Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico

On the Edge of the Cenote, at the Heart of the Mayan Civilization


Ball Game Wall
Group Ball Game
The Hoop-Basket
Subscriptions
Kukulkan
Double Kukulkan
Kukulkan to Double II
Kukulkan's Heads
The top of El Castilo
Chichen Itza Castle
Passing
Exceptional Descent
Balam Sculpture
mayan masks
colorful sculpture
cruel rituals
Triumphs of the Mayan Conquests
Herb facade
The Great Ball Game
Temple of Warriors
Between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries AD, Chichen Itza stood out as the most important city in the Yucatan Peninsula and the vast Mayan Empire. If the Spanish Conquest precipitated its decline and abandonment, modern history has consecrated its ruins a World Heritage Site and a Wonder of the World.

We walk along the tree-lined avenue that leads to the entrance.

One of the many Mayan craft vendors catches our eye. He painted a jaguar head that he fitted in his lap, against an Iron Maiden t-shirt. The delicacy with which he touched up the mottled feline's whiskers contrasted with the roughness of the band.

We stop to follow the work. We asked him if he's going to paint it yellow or leave it in black and white and, conversation leads to conversation, if he wore the t-shirt just for the sake of wearing it or if he was a real fan of the English group.

Carlos, as the artisan was called, assures us that he adored them. Enlightened, yet intrigued, we returned to the jaguar that, for good reason, appeared on the stands of almost all vendors, in shapes and tones that were not very different.

More than the animal itself, the sculptures represented Ek Balam, one of the idolized Mayan gods, a religious icon of incomparable martial bravery, inspiring an entire order of soldiers in the service of the emperor.

Ek Balam, one of the deities that ruled the Xibalba, the Mayan Underworld, was nonetheless worthy of a surface temple at Chichen Itza.

And, just 56 km to the northeast, 175 km from Yucatec capital Merida, consecrated with an entire village and ceremonial place of its contemporaries.

From Temple to Temple, behind the Enigmas of Chichen Itza

The Jaguar Temple is one of the first that we come across as soon as we enter Chichen Itza.

Long before we approach it, we get the impression that we are surrounded by felines. We hear roars. They sound too high-pitched to be real.

As we walk, we realize that, in addition to the myriad of sculptures they produce, the Mayans who trade there crafts, invented a toy that, when blown, imitated jaguars.

Bored by their routine, intent on arousing the curiosity of the visitors, they repeated the animal's roar over and over again.

We point east and towards the Kukulkan Temple, situated at the heart of the complex.

The Divine Supremacy of Kukulman – Quetzalcoatl

Kukulkan, the feathered serpent, was, for the Itza Mayans, the only god above the jaguar Ek Balam, the heart of the cult heavily influenced by that of Quetzalcoatl, long in force among the Aztecs of central Mexico.

They served as spiritual and mundane beacons to both civilizations and as unifiers against the ongoing threats of rival peoples and cities.

At Chichen Itza, Kukulkam was revered on the basis of the terraced pyramid that later the Spanish conquerors became accustomed to calling El Castillo.

When we appreciate it, successive guides try to prove to their customers a sound connection with Quetzalcoatl. “Listen carefully now” we hear them begging. Applause follows. The clapping echoes on the stones of the pyramid.

They produce a kind of screech that the guides guarantee is similar to the chirping of the quetzal, the bird revered by the peoples. Mexica and Central America, whose feathers the Mayans believed covered the Precious Serpent.

It was not the only prodigious effect that the Temple of Kukulkam generated. Who, like us, surrounds him, finds the serpent's double heads at his base.

Discover that the Mayans designed and built the pyramid so that each equinox of the year would make the Kukulkan descend from the top to the ground.

The Astronomical Dimensions of Chichen Itza

Those who have the privilege of visiting Chichen Itza on one of these dates, at the right time, watch the sun's rays fall on a tangent, which only illuminates the edge of the steps above. In such a way that it draws an almost perfect snake body.

The Mayans were serious scholars and followers of astronomy. They arranged the buildings of Chichen Itza and several of its cities according to intricate astronomical logic.

