Chichén Itzá, Izamal, and Merida

 Monday, October 27, 2025  (about 12,000 steps!)

We're meeting for breakfast at seven and we are right on time!  But no one is sitting at our table!! The waiter tries to move us to another table that is already set with orange juice and fruit but Ginger comes in and it turns out we were right all along!  The bread is still delicious and the Mexicana eggs are, too!  After another night of night sleeping I decide to go with the tea since they don't have decaf, and I'll be foregoing alcohol with dinner tonight to see if that makes a difference!

Ginger and Juan showing off the orange that Juan grew!

Love my Mexicano!

Even though it's outside, there is still a designated smoking area! I've seen vere few smokers.

We were supposed to leave at eight and we're pretty close to on time!  A few of us just want to wait until we see our bags go into the van and, sure enough, here they come!  Now we're on to Chichén Itzá, the largest Mayan city in the peninsula. The name means "Edge of the Well of the Itza", which is the name of the tribe who lived here. They conquered two of the other large cities and, as we learned yesterday, Ek Balam just said "here we are, take us"! It's hard to imagine the scope of the city!!  And there are still large areas that haven't been excavated.  You are no longer allowed to climb the ruins and it is hard to believe that Ginger and I climbed all the way to the top of the major pyramid, which the Spanish called El Castillo.  this step pyramid dominates the city and Juan has told us that it has three major functions. The first is religious and you can see where the priests stood at the top to perform lengthy ceremonies while the people stood below, often for hours on end!  The second function is as a calendar.  Each of the four stairways has 91 steps for a total of 360 days, and the platform at the top adds the other five. The third is astronomical.  The two equinoxes are marked by the shadow falling directly on the corner of the pyramid and the solstices allow the sun to shine directly through two holes at the top.

Although it's the low season, there are still plenty of tourists who want to see the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

No one is allowed to climb on the ruins any more.  But I remember going all the way to the top with Ginger, back in the day!

Ginger and Juan remember that, too.

sacrificial altar

Here you see a warrior holding the weapon he used to cut off his enemy's head. And you can see that he is. holding the head.  But look at his legs. Those are bones because he is a skeleton, no longer alive!
But when you see snakes coming out, they represent blood.  And sometimes one of them becomes the 
tree of life.

The snake motif is everywhere as he was so powerful. You can see his rattles!

The eagle and the jaguar were very important.  The eagle hunts by day and the
jaguar by night. 

Can you see that the eagle is eating a human heart, from one of the sacrifices?

The ceremonial processions leading up to the sacrifice were led by a warrior with a tall
stick on which three skulls were displayed.

Not everything here is thousands of years old!!

There is so much to see here!!  There is the Temple of the Warriors and the observatory and what the Spanish called the Nunnery and so much more!  There is the Sacred Cenote, which is where they sacrificed the virgins and the largest ball court in the world.  In fact the archeologists say you couldn't really play here, it was just for ceremonies! Juan teaches us so much about how to read the carvings and the story of the Feathered Serpent, or Quetzalcoatl.  He was a man before becoming a god (sound familiar) and combines the characteristics of the snake, a very powerful being, and the eagle, another force to be reconned with!

The ball court is so enormous that it couldn't be used for the game, only ceremonies.

The circle in the center is a shield with a human skull.

Thank goodness for Ginger's hat, it's so easy to spot!

Yep, that's a rain cloud.  But the rain is so gentle and short-lived that we just keep on truckin'!
(I think that guy is in witness protection!)

I believe this is the Temple of the Warriors.  The Spanish thought there were a thousand columns extending in both directions.  They were pretty close!  The archeologists say there are 732.

This piece actually belongs on top of the building behind it! The nose of the
rain god sticks out on the left; there are three of them.

There must be three or four hundred vendors and many things are probably made in 
China;  but this man is one of the artisans whose goods are truly hand made.

The Observatory.  It is like a set of nesting dolls with three concentric rings inside. They could
observe the stars through the top but also through holes in the sides to determine the solstices, the equinoxes, and gauge the growing seasons. 

Only part of the section on top remains;  but the glyphs and decorations are
amazingly well preserved.

                                                                profile of the rain god

We spend more than three hours here and barely stopped to catch our breath!  We did have a respite when a light shower came along to cool us off!  Then it's time to run the gauntlet of vendors, of which there must be millions! And back to the van for some blessed sit-down time!  But not much because our lunch restaurant seems to be right around the corner!

Have to sample the local brew!

entrees in the center, desserts to the left, salad bar to the right!

They dance in place but also spin with their bottles and her tray balance on their heads!

I'm sure he's a reproduction, but you get a good idea of what the messenger to
the gods, Chac Mool, looked like.  The offerings of food or blood were placed
on the plate above his stomach.

Really interesting sink and faucets!

They're preparing their altar, or ofrenda, for the ceremony.

It's a lovely place with an abundant and varied buffet and we sit outside under a ceiling with fans! There is even entertainment, although I suspect they were for the people on the other side.  Oh well, we got to enjoy them, too! And then it's on to

HUGE atrium!

Pope John Paul wanted to visit in 1992 to commenorate the 500th anniversary of
Christopher Columbus's landing.  He was to ill to travel then but he made it in 1993.

If you scrape away the plaster you find the original glyphs.

The Black Jesus

The Virgin

Truly magnificent altar piece!!

Part of the nunnery

                                           Part of a parade of people bringing even more flowers!

And then a real parade!

Juan says they do it every day all month, sometimes in the morning, too!

What's a parade without spectators?  But these guys don't look pleased to see us!

And there they go!

Izamal, or the yellow city, so named for the church in its heart.  The Spanish destroyed a huge pyramid here and using the platform as a base built the second largest atrium in the world as well as a church and nunnery!  The church is devoted to the Virgin and to the Black Jesus.  This month is especially devoted to Jesus and there is a parade every day and tons of fresh flowers.  There are also fireworks which mostly consist of a loud noise and a puff of smoke in the air. The altar piece is beyond belief!

After exploring the church we see a bit more of the city and Juan shows us another pyramid that is available for climbing, at least a little bit.  I surprise myself by deciding this is my moment!!  It's not really all the high before you get to the hard part;  but at least I do it!

                    You can't enter after 4:30, so we don't have much time! Sunset comes really early!

We can see the church from here!

Jan had added a stone and this young couple added two more!

Not going up that this time!

Karen adds one, too.

Thank you, powers of goodness, we are going to our hotel, the Gran Hotel, built in 1901.  (That's before elevators!) There is one man who schleps everyone's luggage up to the second and third floors. (That would be us on the third floor, or as the Europeans call it, the second floor).  We've got a large room with two double beds and our own sitting room.  What we don't have is water and Ginger goes several blocks away to buy bottles for all of us.  She'll be talking to the management!

We have a sitting room!  Jan's sitting in it!

Interesting place for the sink.  It is so tall and so far from the front edge
that I feel like an eight-year old when I wash my face!

gorgeous stained glass in the stairwell.

my yellowfin tuna
There are so many that I start giving them away!

It's a long walk up to this level!

In about an hour we meet for dinner at La Recova, which is only a few blocks away.  Most people only feel like having an appetizer;  but they are as large as an entree!  Tummies full we walk back to the hotel, passing on the dance show which is about to begin in the main square.  You can only do so much in a day!!  We'll meet tomorrow at seven for breakfast next door and leave at eight-thirty.  I just don't have it in me to add photos to this tonight.  Maybe in the morning??