I think I’m pretty well known for refusing to work on my birthday, but this year I took it a step further and took the whole week off to visit Yucatan, Mexico. Yucatan is a pretty small state and I know I can accomplish a lot on what is definitely the shortest international trip I’ve ever taken. I based myself in the Yucatan capitol of Mérida, dubbed the safest city in Mexico. Let’s hope so.

Here’s a funny speculative story I read at one of Méridas’ museums. No one knows exactly where the name Yucatan came from exactly. It’s believed that when the first Spanish conquistadors arrived they began questioning the local Mayans about culture, resources and probably trying to let them know that they had just been conquered, the most likely response from the Mayans was probably yuk ak katan, which is Mayan for I don’t understand your language. Ha! So, the Spanish called the region Yucatan.

Probably the biggest attraction in Mérida aside from all the beautiful colonial architecture and the delicious food is the giant Mayan museum. It was a great history lesson and they had lots of Mayan sculpture taken from many of the sites I’ll be visiting later this week.

Chichen Itza

For my trips out to the Mayan ruins I rented a super tiny Chevy Neat and started with the mother of all tourist zoos, Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza is about half way between Mérida and Cancun. I’m guessing most of the people came from Cancun and the coast because holy crap did it get crowded. Luckily, I left early and got there when it opened so it didn’t get really crowded until I was almost finished.

I’ve explored a LOT of ancient ruins over the years, but this was my first time diving into Mayan culture, so I was pretty excited to come here. It’s been on my to do list for quite a long time. There were a lot of really impressive and intact carvings all over the Group of a Thousand Columns. The pic below is just one small section, but you can really make out the warriors carved onto the sides of the columns. Below that, the Observatory where the priests would announce various rituals and celebrations.

I’m very much a Mayan noob, but I know Chichen Itza originated sometime in the 9th or 10th century AD. It was abandoned a couple of times and reused so the architecture is a bit varied and it ended it’s time as primarily a religious center. But it started as the capitol, before it was moved to Mayapan, a site I visited later in the week.

Some of the best preserved carvings were on a few structures toward the back of the site. I walked into a small courtyard and was petty stunned. Maybe it was just because it was my first real experience with Mayan temples, but I was super impressed.

The Casa Colorada was originally painted red, though the color is gone now. I got a nice surprise when I discovered a big iguana sunning himself right in front. I learned throughout the week that iguanas are absolutely everywhere. I had lots of close encounters.

I finished up at the temple of skulls and the ball field. The Mayans played the first known team sport using a ball. They could only touch the ball with their knees, elbows, and hips and tried to shoot the ball through the hoops on the sides of the field instead of the ends. At the end of the game the captain of the losing team was ritually decapitated by the captain of the winning team. Brutal!

Below right is part of the ball field, you can see the hoop halfway down in the left of the pic. Below left is from the Venus Platform.

Izamal

I finished up at Chichen Itza just in time because it was SUPER crowded when I was leaving. I spent more time here than I anticipated, but it was so worth it. Next up, the small town of Izamal to see their pyramid and the Convento de San Antonio.

Izamal was a cool, albeit brief stop. The Convento de San Antonio apparently sports the second largest atrium in the world. The top spot goes to the Vatican. Izamal is also interestingly entirely painted in one color. I’m not sure why, but it’s as if they sent that one guy to the big city to buy a bunch of paint to spruce up the town and he came back with 5,000 gallons of yellow because it was on sale.

Uxmal and Kabah

The next morning I was up super early to drive out to Uxmal, possibly the second biggest Mayan site in Yucatan. This place was equally impressive, but had only a fraction of the people. I guess it’s too far away for all the Cancun peeps.

The Quadrangle of the Nuns had a really giant atrium similar to Christian complexes, though the carvings were very different. The scary face that’s all over the buildings is Chaac, the Mayan rain god.

On the backside of Uxmal I got a pretty unique view of the pyramid. This vantage point makes it look more remote than it actually is, but don’t tell anyone.

Ancient Uxmal was connected by road to four other smaller sites which I intended to visit, but three of them were closed due to an illness that shall not be named. It didn’t make sense to me since it’s all wide open spaces and not many people go there, meanwhile in Chichen Itza you’re all crammed together like sardines, but I digress. Kabah was the only site of the four open, so that’s where I went.

