Strange as it may seem, I am posting this in 2015 although I’d visited Chichen Itza in December of 2006. There were a few things that have happened over the years between when I visited Itza in ’06 and now that probably have something to do with that. Three or four times my computer crashed while in Mexico and it’s very difficult to repair stuff inexpensively there, so I’d put it off and use my backup computer. I was traveling almost continuously. I slowly over time forgot about not posting an entry about Itza. Than there was the accidental deletion of my picture folder. More travel. Finally got a newer, better computer, found some undelete software and was able to recover the pictures. Something else went wrong and a hard drive crashed, it could have been months before I was both able and interested enough to restore pictures and that’s probably what happened here.
Mysterious things like this happened many times because I was always using ‘used’ or inferior computer devices, older OS’s, and free to me computers in order to try to save money. Recall that I retired eight years early and so was living on and trying to extend the proceeds of the sale of my house.
I remember how happy I was a few years ago when I stumbled onto hundreds of travel pictures on an old backup hard drive I’d thought lost. The pictures were restored and then I just missed writing the story that goes with this series of pictures in Itza so it never got posted. This sort of mix up does happen when you’re traveling and don’t have a set schedule for blog posts.
Anyway, eight plus years late, here is the story of my trip to the #1 Maya site in the Yucatan. It’s a modern wonder of the world. A World Heritage Site.
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After leaving Chetumal, I drove up the coast of the Yucatan intending to take a shortcut straight up to Chichen Itza, but lalalala, I just totally missed the turn off. (Even a couple hours later I couldn’t recall even seeing the turn off for the road). Oh, well. I’ll just keep going to Cancun, there’s a fairly nice RV park just north of town. But…I knew that Cancun wasn’t really Mexican. It was developed by a Dutch touring company and a monied investment consortium in the ’70’s on an area of beach that no one wanted. There was a tiny village nearby but that was it along much of the coast here. Anyway, I wasn’t all that interested in visiting Cancun to begin with but here I go missing my turn. Dammit. BTW, it’s 6 hours from Chetumal, and another 2 hours to Chichen Itza and the shortcut would have saved me 1/2 hour.
Well, I figure, I’ll make the best of it and stop at that RV park north of Cancun and visit for a couple days. So I’m driving into the city, on a four lane divided highway and everything looks so dull and boring…not my kind of Mexico. It’s just like they say, a big tourist trap and nothing else. Nothing Mexican looking about it, really.
So I see a turnaround…no signs saying it is but I figured I could make a U turn there without to much trouble. I haul my big ass 37′ RV to the turn and block traffic behind me, then try inching my way into traffic in the opposite lane. I find that there’s not much room here for my RV and have to stop and back up a bit to be able to make the turn. Meanwhile I’m blocking 2-3 lanes of traffic and coming the other way is a city bus guy looking right at me…but he smiles and waves and I notice that he’s actually cut off two lanes for me as he pulled up to the intersection! Nice! Anyway, I make the turn and head for Itza.
Two hours later I’m there, in the small village of Piste’ outside the ruins, and since the village is so small, quickly find my RV park. But I nearly passed it as the entrance was kind of hidden and was a little tight for my RV. Looked more like an alley at first glance. Had to make a couple tight cuts but made it in.
The place was empty of RVs but had the amenities I was looking for. Sewer, water, but only a 15A connection. But it was warm so I’d not need at all and the AC not likely. Everything about the park showing it’s age. The RV’ers restrooms were in pretty sad shape too. Doors wide open, not very clean, no TP or toilet seats. Well, OK, I can survive that. Stardust Inn was the name of the place, they don’t have an internet presence so I don’t know if they are still open these days or not. I walked around that first night trying to find an office but couldn’t. Church’s guide to Mexican camping said the caretaker lived back behind and he’d come and collect. He never showed up. I could see a house back there behind the fence, it looked deserted, and there was no gate to that property in the RV park fence. Lights in the house never came on. Gave up trying to pay as it got dark. I was hungry and needed to cook dinner so set it aside. Next morning, after my brain told me that the RV park might be attached to the hotel since it shared a wall, I walked in and a cute young thing behind the desk that knew a little English told me that yes they were the RV park too. But she didn’t know how much it would be for a weeks stay. She ran upstairs to talk to the ‘old woman’ as she put it and then charged me $7.62 per night. Wow. I’m liking that! I ended up staying for 10 days. After I’d been there 7 days, 3 really nice Class A rigs pulled in and I guess the manager came by and asked me very nicely not to mention what I was paying to the new guests. Hah! So it seemed as though the old lady didn’t really know what they were charging and just guessed. Well, it worked for me.
