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Published: March 21st 2009
Tim Version:
* Visited the Chichen Itza ruins and found them well worth a visit and really different!
The version thats really thinking about those cheese and ham pastries... mmm:
After a good breakfast courtesy of a girl who left very early and left me some food (coconut yoghurt, its the best!) I headed off to Chichen Itza on my way to Merida, as it sits between Tulum and Merida. *sigh* 1st class buses again as it is all that is available! I met a couple of Aussie blokes on the bus from Victoria and had a good chat to them, finding one of them to be a mining engineer. Scary to find out just how much cash he is making compared to myself and other normal paying city jobs! Wicked blokes but partiers for sure, not so good for seeing ruins with... and inside the ruins this proved true.
Once at the ruins we walked most from a distance, them missing all the detail with little patience, so instead we did the fast paced general overview style look, then they headed off and I stayed for a much closer look running solo. Heh we had even
completely missed a large area with half a dozen large temples, the best carvings, and to me the best structure.
The ruins are a very different style to the other sites, much more brutal and fierce architecture with strong edges and many more statue like carved 3D objects rather than just carvings in walls. The ball court has vertical walls with a grand viewing structure upon one wall and a throne like structure at one end (must be the ref's seat like at the tennis heh). The main pyramid is talland grand, with an echo effect when you clap in the direction of it's stairs. You find this at many mayan temples, but the effect here was astounding! Unfortunately that also meant while walking around the large open central grassy area with the main temple in the middle, you were constantly hearing this clapping and the echo effect! Very cool though. There are many shorter structures including one about head height adorned almost purely with skulls, a creepy area but very interesting.
My personal favourite though is the observatory! As you'll see from the photo, it has a rounded observatory top to it, and a grand entrance. It
is really spectactular and had me staring without blinking. "Back in the day" it would have been such an incredible view. Another structure near the observatory and church had a wall crumbling that they hadn't reconstructued, giving views of the inside and the surprising amount of space inside many of these structures.
An awesome day overall! A style of ruins I like, which overpowered the heavy crowding (so many tourist buses outside it almost scared me off entering!), loud wanker style tourists and tables and wandering vendors all selling mayan goods, with the sales pitches constantly being pushed on you from all edges of paths. Even when you stop to take the time to appreciate the ruins they run in for the kill at many spots. I hypothesise though that the amount of vendors is perhaps the reason that they can keep the entry cost so low. It is soo much less than Tikal and Coban, and the country is more expencive, so it has to be either subsidised or the vendors are all paying some sort of fee or some arrangment.
Merida time, when my bus arrives...
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