Day 1 o' Mexico

Last week was my trip to Mexico. This week was my recovery period from getting a small bug and completely changing my diet for a week (in what many would consider an extreme and bad way). That aside, I had a great time in Cancun. The first day we got there late and only had time to breath in the humidity and get used to the idea of tipping everyone who looked at us (the effect of being in a foreign tourist city, I suppose). Our first REAL day in Mexico, we headed to the ancient Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza on a tour bus, passing through several small towns and interesting places. Our first stop on the tour was at a large sink hole/underground cave known as a cenote (Mexico apparently has thousands of them, though most are undiscovered and many are linked together). You can see in the pictures below that the cenote was actually very large and interesting. It was full of stalagmites and stalagtites (there ought to be a single word to describe them both. Maybe I'll just take an academic approach and stick with "cave-thingys"), um, so yeah, it was full of cave-thingys, as well as fish and bats. You'll see the original opening in one of the pictures below. Should one fall into the opening, they would find a long drop and a hard landing, so it's generally best to be avoided.

The original entrance.


The view from the current entrance.


Proof that I was either there, or that I'm familiar with Photoshop.


The cenote from the other side.


Ditto.

After the Cenote we drove through some small Mexican towns and had lunch. I'm told that one of the dishes was iguana. I don't know if that's true, but there was a dish with fried white meat that didn't seem to be either fish or chicken. In fact, it was somewhere in between (however, fishy-chicken is MUCH better than fishy-beef. Always avoid alligator sausage...). Following lunch we headed to Chichen Itza, which is one of the most famous and most spectacular of all the Mayan ruins. The large pyramid reflects the Mayan calendar with a total of 365 steps and the larger levels representing the months of the Mayan Calendar. We also saw the famous ball court where the Mayans would try (in two teams of three) to shoot a rubber ball through a small and rather high hoop without using their hands or feet. To kick the ball they would have to lunge and smack it with their knee, or they could use their hips or their head once it was in the air. The winning team had a special honor. One of the three players would have the privilege of being beheaded for their gods. I'm a very competitive person, but I think I would be ok losing at that game.

A small Mexican town.


Chichen Itza


Me in front of the pyramid for either perspective or Photoshop bragging rights.


The court where the game was played. Notice the hoops in the center of both sides.


You can see how high the hoops really are in this picture.
The Mayans were also a rather small people as far as stature goes.


A depiction of the victor being gloriously beheaded.


The place where the heads are buried.
(On the other side of it, an early archeologist carefully excavated the site using dynamite. Fast, effective, but not generally used by many archeologists. Weird...)


The court from the outside.


The first wild iguana we saw. We were pretty excited, but about 50 iguanas later, the thrill wore off.


Some of the Mayan's handiwork.


I have to wonder what this place looked like "back in the day."


The "Observatory."


I'm not sure what this place was used for, but it's cool, right?