The next couple of days there at the RV park, I gathered information about Chichen Itza off the internet. Mostly, intellectually stimulating things wherever I could find a decent article. This because I’d been studying the Maya for decades. I liked doing that pre-review so I’d not be the typical stupid tourist. Be prepared, I always say.
The RV park was only a mile from Chichen Itza so I could walk on the nice sidewalk or ride my bike to the site with ease. There was a little convenience store right across the street from the RV park and 2 or 3 hole-in-the-wall restaurants where I did my shopping and ate 3-4 times during my 10 days in the village. After I’d been there several days, I asked a shop owner where I could get my bike fixed and he escorted me to the bike shop. Huh. That was nice of him. Then the shop fixed my bent wheel, fixed a couple other things, made several adjustments, and it was good as new. Cost was under $8. Then I was able to ride my bike all over this small village and check it out. Not the most interesting village I’d been in in Mexico, but it was friendly and easy to get around. <At one time I had some pictures of the town of Piste’ and where I stayed, but those were lost somewhere and sometime>.
Finally, I was ready, and walked the 1 mile to the Itza site. Early, like 8 AM arrival time. There were only 3-4 people in front of me when I bought my $9 ticket. Then I walked down this tree lined pathway…
The walkways on either side are where the vendors set up a little later in the morning. There’s one setting up early on the left in the above picture. Late in the day, both sides of this path are full of vendors.
You walk up that path, and it opens up on a big grass covered field where you get your first view of the pyramid:
And around on the other side, notice the snakes heads:
This side and two others have been restored. They are working on the forth side.
This is the last section needing restoration.
It’s spectacular. No wonder it’s considered one of the 7 wonders of the world on the new list. Then you turn around and find all these other ruins within spitting distance of the pyramid. Most of them with intricate carvings.
Turn around and there it is again…
It was blissful for me because I’d been an avid reader of studies of the Maya for decades. Must have read nearly 100 books about them. All these columns were very interesting. There would have been a ceiling at one time. Many ceilings were composed of tree trunks lashed together with grasses and branches providing cover, much like thatching found in England. In summer, they’d protect from the heat of the sun, and the rain showers. In winter they could be pried open a little to let in more light.
Everywhere you look or wander there’s more ruins. All fairly interesting…to me at least.
Here’s where you get a look at their attempt at a stone roof. They never invented the arch…or the wheel for that matter.
This was a house.
You might notice how few people there are in these pictures…that’s because I got here early and the tour buses don’t start arriving from Cancun until 11 AM and stagger their arrivals after that. So I’m far beyond where the crowds are right now. Eventually, it’ll get crowded as this place gets 2 million visitors a year, but arriving early means I can pretty much tour in peace.
And here a row of houses with a common front yard.
This is so you can get a sense of scale of the columns. And then I finally ran into some other tourists. And these folks had their own guide, and kept getting in my way.
This shot is of a dark and foreboding trail into the jungle. I went down it a couple hundred feet but it stayed pretty much the same the entire walk. Just a trail in the jungle. There was one small sign that said it was an ancient trail but no further info. There were a couple openings off that trail onto what I would suppose pass for meadows in the jungle, but could see no artifacts or ancient buildings anywhere. I learned later that the trail lead to a small well.
This is a modern example of the ancient thatching and mud hut methods. Very similar to European methods. It was a reconstruction to show us how most of the smaller houses were put together. They were saying that the typical Maya would have lived in this style house and just a few in stone houses.
Then we’re back in the main plaza. This plaza would have held thousands and the priests would have spewed their special brand of bullshit from the top of the pyramid, where, by the way, it was off limits to regular people. Death was the punishment. A plaque said that there was an altar in that building on top of the pyramid. Up there would have been where sacrifices were performed and the body pushed/thrown down the stairs.
Turn around and there’s more buildings…and this little guy.
See how that wall is angled? Their engineers & builders could do that angle hanging off the sides of buildings, anything of a flatter angle would have collapsed. They seemed to have perfected that building style and it was used both as an outside facia or an inside ceiling.
And these are the buildings around the ‘Ball Court’ area. Quite the assemblage. Look how high the goal is. Before I came here, I didn’t realize they could be so high.
The fans would sit on either end of the courtyard and also on top of the buildings. Even more would line the bottoms of the buildings and have to get out of the way when the players came their way.
You can see how the crowds have started to arrive. It’s around 11 AM and starting to get filled up here in the old town.
