Chichen Itza!!!

/ Ed Armstrong
For me, the highlight of this trip has been to see Chichen Itza!! It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site!! It is absolutely amazing too see the Mayan engineering and mathematical applications as they built such an incredible structure!! Two sides have been repaired and two sides have been left in rustic conditions.

This angle of Chichen Itza shows a fully refurbished side of the pyramid.

The ballcourt at Chichen Itza is the largest ballcourt in the entire Mayan region!! It is absolutely huge!! The ring can be seen in the middle of the wall.

This is the ring in the middle of the ballcourt! I have absolutely no idea how the players manage to hit the rubber ball through that hole!!

This Mayan carving shows incredible detail of a ballcourt player. One foot is wearing and sandal the other foot is wearing a “boot” to kick the rubber ball. He has an amazing headress!! The players wore elaborate dress when playing.

This player has the same shoes (sandal and boot), and is in elaborate dress as well with his helmet and body armor.

This structure was built at the end of the ballcourt. It is one of the many different viewing areas.

This snake head was near the ballcourt and ran along the edge of the wall.

This warrior has all of his war materials, including spears and blow darts!!

This guy is holding the head of someone in his left hand!! Maybe it is the head of the loser in the rubber ball game? I like this guy’s headdress!! You can see he is wearing knee pads.

This is the cenote at Chichen Itza!! It is notorious for having been used for sacrificing people. They would throw live people over the edge and into the cenote. If they lived after two days, they were considered a semi-God.

All kinds of venders were along the causeway. I loved the colors of this pottery. I bought a t-shirt!

This building is called the “observatory.” It was built to study hundreds of heavenly bodies. The Mayan understanding of math and astronomy was amazing!!

These are building are behind the king’s palace and may have been built by a son to honor his father the king after his father had died.

After leaving Chichen Itza, we drove to Selva Maya to eat lunch and swim in their cenote!! The water was a bit chilly, but not bad once you were in the water. It was so much fun to swim in this cenote!! I is continually refreshed by underground rivers!! We swam under the waterfall and it was fun when the water came down on our heads!!