Kabah is a smallish site, but there were some really great sculpture there. It’s also a really wide open and peaceful spot. I had the place to myself for most of my visit.

After a very short walk through the jungle I came to the Mayan Arch, which was the ancient entrance to the site and marked the end of the road from Uxmal.

Back in Mérida at Plaza Grande, there was a small Mayan festival with traditional garb and music and a demonstration of how to play Maya ball, minus the decapitation at the end of course. I also provided the nightly banquet to the local mosquitos. Holy crap they are really bad! I can’t stop itching!

Mayapan

Mayapan became the capitol after Chichen Itza was turned into a religious site. When I arrived there were three tour buses roaming around the small site, so I took it easy roaming around the periphery until they finished, then I had the place mostly to myself. I didn’t have as much info about this place as some of the others, a lot of it is speculation anyway, but it didn’t disappoint.

Mayapan also had some great carvings, and gave me a chance to get up close and personal with the rain god Chaac.

After climbing to the top and on the way out I was finally able to get a pic of the Great Pyramid without people all over it.

It was, however, covered with iguanas. The whole site was! They were everywhere, staring at me from their burrows, peering at me from rocks at every height, scurrying away every time I came around a corner, everywhere!

Xcambó

For the second half of my day after Mayapan, I headed up to the coast to a really small site that was surprisingly open, Xcambó. It’s a really small site, but really pretty. This place had the most iguanas yet! I think they’re just as interesting to me as the ruins are.

Usually the iguanas scurry off if you get too close, but the dude in the pic below wasn’t scared at all. He looked at me like he was daring me to come closer.

Campeche

My biggest day, in terms of driving anyway, involved traveling to the state of Campeche for a cluster of Mayan sites just over Yucatans southern border. I was super tired at the end of the day, but it was worth it. My first stop was to Edzna. A lot of the buildings still had portions that were painted red, which was great for giving a glimpse at what it might have looked like, and the main building was five stories high!

The Edificio de Cinco Pisos also had some really interesting artwork all over the front stairs.

That main courtyard was huge, but this was just a piece of it. There was also a Maya ball court and several temples scattered everywhere.

While excavating the site in the 1980’s archeologists discovered two interesting depictions of the Sun god. The one on the east side is the rising sun and the one on the west is the setting sun. Both still have a lot of their original coloring. Awesome!

Edzna was pretty awesome, but I still had three smaller sites to visit on my circuit of northern Campeche. About an hour drive away from Edzna lies Hochob.

The front facade of Hochob temple was really impressive. It depicts the Mayan god of creation. The doorway is his mouth, the two swirly bits at the top are his eyes and his ears are on either side of the door. Very cool!

Next up, on the edge of the tiny hamlet of Vicente Guerrero was Dzibilnocac (don’t worry, I can’t pronounce it either), one really well preserved temple in an immaculate park. It was even free!

Finally on my way back up north to Mérida I stopped at a little roadside Mayan site called Tohcok. It was a little rough around the edges, but there was some really good carvings around the base. A local guy oversees it and gave me an obligatory tour. The face in the pic below is not the rain god Chaac. He told me who it was, but he was speaking so fast and my Spanish skills still need some work, so I didn’t catch it.

Ek Balam

Finally, I spent my last day in Yucatan at Ek Balam. This place had probably the tallest pyramid of any of the sites I’ve seen on this trip, that I was allowed to climb anyway. It was huge! The funny part is, I forgot to take a pic of it with the phone so it will have to wait until I process the pics from my camera. All of these places were pretty overwhelming from a photography standpoint.

I did manage to get a good shot of an entire Maya ball court. Most of the sites had one, but this was the best opportunity to get the whole thing in a pic.

On the climb up the Acropolis I stopped halfway to admire some of the carvings and the shade. The last three or four days here have been super hot!

And at the top I was able to enjoy some pretty incredible views of the south end of Ek Balam and Yucatan. That’s what the entire peninsula looks like, by the way, really thick jungle and flat as a pancake.

Well, that wraps up this birthday adventure. That was a lot of ruins in a very short time span, but that was my plan from the beginning, to cram as many Mayan ruins into a week as possible. I’m pretty exhausted! I can only imagine how much more tired I would be if the other six sites I had planned on going to were open. Time to go back to work and get some rest LOL Until next time…