blog will be: Mexico - Part Thee - Chichen-Itza and a swim in a Cenote. Promises to be full of history and stories so stay tuned for that next!

Below: A local Iguana sunning itself!

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Also if there is anything that is around where we are and you want us to see it/review it please do let us know! we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at:
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