Chichen Itza

The locals call it Chichen so that’s what I do—ya know just trying to be native! 

No wonder this place is one of the Modern 7 wonders of the world…it’s absolutely amazing!! 

There are sides of it that are better preserved than others but all in all it is amazing!

OK so here is a spark notes version on Mayan beliefs and architecture:

Everything is built according to the 4 cardinal points (N,E,S,W) Their East is like our North. The most important of the 4. But there's actually a reason why; the sun rises in the east, representing new life.  It sets in the west representing death and condemnation.  

The main temple in Chichen was created right smack-dab in the middle of the city for many reasons.  One of them being that the sun casts shadows on it at certain times of the day.  When the sun sets it casts a shadow diagonally down the entire side of the temple in the form of a snake.  It follows the squares shown here to the left of the stairs.

Then the end of the shadow perfectly meets up with the head of a snake at the bottom of the temple. on the west side of the building.

West represents death, remember; if you walk directly west of the temple you run into a cenote which is where they sacrificed people and threw their bodies in believing that they would go to Xibalba (meaning the underworld).

It's amazing!  Everything in Mayan culture not only has a purpose but a "why" behind its purpose.  Also it all connects back to religion and nature.

Here are pictures of the other building we saw

Juego de Pelota field

Hiroglyphs on the side of the field

Pillars with hieroglyphs

Meet Chac (and Ben)Nobody is really sure if Chac was a God of some sort but what they think is that he was a structure to place offerings

After our tour with the archeologist we had half an hour to take pictures and shop at the tanguis that were set up all around.  They had some pretty cool stuff

After a long and hot day at Chichen we headed to a beautiful cenote to cool off.

No need to worry...this one isn't used for human sacrifices.  We walked down a long set of stairs to get down there and then we could jump in from the stairs on the middle left of the picture.  It was pretty cool!  Literally!  The water was cold but it felt really good!

Than we headed home!

I'm so lucky that I get to be here!  This is a once in a lifetime type of opportunity!