The fact that the Temple of Kukulkan has 365 steps and the observatory of Espaço El Caracol allows them to follow the path of Venus in the sky, will have helped them to calculate the way in which the sun was falling on the pyramid.

By mid-November, we had passed the autumnal equinox. We were far from Spring. We are satisfied, therefore, with imagining the phenomenon and its considered eccentricity. Only and only, from the base of the temple.

Until 2006, visitors could ascend to the top of El Castillo, where they could gain 360º views of the complex and the surrounding jungle.

The bounty has been suspended ad eternum when an 80-year-old California visitor collapsed, fell from a height of twenty meters and ended up succumbing.

The Bloodthirsty Rituals That Enforced Mayan Supremacy

Faith in the historical accuracy of “Apocalypto”, a film made that same year by Mel Gibson, the steps of the pyramid had already suffered the impacts of countless other victims.

In a scene from the feature film, set at the top of the temple, the high priest of Kukulkan rips the hearts of prisoners of war.

Then he cuts off their heads, thrown down the stairs, on a bloodthirsty Mayan people that the crudeness of the ceremony leads to ecstasy.

These and many other severed heads, resulting from battles and incursions into the territories of enemy peoples, ended up impaled one on top of the other, on high poles.

A few dozen meters from the Kukulkan Temple, we come across a platform decorated with engravings of skulls.

Called Tzompantli, it served as a memorial to the sacrificed, intimidating the population, which, at the same time, displayed the power and achievements of the supreme emperor of the Mayans.

Chichen Itza: The Enigmatic and Diffuse History of the Great Mayan Capital

Chichen Itza was founded between 750 and 900 AD At the end of the XNUMXth century, benefited by the decline of other cities in southern Yucatan, especially the allies. Cobá and Yaxuna and, for some time, an ally to the capital of western Yucatan, Uxmal, already controlled most of the peninsula, from the Gulf of Mexico to the eastern domains of Zamá, the Tulum of our days.

The criterion serves what it serves, but it still had the largest Ball Game field in the entire Maia and Azteca map of the Americas, with 168 by 70 meters.

This Ball Game remains a wide space between walls, in part grassed, in another part, of a clear earth beaten by the footsteps of the millions of annual visitors.

When we entered it, we found a few dozen, maybe twenty, lined up, absorbed in the explanations given by a guide, under one of the hoops where the Mayan players had to hit with a ball of rubber, with vigorous hip movements.

It is believed that two hundred years after its peak, around AD 1100, Chichen Itza entered its own decline. It thus favored the rise of another capital to the west, Mayapan.

The Mayan-Toltec Controversy Behind the Origin and History of Chichen Itza

It is estimated that the city will have been attacked and crowded. Some theorists hold that for the Toltecs of central Mexico with whom the Mayans had long traded.

Others are apologists that the Toltecs had integrated themselves among the Mayans, that these were, in fact, composed of members of the two ethnic groups.

This explains the architectural similarity of some of the buildings at Chichen Itza, especially the Temple of the Warriors, with others found in Tula, once the capital of the Toltecs.

At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, Mayapan defeated Chichen Itza.

Decades later, the old capital was abandoned by its rulers and the elite that supported them, not necessarily by the entire population.

We go forward in time again. Two more centuries.

Two Generations of Franciscos Montejos and the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan

In 1526, Christopher Columbus had already revealed America. A succession of other navigators and conquerors set sail from southern Iberia intent on making their fortunes and claiming new lands for the Spanish Crown.

Two generations of Montejos, both Franciscos, were allowed to conquer the Yucatan Peninsula. In the middle of the XNUMXth century, after several setbacks, Francisco Montejo Filho managed to entice the Mayas of southwestern Yucatan to ally with his invading forces.

The army he formed proved overwhelming. He subdued the resisting Mayans.

The Spanish conquerors took possession of Yucatan, from the Caribbean coast to the opposite territory of Campeche. It won't take long, from all of present-day Mexico, Central and South America.

Chichen Itza disappeared into the History. Until the new explorers and scholars of the XNUMXth century rescued it from the Yucatec jungle.

