Chichen Itza, Mexico
We spent the nights of Christmas Eve and Christmas at a hotel within walking distance of Chichen Itza. Part of a small chain called Villa Archaeologicos, these were once Club Meds but have been bought up, and they’re all right next to Mayan ruins. Our beachfront place in Sian Ka’an (Cesiak) was great, but fairly overpriced considering the shared composting toilet and only brackish water to wash/shower in. Here there is a hint of faded glory, appropriate given the setting next to the ruins of the great Mayan city, I suppose, but overall it is quite nice with a large step up in housing quality and (surprisingly), at only about half the cost. There are small museum-piece-type archaeological finds put behind glass in various places in the courtyard, and there are some HUGE tropical trees that they apparently built the hotel around, which is cool.
When we arrived, I asked if there were any interesting cultural events surrounding Christmas (Feliz Navidad!) in the nearby town. The clerk seemed confused by my question, but did hand me a program for the hotel’s own Christmas celebration to be held on the evening of the 25th. The program was all in Spanish, and I wasn’t going to plan our day around it, but if we happened to be at the hotel when it was going on, so be it.
Our visit to Chichen Itza was excellent. We got up early and hired a guide, trying to get there near opening to beat the expected crowds. Surprisingly, we did. For the first 2 hours at least, there were hardly any people there, and even the hundreds of vendors that set up merchandise booths were still unpacking their wares when we finished our tour. Our tour, advertised as three hours, didn’t quite make it to two, and by the end our guide was dismissively waving his hands quickly towards several rather impressive structures off in the distance, but didn’t seem interested in actually walking us over there and touring them. No matter. It was Christmas morning, and our guide Diego had apparently been partying with the family until 3am, then got up at 7am to meet us. He guided quite well on a hangover, all things considered, and he didn’t get double-pay or anything resembling overtime from us, so I won’t complain too much. It was still a worthwhile tour. For those who have been before, I’m sorry to disappoint you that you can no longer climb on any of the Mayan ruins, especially the big pyramid. Apparently you could up until 5 our 6 years ago, when the combination of a visitor falling to her death and the elevation of Chichen Itza to one of the new “Seven Wonders of the World! caused the authorities to reconsider previous tourist freedoms. There are other Mayan ruins where you can still climb around on stuff Indiana Jones style, and hopefully I’ll have a report of those later.
Chichen Itza was a major Mayan city from roughly 650-1350 AD, and at various times was a political and/or religious capital of the Mayan civilization that stretched over the entire Yucatan peninsula and down into present day Guatemala, Belize, and El Salvador. Roughly 20-50,000 people (estimates vary greatly) lived in the Chichen Itza metro area at it’s peak, which sounds small to modern day observers but would have rivaled our exceeded any European city of its day. Like today, the elites lived in walled-off compounds from the 99%, with the stinking masses living outside the ruins we see today, leaving no substantial stone memories of their passing. The ruins you see today were mostly ceremonial and religious, probably equivalent to visiting Washington D.C. in the year 2739 and only seeing the remnants of the National Mall with the Smithsonian and a few crumbling neo-classical monuments left above the swamp waters. Still, what you can see is rather impressive.
The Mayans were excellent astronomers, so that their buildings acted as calendars, lining up equinoxes, solstices, and various movements of Venus exactly with features of the buildings. On the equinoxes, thousands of tourists throng to see the central pyramid create a shadow that resembles a serpent, which when it touches the ground was supposed to indicate the correct planting/harvesting time. They apparently could predict eclipses up to 32 years in advance. The ability to correctly predict the seasons and thus the right time to plant (there is a rainy/dry season here) would give you great power, apparently enough to create a whole religious system of astronomical observation and regular human sacrifice. The Mayans really were into the sacrifice thing. There was a platform decorated with hundreds of engravings of skulls where heads were removed. There was a ball game (somewhat like soccer or lacrosse) where the players had to pass around a heavy (12 pounds+) hard rubber ball without the use of their hands or feet, eventually getting the ball up through an elevated stone ring (higher than a basketball hoop). Sources differ whether the losing or winning team captain was then sacrificed (our guide said the winner, because it was an honor, and the loser had to do the decapitation, which humiliated him). Alternatively, the top of one of the temples held a special jaguar-inspired statue, which is where the priests placed the still-beating heart of a recent sacrifice, done daily to ensure favorable weather. These sacrifices were not an honor, just you know, daily prayers, so they used slaves. Then as now, being a slave was just not a very good career path.
