Mexico Part 4: Visiting Chichen Itza - One of the new 7 world wonders (Fotos + Videos)

The next day we woke up early. Before we took off, we bought some cookies and electrolyte for Elena as she still felt a little bit sick and then got our stuff and went to the harbour with a golf cart taxi.

There we took the next boat towards Chiquilá. The ticket costs around 150 pesos, you never wait long as the boat is crossing every 30 minutes and the crossing itself takes about 40 minutes.

At the harbour in Chiquilá we picked up our car and got ready for a 2,5 hrs roadtrip to Piste, a little village right next to one of the modern 7 world wonders: Chichen Itza.

The road was a mix between crossing small villages and straight highways right through the jungle. It was a little bit further than expected and we had to hurry a bit to have enough time at the ruins, so sadly we couldn't stop at one of the many cenotes on the way.

Chichen Itza is located in the middle of the jungle right in the heart of Yucatan. Arriving at the sight we parked right at the entrance (40pesos) and got our ticket (400 pesos).

For me it was the third time visiting the ruins, but every time when I get there I can feel a mystic vibe, even on touristy days. We bought our tickets at the entrance and usually you should definitely get a guide!

Most of the guides are Mayan and know a lot about the place because their ancestors lived there and the Mayan culture is still existent. They still know a lot about the different gods and habits. I didn't know that, but there are even mayan schools still active!

Its ruins date from the late Mayan period. With an area of 1547 hectares, Chichén Itzá is one of the most extensive sites in Yucatán. The center is occupied by numerous monumental representative buildings with a religious-political background. In the immediate vicinity are ruins of upper-class houses.

Only a small part of Chichén Itzá is accessible to tourists, where most of the buildings have been excavated and partially reconstructed. This part lies on a large terraced area and is surrounded by a wall that has been erected in individual places (as at the beginning of the path to the Holy Cenote). The different parts of Chichén Itzá were connected by brick paths called sacbé.

Today I will tell you about some of the most important buildings of the area: El castillo, the temple of the warriors + group of thousand columns, the sacret cenote and the great ball court.

The name "Chichen Itza" means "At the mouth of the well of the Itza" and its Mayan. But what a lot of people don´t know is that there is evidence in the Chilam Balam books of an earlier name. This earlier name is difficult to define but it could mean Uuc Yabnal ("Seven Great House"), ("Seven Great Rulers") ,Uc Abnal ("Seven Lines of Abnal") or Uuc Hab Nal ("Seven Bushy Places").

Today I would call it one of the 7 world wonders ;)

At the ruins it is really hot and humid, so we made sure we had a hat with us and put some sunscreen on. We could buy drinks at several points in the area.

Once we entered we crossed a little bit of jungle until we arrived at the plateau and saw el castillo.

El Castillo: Temple of Kukulkan.

This step pyramid is about 30 metres high. The sides of the pyramid rise at an angle of exactly 53° and are approximately 55.3 metres long. All four faces of the pyramid have stairways that rise at an angle of exactly 45°.

Every 21 of March and 21 September (at the beginning of spring and autumn) in the late afternoon the sun is just in the perfect angle.

Only on this dates, the northwest corner of the pyramid shows a series of triangular shadows against the western balustrade on the north side.

It looks exactly like the appearance of a snake wriggling down the staircase- for Mayan people it is the representation of the feathered-serpent god Kukulkan.

Also if you stand just in front of the stairs and clap in your hands you get an cool echo, which sounds just like the Quezal bird. - It is really amazing and a bit scary to be honest how detailed and exact this culture was already thousands of years ago.

The Great Ball Court

The Great Ball court right newt to the Castillo is by far the most impressive. It is the largest and best preserved ball court in ancient Mesoamerica and also one of the biggest. - Last time I was here we couldn't enter it because of renovation, but now it was just awesome!

It is impressive 168 meters long and 70 meters wide. Mayan people would play for special occasions with a ball made of rubber from the rubber plant. It was really difficult to get the ball in one of the rings on the sides without using their feet or hands. This particular ball court also has an impressive architecture regarding the sound.

Walking from one building to another there are a lot of souvenir stands with Mayas selling masks, sculptures, hammocks, t-shirts, jewelry, etc. - It is insane how touristy this spot became, but at least they have to be Mayan to get a permission to sell - so it stays within the community.

The prices are even less expensive than in Playa del Carmen so I recommend to support them right there knowing that it gets directly to the people who produce.

Sacred Cenote

Image Credit

Following one of the mayan roads behind the ball court you can go to the sacret cenote. Elena didn't feel good enough to stay long enough, so this time we didn't go there. But I had seen it before.

Almost every Mayan place had one of these for them sacret sinkholes nearby to get fresh water and conduct sacrifices. Thousands of objects have been found on the bottom of this cenote. Most of it was gold, jade, copal, flint, pottery, obsidian, shell, rubber, wood and cloth. This is not a surprise as the cenotes are sacret entrances to the underworld gods for the Mayan culture.

In another documentary not that long ago I even heard that they had found another cenote right below El castillo. It wasn't possible to see it though.

Temple of the Warriors

The temple of the warriors was made for my favorite mayan god, the rain god Chac Mool, whos statue is just on top of it. As Chichen Itza is one of the ancient cities with more than one architecture style, people believe that not only Mayas lived here. This particular temple for example shows a typical architecture of the Tolteken culture, which lived there afterwards.

Most of the ruins have all kinds of temples. Each temple is devoted to another god. In Chichen Itza you can find a lot of them. They not only had one for Kukulkan and Chac Mool but also different animal temples like the Jaguar Temple, one for nature itself, plants, birds etc.

Group of thousand columns

At the south and east of the warrior temple is a pillared hall originally covered with Mayan vaults. It collapsed everywhere because the wooden beams that spanned the gaps between the pillars were messed up.

The pillars made of square stone blocks originally supporting the roof are mostly sculpted on all sides. They show warriors in Toltec costume and equipment, in the lower and upper registers representations of snakes and the bird man.

From there we walked a bit further along the souvenir shops through the jungle until we arrived at the most amazing building.

The "El Caracol" observatory temple.

This one is my favorite buildings. 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.

But they didn't just use it for watching the stars. The observatory was really important for architecture, too. With dates from different mayan cities they were able to build streets going straight from one to another without any curves or hills.

This streets are called white streets because the were build with white stones so they would see it still at night with moon reflection in order to not get lost. Generaly those streets were used for commerce and communication between them.

Chichen Itza is a really interesting place, with a extraordinary vibe and a lot of interesting people (guides). Maybe it is a lot more touristy these days than it used to be and other ruins are also really interesting and less touristy, but it is still worth it to go and it deserves to be a world wonder!

For Elena as she still was sick, this humid hot conditions were really difficult to manage, so in the end we didn't stay too long and soon went back to the car - back to have air condition ;)

From there we drove towards Playa del Carmen, where we would stay the next days as it is the perfect spot to explore the Riviera as it is just in between Cancun and Tulum.

On our way through the villages and the highway through the jungle Elena fell asleep and I was getting hungry. So once we arrived at the city we checked into our Airbnb apartment and had a quick shower.

From there we went to have dinner at Casa Sofia, my favorite italian restaurant in Playa del Carmen. For the first time since she was sick, Elena was hungry again so I ordered brushetta and pasta for her.

I was glad that she felt better as there was so much more to show her at the Riviera, but more about that soon!

After dinner we both were really tired and decided to drive home and get some rest after that really long day!

Cheers, Liz