Despite the long Hispanic imposition and devastation, the Mayans subsist in the domains formerly ruled by their city-states.

The Contemporary Mayan Relationship with Today's Chichen Itza

They returned to Chichen Itza. See the ruins now Wonder of the world as a World Heritage and divine legacy, a kind of sacred sustenance.

At the northeast end of the complex, between the Temple of Warriors and the market, the roars of the Balam jaguars continue. Another Mayan wonder catches our attention.

Basilio little or nothing allows himself to be disturbed. Thoughtful, calm, the middle-aged craftsman retouches his most recent sculpted painting, representing the Mayan Ball Game in different perspectives and moments.

We approach. We appreciated the painstaking work he did and what he had already finished and was looking forward to selling. Basilio understands. He accepts that, even if that was our wish, we could not pay him the almost 200 euros he was asking for one of the copies.

He resigns himself to a serenity and dignity only available to the wisest peoples.

There, with a smile on their lips, it proves how, even forced to share their lands and monuments, the Mayans continue to praise their civilization.

Uxmal, Yucatan, Mexico

The Mayan Capital That Piled It Up To Collapse

The term Uxmal means built three times. In the long pre-Hispanic era of dispute in the Mayan world, the city had its heyday, corresponding to the top of the Pyramid of the Diviner at its heart. It will have been abandoned before the Spanish Conquest of the Yucatan. Its ruins are among the most intact on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Tulum, Mexico

The Most Caribbean of the Mayan Ruins

Built by the sea as an exceptional outpost decisive for the prosperity of the Mayan nation, Tulum was one of its last cities to succumb to Hispanic occupation. At the end of the XNUMXth century, its inhabitants abandoned it to time and to an impeccable coastline of the Yucatan peninsula.
Cobá to Pac Chen, Mexico

From the Ruins to the Mayan Homes

On the Yucatan Peninsula, the history of the second largest indigenous Mexican people is intertwined with their daily lives and merges with modernity. In Cobá, we went from the top of one of its ancient pyramids to the heart of a village of our times.
Mérida, Mexico

The Most Exuberant of Meridas

In 25 BC, the Romans founded Emerita Augusta, capital of Lusitania. The Spanish expansion generated three other Méridas in the world. Of the four, the Yucatan capital is the most colorful and lively, resplendent with Hispanic colonial heritage and multi-ethnic life.
San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico

The Home Sweet Home of Mexican Social Conscience

Mayan, mestizo and Hispanic, Zapatista and tourist, country and cosmopolitan, San Cristobal has no hands to measure. In it, Mexican and expatriate backpacker visitors and political activists share a common ideological demand.
Izamal, Mexico

The Holy, Yellow and Beautiful Mexican City

Until the arrival of the Spanish conquerors, Izamal was a center of worship for the supreme Mayan god Itzamná and Kinich Kakmó, the one of the sun. Gradually, the invaders razed the various pyramids of the natives. In its place, they built a large Franciscan convent and a prolific colonial houses, with the same solar tone in which the now Catholic city shines.
Yucatan, Mexico

The Sidereal Murphy's Law That Doomed the Dinosaurs

Scientists studying the crater caused by a meteorite impact 66 million years ago have come to a sweeping conclusion: it happened exactly over a section of the 13% of the Earth's surface susceptible to such devastation. It is a threshold zone on the Mexican Yucatan peninsula that a whim of the evolution of species allowed us to visit.
Yucatan, Mexico

The End of the End of the World

The announced day passed but the End of the World insisted on not arriving. In Central America, today's Mayans watched and put up with incredulity all the hysteria surrounding their calendar.
Campeche, Mexico

A Bingo so Playful that you play it with Puppets

On Friday nights, a group of ladies occupy tables at Independencia Park and bet on trifles. The tiniest prizes come out to them in combinations of cats, hearts, comets, maracas and other icons.
Campeche, Mexico

Campeche Upon Can Pech

As was the case throughout Mexico, the conquerors arrived, saw and won. Can Pech, the Mayan village, had almost 40 inhabitants, palaces, pyramids and an exuberant urban architecture, but in 1540 there were less than 6 natives. Over the ruins, the Spaniards built Campeche, one of the most imposing colonial cities in the Americas.