Many of the Mayan buildings at Chichen Itza have very cool acoustical design. Some of it was likely to project the priests’ voices over the courtyard, but today it means that if you clap your hands at the base of the main pyramid, it echoes and reverberates in a way to produce a sound like a high-pitched gunshot, or, as our guide said, like the call of a quetzal bird. Choose your reference point. In the royal ball court, the echoes bounced off concave walls to make a clap echo up to seven times in staccato succession – a very cool effect, until the tour bus groups all tried to do this together, and they couldn’t get their timing right, leaving a lame muddled cacophony of “Gee, why are we clapping again?”
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| THE Chichen Itza pyramid, called El Castillo. Note the serpent heads at the bottom right. |
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| The largest ball court found in any Mayan ruins. You can see the loop the players had to throw the ball through high on the walls further back in the picture. |
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| An example of the carvings in the temple walls - this shows a beheaded winner (or loser?). |
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| Another building was covered with images of skulls - all the winners (losers?) of the ball games. |
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| The observatory. |
Note to my sister and brother: Many of the vendors were selling whistles that produced the rather startling sound of a jaguar growling when you blew into it. They liked to play a cute little bird whistle for a while, then switch to the jaguar, just to make sure they had your attention. They had our attention. Much as I hated the whistles, I couldn’t ignore them. They’re awful. Apparently we’re hard wired to notice things such as jaguars growling in the jungle. Puts you on edge, to say the least, but I suppose if Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Grog hadn’t been paying attention to those things, I wouldn’t be hear writing this today. At any rate, all the kids loved the whistles. I consider getting one for Joe J and John V, who would have loved them. But you wouldn’t have. And you would have never forgiven me, and likely would have reciprocated with something awful in the future. In fact, I should be keeping a list of all the wonderful/awful presents that I haven’t bought as gifts over the years as the non-custodial uncle. It really does show a great deal of restraint, believe it or not.
The Mayans were (are!) short. The women were about 4 feet tall, and the men about 5 feet. There are still quite a few Mayans in the area (and Mayan is spoken as the first language in many homes). Shannon had the unusual feeling of towering over people here – not so common for her!
We were pretty worn out by lunch time, so headed back to our hotel for a mellow Christmas afternoon. As I sipped my margarita by the pool, I watched workmen spend many hours wrestling with the props and sound and light system for the upcoming Christmas pageant. Weird and distinctly not It’s a Wonderful Life props. There was an 8 foot tall piece the size of a commercial refrigerator that looked like a model of DNA. There was a shopping basket that had been converted to have a human-sized birdcage like structure around it, with a car battery attached for some lighting effects. There were many other objects I can’t really even begin to describe. It seemed like these had been used year after year for this event only, getting a few updates every year. What was this pageant going to be?
The show was supposed to go up at 6pm, but no one was here. About 6:20, we wanted to take a dip in the pool, but by that time a man in some semblance of traditional Mayan garb called several loud notes on his horn, and lit the incense, and started the show. Shannon and I watched from behind the “stage” for a while, wanting to get in the chilly pool but not wanting to disturb the performance. As the show got going, more people stopped to stare. There were about a dozen people in total watching, including the restaurant waitstaff. It was mostly a ballet, of sorts. There was drumming. There were synthesizers. It was very heavy. I think the title of the show translated into something like “The Dwarf Legend of Ushmal” which doesn’t mean a whole lot to me either. There was a man in a full body spandex suit, doing some slow interpretive moves. The ending involved a fire twirler. I kept wanting to leave to go to dinner, but was compelled to stay. It was awful and weird and mesmerizing. I have no idea what it was about or why it was in any way a Christmas story. I’m not convinced that if I spoke Spanish or Mayan that I would have understood a whole lot more. I have included a video and photos to try to help explain.
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| The Dwarf Legend of Uxmal in front of the hotel swimming pool. |
After this first act, there was supposed to be an act of more traditional Mexican folk dancing. There were several ladies dressed up in pretty white with flowers dresses. Shannon wanted to see this, but we waited twenty minutes and it seemed the organization was lacking. Were they going to take the whole stage down before the next act? (No. Most of it was still up this morning.) We left for an uninspiring dinner in town. When we got back, a live classical music trio was supposed to be playing as the third act, but the whole place was deserted. Apparently the Dwarf Legend of Ushmal was too much for anyone to top.
It's chilly this morning – had to put on my long sleeve (with shorts) as I sit by the pool. Tee hee. In an hour or so there will be sun in the courtyard and it will be plenty warm. Green parrots are squawking as they fly overhead.
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| A Mexican Christmas tree - made out of palm leaves. |
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| We really liked these three-wheeled bikes. We saw people and goods being transported on them. |