There seems to be a little storm heading our way. And below is a close up shot of the ball hoop after the crowd drifted away. All I did was sit down for 15 minutes or so and they seemed to wander away as a group. Thousands of these ball rings all over the Yucatan were stolen and are in private collections, then there are hundreds in museums. There are 12,000 known Mayan ruins, most of them with ball courts.
This building was at one end of the ball court. Seemed as though it must be part of the facility but for what, I don’t recall. But I think it was where the King and his court sat during the games. Remember that some games were to the death, and some not. Some were played by captives against the home team, others captives only. Sometimes the winning team was killed, sometimes the losing team.
Huge, isn’t it. I mean the ball court. Putting this much effort into what was essentially a stadium suggests that at one time, at least, the Maya had both the treasure and the leisure time for sports.
Look at this place. Wow. Explains why the Spanish were stunned first time they came here. By the way, I’m not posting all these pictures to annoy you folks, but for myself really. I do read my own blog quite often to remind myself of places I’ve been.
This was the backside of the building above. Unfinished berm. Shows how they put the buildings together mostly of rubble, then covered it with facia stones. 
And back to the main plaza. Seems like all roads lead here. Then I started heading towards the main cenote here in the city. There were several, and I visited them all, but this one was the biggest with the richest history. These were the buildings and paths along the way.
One of the sidewalk vendors had these. I really, really wanted some of his stuff but remember I was still trying to be conservative with my money so I passed on them. He wanted me to pay him for taking a picture and I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to him about his attempt. Maybe if he hadn’t jumped me ‘after’ I’d taken the picture and tried to be a bully about it I would have been more kind.
This path in the below picture is 2,000 years old. It leads to the cenote…where they got their water until they started throwing sacrifices into it. The pathway was built up enough that archeologists thought it had become a processional pathway. This is where they’d carry, drag, or accompany sacrifices to the gods. And angry, bloodthirsty gods they were too! 
Getting close. It’s right there. What, can’t see it?
Ran into this rabid dog at the cenote. Threw him a leg of man and he wandered off with it, so I was safe for a while.
And here is the first view. This is the reason the people actually settled here. Lots of water. Later, of course, the priests co-opted the whole thing and twisted it into some kind of religious bullshit, but this is the real reason. Water. After I bought a coffee and snack, I wandered down there and sat on the edge.
And an ancient guard shack…according to the sign. Eventually, they were making sacrifices here so often they had to keep regular people away. Early archeology found thousands of artifacts here underwater but they are distributed to 10’s of museums and private collections all over the world. And though this tiny building was for guards, that building in the background was where you got your coco. Now they serve all sorts of drinks. So in modern times, it’s still performing the job it was built to do.
No snakes or anything.
Water color kept changing on me while I sat on the edge and enjoyed my coffee with cocoa. Clouds passing overhead did their work on the colors.
Just a few steps from the cenote was this set of buildings and if I recall, the archeologists weren’t certain what they were for.
So then I take a different path back to the main plaza. I thought this view (above) was a little eerie off into the jungle. I should have run the picture through a filter or two but, meh.
Some new wave hippy pointing out something. I’m laughing to myself while he was making a big bunch of BS right here for his group. Which I wasn’t a part of but could overhear. I tried not to step in anything he might have dropped. But I took a picture of what he was pointing at. It’s magical! HAH!
And then back at the pyramid I spy these people up there on top. What the hell? Everything I read said that no one was allowed up there. So I was curious. I noticed a Mexican National Park guy very near so I went and asked him about it. “Oh, those are Maya, they are the only people allowed to climb the ruin of the pyramid because they built it”. Ah. Ok. Well, as I walked home, I resolved to find some official next time I came who I could offer $200 pesos to to try and get permission. Eventually, there were like 30 people up there. So I might be able to sneak in unnoticed. Maybe.
Can’t remember what this building below as all about. Maybe the observatory.
This is the only side of the pyramid I haven’t shown yet. Note that it’s also restored. Just that one side (on the right in this picture) left to go. There’s some touch up needed of course…there always is.
And a little closer.
After those few more shots of the pyramid, I wander down to the ticket office where there’s a coffee bar and such and enjoyed a nice snack and coffee while avoiding the tiny rain shower that happened by at the time. What an experience. Really enjoyed my visit to Chichen Itza. It turns out that if you enter the cafe, you’ve left the park and have to pay again if you want back in. Luckily, that meant little to me as I’d already taken the time to see the entire park, plus since I was staying in town just a mile away, I could come back anytime for another tour. Which I was already planning to do.
Hope you enjoyed this visit.