Visiting Ancient Mayan Cities: Chichen Itza

The one and only thing we had scheduled on our trip to Cancun was a tour of the ancient cities in the Mayan Riviera.  We were so fortunate to be told of some LDS tour guides there, and we had a our own private 12 hour tour to three of the ancient cities.  It is beyond describable how amazing it actually was!

I loved every single minute of it, even the 2 hour car rides between cities while we drove through little mayan towns and villages and saw what real life was like for those people there right now.  We saw the men riding their make-shift bikes with a rifle attached to them, looking for deer for dinner that night, or collecting wood in a bundle on the backs of their bikes.  We saw their little huts they lived in, and all their laundry hanging out on a line on "main street", and plenty of stray dogs wandering the streets and highways.  We are very very fortunate to have all the modern day amenities and luxuries that we do.

On to Chichen Itza...

So this was our first stop for the day, 2 1/2 hours inland from Cancun, and an extremely popular place.  

First arriving to Chichen Itza and seeing the main temple.  

Our tour guide was a native Mayan, studied mayan anthropology in Mexico City for 7 years, speaks I think 7 languages, used to work for the government on the ruins, but loves being a tour guide better.  He was a wealth of information, of which I can remember about 5% of what he taught us.  So first thing he told us was that Mayan people have 5 holidays (still today), which are the equinoxes and solstices, making up 4 of them, and then April 6th, the birth of our Savior.  I thought it was amazing.  

So the temples in all the cities are very precisely built to celebrate these holidays, and also reflect the Mayan calendar.  The number of steps they have, the angle of the temple, etc.  There is so much symbolism on the walls of all the buildings it is unbelievable!

This is part of their "football" stadium where they would play ball, which was actually like our modern-day soccer played without hands.  It was a huge thing!  So the playing cities would assemble themselves atop these huge walls on both sides to watch the game.  They tried getting this rubber ball (made from the trees there) through these round rings (below) that were attached to the walls.  The acoustics were amazing in this place, and it was built this way on purpose.  You could clap and here it from one end to the other, with large echoes.  Our tour guide believes this is the perfect "Samuel the Lamanite" setup.

This picture shows the staircase on the left of how they got up on the tall walls to watch them play ball.  And it looks very similar to how the church has portrayed the picture of "Samuel the Lamanite" standing on the wall.

The walls of every single building were covered in very detailed heiroglyphics, which once were painted (that would have been an amazing sight!).  I can hardly remember what it all meant, but this above and below show a man carrying off a head of another.  The best players on the teams were beheaded (and I can't remember why now).  The snakes were EVERYWHERE.  They represent Jesus Christ.  They are often seen with feathers, and called the Feathered Serpent.  

Temple of the Warriors:

This temple is next to the main temple, and archeologists call is Temple of the Warriors and say it was built to dedicate to the fighting men.  What is astonishing is that if you look closely, you can see columns erected everywhere around it.  There are 2000 round columns and 60 square columns.  What's the significance or symbolism?  Alma 57 - the 2000 and 60 stripling warriors.

Pillars around the Temple of the Warriors

The Jaguar - this is very significant, and everywhere, but I honestly cant remember what is meant. :)

Here is an upclose view rigt next to one of the staircases of the main temple.  You can see a doorway. The temple is actually hollow inside, which is even more amazing, with another smaller temple built inside of it.  It has tombs in it in which they found women skeletons sitting up in a fetal position.

Also you can see this 'treasure box' made of stone above.  Inside were found metal plates with writings on them.  Very cool!

A baptismal font.  We saw these in each of the cities we visited.

The Observatory.  This was in the "Before Christ" area of 'town'. Mayans were very into astronomy and had temples built for the Gods of the stars.

This is part of the "Before Christ" area of 'town'.  The used a little different architecture in this area, all with the symbolism to show "before Christ" and "after Christ" time periods.  You can see in this picture how ornate the outsides of the buildings were.  This is part of an exterior wall to their church.

This was in the 'Before Christ' time period as well.  It shows how inside these building they are hollow, then with other building built within them.

This is a pathway through Chichen Itza where all the locals, who still live right there next to these temples in the jungle, bring out all their handcrafted goods that they have made to sell to all the tourists each day.  They assemble these little shops and disassemble every single day.  And they say everything is $1, but if you stop to check it out the price changes.  I did end up with a cute little clay turtle, painted and kiln dried by the fire, perfect for Mackenzie, and she LOVES it!

Just a little ways down the road from Chichen Itza we stopped for lunch and checked out this cenote.  It is a natural water hole.  The Mayan Riviera is filled with underground rivers everywhere, and these occasional holes.  The water is cold they say, but people are crazy and have to swim in these one-of-a-kind places.