Mexico City, Mexico

mexican soul

With more than 20 million inhabitants in a vast metropolitan area, this megalopolis marks, from its heart of zócalo, the spiritual pulse of a nation that has always been vulnerable and dramatic.

Champoton, Mexico

Rodeo Under Sombreros

Champoton, in Campeche, hosts a fair honored by the Virgén de La Concepción. O rodeo Mexican under local sombreros reveals the elegance and skill of the region's cowboys.
San Cristóbal de las Casas a Campeche, Mexico

A Relay of Faith

The Catholic equivalent of Our Lady of Fátima, Our Lady of Guadalupe moves and moves Mexico. Its faithful cross the country's roads, determined to bring the proof of their faith to the patroness of the Americas.
Campeche, Mexico

200 Years of Playing with Luck

At the end of the XNUMXth century, the peasants surrendered to a game introduced to cool the fever of cash cards. Today, played almost only for Abuelites, lottery little more than a fun place.
Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon), Chihuahua, Mexico

The Deep Mexico of the Barrancas del Cobre

Without warning, the Chihuahua highlands give way to endless ravines. Sixty million geological years have furrowed them and made them inhospitable. The Rarámuri indigenous people continue to call them home.
Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico

The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

The Sierra Madre Occidental's relief turned the dream into a construction nightmare that lasted six decades. In 1961, at last, the prodigious Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was opened. Its 643km cross some of the most dramatic scenery in Mexico.
chihuahua, Mexico

¡Ay Chihuahua !

Mexicans have adapted this expression as one of their favorite manifestations of surprise. While we wander through the capital of the homonymous state of the Northwest, we often exclaim it.
Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

From New Spain Lode to Mexican Pueblo Mágico

At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, it was one of the mining towns that guaranteed the most silver to the Spanish Crown. A century later, the silver had been devalued in such a way that Real de Catorce was abandoned. Its history and the peculiar scenarios filmed by Hollywood have made it one of the most precious villages in Mexico.
Real de Catorce, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

The Depreciation of Silver that Led to that of the Pueblo (Part II)

With the turn of the XNUMXth century, the value of the precious metal hit bottom. From a prodigious town, Real de Catorce became a ghost. Still discovering, we explore the ruins of the mines at their origin and the charm of the Pueblo resurrected.
Xilitla, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

Edward James' Mexican Delirium

In the rainforest of Xilitla, the restless mind of poet Edward James has twinned an eccentric home garden. Today, Xilitla is lauded as an Eden of the Surreal.
Believers greet each other in the Bukhara region.
City
Bukhara, Uzbequistan

Among the Minarets of Old Turkestan

Situated on the ancient Silk Road, Bukhara has developed for at least two thousand years as an essential commercial, cultural and religious hub in Central Asia. It was Buddhist and then Muslim. It was part of the great Arab empire and that of Genghis Khan, the Turko-Mongol kingdoms and the Soviet Union, until it settled in the still young and peculiar Uzbekistan.
Host Wezi points out something in the distance
Beach
Cobue; Nkwichi Lodge, Mozambique

The Hidden Mozambique of the Creaking Sands

During a tour from the bottom to the top of Lake Malawi, we find ourselves on the island of Likoma, an hour by boat from Nkwichi Lodge, the solitary base of this inland coast of Mozambique. On the Mozambican side, the lake is known as Niassa. Whatever its name, there we discover some of the most stunning and unspoilt scenery in south-east Africa.
savuti, botswana, elephant-eating lions
safari
Savuti, Botswana

Savuti's Elephant-Eating Lions

A patch of the Kalahari Desert dries up or is irrigated depending on the region's tectonic whims. In Savuti, lions have become used to depending on themselves and prey on the largest animals in the savannah.
Monks on the steps of Tashi Lha Khang Monastery
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit 16th - Marpha, Nepal

Marpha and the Early End of the Circuit

After thirteen days of walking from the distant Chame, we arrive at Marpha. Sheltered at the foot of a hill, on the edge of the Gandaki River, Marpha is the last preserved and charming village on the route. The excessive construction work along the F042 route that would take us back to Pokhara has forced us to shorten the second part of the Annapurna Circuit.
Architecture & Design
Castles and Fortresses

A Defending World: Castles and Fortresses that Resist

Under threat from enemies from the end of time, the leaders of villages and nations built castles and fortresses. All over the place, military monuments like these continue to resist.
Boats on ice, Hailuoto Island, Finland.
Aventura
Hailuoto, Finland

A Refuge in the Gulf of Bothnia

During winter, the island of Hailuoto is connected to the rest of Finland by the country's longest ice road. Most of its 986 inhabitants esteem, above all, the distance that the island grants them.
Kente Festival Agotime, Ghana, gold
Ceremonies and Festivities
Kumasi to Kpetoe, Ghana

A Celebration-Trip of the Ghanian Fashion

After some time in the great Ghanaian capital ashanti we crossed the country to the border with Togo. The reasons for this long journey were the kente, a fabric so revered in Ghana that several tribal chiefs dedicate a sumptuous festival to it every year.
4th of July Fireworks-Seward, Alaska, United States
Cities
Seward, Alaska

The Longest 4th of July

The independence of the United States is celebrated, in Seward, Alaska, in a modest way. Even so, the 4th of July and its celebration seem to have no end.
Fogón de Lola, great food, Costa Rica, Guápiles
Lunch time
Fogón de Lola Costa Rica

The Costa Rica Flavour of El Fogón de Lola

As the name suggests, the Fogón de Lola de Guapiles serves dishes prepared on the stove and in the oven, according to Costa Rican family tradition. In particular, Tia Lola's.
Culture
Pueblos del Sur, Venezuela

The Pueblos del Sur Locainas, Their Dances and Co.

From the beginning of the XNUMXth century, with Hispanic settlers and, more recently, with Portuguese emigrants, customs and traditions well known in the Iberian Peninsula and, in particular, in northern Portugal, were consolidated in the Pueblos del Sur.
Reindeer Racing, Kings Cup, Inari, Finland
Sport
Inari, Finland

The Wackiest Race on the Top of the World

Finland's Lapps have been competing in the tow of their reindeer for centuries. In the final of the Kings Cup - Porokuninkuusajot - , they face each other at great speed, well above the Arctic Circle and well below zero.
Erika Mother
Traveling
Philippines

The Philippine Road Lords

With the end of World War II, the Filipinos transformed thousands of abandoned American jeeps and created the national transportation system. Today, the exuberant jeepneys are for the curves.
Horseshoe Bend
Ethnic
Navajo nation, USA

The Navajo Nation Lands

From Kayenta to Page, passing through Marble Canyon, we explore the southern Colorado Plateau. Dramatic and desert, the scenery of this indigenous domain, cut out in Arizona, reveals itself to be splendid.
sunlight photography, sun, lights
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Natural Light (Part 2)

One Sun, So Many Lights

Most travel photos are taken in sunlight. Sunlight and weather form a capricious interaction. Learn how to predict, detect and use at its best.
Missions, San Ignacio Mini, Argentina
History
San Ignacio Mini, Argentina

The Impossible Jesuit Missions of San Ignacio Mini

In the century. In the XNUMXth century, the Jesuits expanded a religious domain in the heart of South America by converting the Guarani Indians into Jesuit missions. But the Iberian Crowns ruined the tropical utopia of the Society of Jesus.
Willemstad, Curacao, Punda, Handelskade
Islands
Willemstad, Curaçao

The Multicultural Heart of Curaçao

A Dutch colony in the Caribbean became a major slave hub. It welcomed Sephardic Jews who had taken refuge from the Iberia Inquisition in Amsterdam and Recife. And it assimilated influences from the Portuguese and Spanish villages with which it traded. At the heart of this secular cultural fusion has always been its old capital: Willemstad.
Maksim, Sami people, Inari, Finland-2
Winter White
Inari, Finland

The Guardians of Boreal Europe

Long discriminated against by Scandinavian, Finnish and Russian settlers, the Sami people regain their autonomy and pride themselves on their nationality.
José Saramago in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain, Glorieta de Saramago
Literature
Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain

José Saramago's Basalt Raft

In 1993, frustrated by the Portuguese government's disregard for his work “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ”, Saramago moved with his wife Pilar del Río to Lanzarote. Back on this somewhat extraterrestrial Canary Island, we visited his home. And the refuge from the portuguese censorship that haunted the writer.
Camiguin, Philippines, Katungan mangrove.
Nature
Camiguin, Philippines

An Island of Fire Surrended to Water

With more than twenty cones above 100 meters, the abrupt and lush, Camiguin has the highest concentration of volcanoes of any other of the 7641 islands in the Philippines or on the planet. But, in recent times, not even the fact that one of these volcanoes is active has disturbed the peace of its rural, fishing and, to the delight of outsiders, heavily bathed life.
Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
Autumn
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
View from John Ford Point, Monument Valley, Nacao Navajo, United States
Natural Parks
Monument Valley, USA

Indians or Cowboys?

Iconic Western filmmakers like John Ford immortalized what is the largest Indian territory in the United States. Today, in the Navajo Nation, the Navajo also live in the shoes of their old enemies.
Glamor vs Faith
UNESCO World Heritage
Goa, India

The Last Gasp of the Goan Portugality

The prominent city of Goa already justified the title of “rome of the east” when, in the middle of the XNUMXth century, epidemics of malaria and cholera led to its abandonment. The New Goa (Pangim) for which it was exchanged became the administrative seat of Portuguese India but was annexed by the Indian Union of post-independence. In both, time and neglect are ailments that now make the Portuguese colonial legacy wither.
Ooty, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood Scenery, Heartthrob's Eye
Characters
Ooty, India

In Bollywood's Nearly Ideal Setting

The conflict with Pakistan and the threat of terrorism made filming in Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh a drama. In Ooty, we see how this former British colonial station took the lead.
mini-snorkeling
Beaches
Phi Phi Islands, Thailand

Back to Danny Boyle's The Beach

It's been 15 years since the debut of the backpacker classic based on the novel by Alex Garland. The film popularized the places where it was shot. Shortly thereafter, the XNUMX tsunami literally washed some away off the map. Today, their controversial fame remains intact.
holy plain, Bagan, Myanmar
Religion
Bagan, Myanmar

The Plain of Pagodas, Temples and other Heavenly Redemptions

Burmese religiosity has always been based on a commitment to redemption. In Bagan, wealthy and fearful believers continue to erect pagodas in hopes of winning the benevolence of the gods.
End of the World Train, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
On Rails
Ushuaia, Argentina

Last Station: End of the World

Until 1947, the Tren del Fin del Mundo made countless trips for the inmates of the Ushuaia prison to cut firewood. Today, passengers are different, but no other train goes further south.
Singapore, Success and Monotony Island
Society
Singapore

The Island of Success and Monotony

Accustomed to planning and winning, Singapore seduces and recruits ambitious people from all over the world. At the same time, it seems to bore to death some of its most creative inhabitants.
Women with long hair from Huang Luo, Guangxi, China
Daily life
Longsheng, China

Huang Luo: the Chinese Village of the Longest Hairs

In a multi-ethnic region covered with terraced rice paddies, the women of Huang Luo have surrendered to the same hairy obsession. They let the longest hair in the world grow, years on end, to an average length of 170 to 200 cm. Oddly enough, to keep them beautiful and shiny, they only use water and rice.
Sheep and hikers in Mykines, Faroe Islands
Wildlife
Mykines, Faroe Islands

In the Faeroes FarWest

Mykines establishes the western threshold of the Faroe archipelago. It housed 179 people but the harshness of the retreat got the better of it. Today, only nine souls survive there. When we visit it, we find the island given over to its thousand sheep and the restless colonies of puffins.
The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Fiordland, New Zealand

The Fjords of the Antipodes

A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.