Click on first picture to begin the tour.
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THE MAGICAL MAYAN TOUR 2, August 1997
The Magical Mayan Tour – 1988
1. An Olmec head (reproduction) along the Paseo Kukulcan, the main highway going through the hotel zone of Cancun and leading into downtown Cancun, Mexico.
2. My wife Elsa beside the rain-god Chac-Mool (reproduction) along the Paseo Kukulcan.
3. The Warrior’s Fountain at the end of the Paseo Kukulcan just before entering the town of Cancun. This is a collection of stone columns that are found in their original form at Chichen Itza.
4. In front of a Mayan painting (reproduction) in the lobby of a Yucatecan restaurant named “Lost Almendros.”
5. At Tulum, the Mayan fortress by the Caribbean Sea. Located 78 miles south of Cancun. The main structure is the “castillo” (castle), which is actually a large pyramid-like building crowned with a two-room temple. Two pillars with the plumed serpent head of the principle Mayan god “Kukulcan” support the uppermost room.
6. Ascending to the top of the “castillo.”
7. In front of the temple of the “descending god.” At the top of the structure, a bas-relief figure is shown diving toward earth. To the left is a figure of an ascending god, and on the right an empty space (emblematic of Great Spirit). Our guide told us the three symbols together stood for the Mayan concept of Trinity.
8. Inside a small structure at Tulum.
9. Elsa inside a cenote (well) underneath the House of the Cenote.
10. Snorkeling at Chankanaab Lagoon Park, Cozumel. The coral was fantastic, and the fish were beautiful! One of the great attractions under the water was a statue of the Virgin Mary, which I observed was constantly polished by the fish!
11. At Chankanaab Lagoon Park. Chankanaab also has a botanical garden with over 300 species of tropical and subtropical plants.
12. Giant Elephant Ears plants at Chancanab. Chancanab, meaning “small sea,” is connected to the sea by an underwater tunnel.
13. Large iguana (on the ground) at Chancanab Lagoon Park.
14. Mayan boy cleaning seashells on the beach at Cozumel.
15. Elsa buying a small bracelet from salesgirl Lorma in the zocalo (center) of Cozumel’s only town, San Miguel. The island itself is 33 miles long and 9 miles wide.
16. Disembarking from WaterJet Mexico, a very large luxurious passenger ferry. Cozumel, the “Island of Swallows,” lies 50 miles from the mainland of the Yucatan peninsula. The Catamaran WaterJet takes 25 minutes to cross from the town of Playa del Carmen to Cozumel.
17. On our way to Chichen Itza. First stop on the tour bus—restaurant Ek Balam. We had lunch and dinner here.
18. Lady making small tortillas at restaurant Ek Balam. The tortillas were delicious! Corn tortillas have been the staple item of the Meso-American diet since long before the discovery of the New World. Since they contain calcium, phosphorus, iron, proteins, fats, and vitamins, they have high nutritional value. To make tortillas, dried corn kernels are soaked in lime water and then crushed into dough. The dough is kneaded and pressed into small round cakes, which are cooked on a griddle. The soft tortillas are eaten in place of bread or used in making typical specialties like tacos, enchiladas, and quesadillas.
19. Model of Chichen Itza at the main entrance building. Chichen Itza is the best known of the Yucatan’s archeological ruins. Many primary Mayan cities were built around cenotes or wells for obvious reasons and accordingly “chi” translates mouth and “chen” well. As “Itza” refers to the tribe first known to have built on the site, the entire name roughly translates “well of the Itzas.” The city was founded in 445 AD, thrived for 200 years and was then abandoned for some 200 more. At the end of that period, the center was reinhabited and continued so until 1204AD.
20. Castle of Kukulcan, facing the west side of the pyramid. It was so precisely constructed that it is, in reality, an astronomical clock giving notice of the spring and fall equinoxes as well as both the winter and summer solstices. The sun strikes the pyramid during each equinox in such a way as to give the impression of a serpent undulating up or down its surface, depending on the time of year. There are 91 steps on each of the four sides.
21. The Ball Court. This playing field, site of life and death competitions, is a quadrangle formed by two long, parallel walls. At the center of the wall near the top, a small circular ring is affixed.
22. The Ball Court wall. At the north end of the ball court is a large officiating booth, where the high priest of the games sat.
23. Tour guide Victor explains the symbolical bas-reliefs at the ball court. The symbols, says Victor, represent the Sun in different positions, especially the end of winter and the energic beginning of a new cycle. The games and warriors would reenact the drama of the solar cycle.
24. The small circular ring at the Ball Court. Players used a kind of bat as well as arms, legs, and head in an attempt to score by passing the ball through the ring. Evidence suggests the captain of the losing team was sacrificed—serious sport indeed. Column on top of the western wall is supposedly for the sun to shine through at a specific time of the year.
25. Tzompantli (“wall of skulls”). The Tzompantli of Chichen-Itza represents skulls placed on poles alternating with scenes describing eagles in the act of eating human hearts, or depicting feathered serpents and warriors. In Tenochtitlan (near Mexico City), the wall served for the conservation of the skulls of the victims that had been sacrificed to the gods.
26. On top of the Venus Platform. There are four flights of stairs on its sides, each having two balustrades topped by their corresponding plumed serpent’s heads attached to the walls, ornamented with carvings showing allegories of the planet Venus, the symbol of the first month of the Maya year (“Pop”) and the symbols of power.
27. Elsa beside the sacred well, also called Cenote Sagrado o de los Sacrificios (Well of Sacrifices). As the Mayas believed that their god Chac lived in its depths, they had the ritualistic custom of throwing into its waters warriors, children and young virgins with their jewels and rich offerings, as a propitiatory sacrifice to plead for rain.
28. Group of the Thousand Columns and Temple of the Warriors. The columns and pillars of the colonnade (some of which are beautifully sculptured) used to sustain the beams that bore the weight of the roofing that once covered immense galleries, which are now disappeared.
29. The Temple of the Warriors. It was built on an older temple called the Temple of the Chac-mool. The platform has several superimposing bodies with sloping walls, the faces of which are profusely carved in high relief with the figures of deities, warriors and heart-devouring tigers and eagles.
30. A Chac-mool sculpture at the portico entrance of the Temple of the Warriors. The temple itself is composed of two rooms: a portico with rows of richly carved pillars whose motifs and shape are identical to those found in buildings located in Tula, the capital of the Toltecs; and a sanctuary with an altar and a sacrificial stone. Ornaments on the outside walls are of the Maya God of Rain and Toltec God Quetzalcoatl as a man-bird-serpent being.
31. Ascending the steps of the inner temple, which leads to a small shrine to Chac-mool and the jaguar-god.
32. Descending the steps of the inner temple. The entrance that leads to the inner structure is located at the base of the northern side of the exterior pyramid.
33. The jaguar-god. (postcard)
34. On top of the Pyramid of Kukulcan (Kukulcan=Plumed-Serpent, symbol of bird-rain and earth-soil). The pyramid, sustained by a square base measuring 60 yards on each side, is formed by nine terraced bodies with sloping walls whose faces are ornamented with protruding rectangular panels. Each stairway has 91 steps; the four stairways total 364, plus one more step on the upper platform adds up to 365 steps (number of days in a solar year). In the background is the ball court.
35. View from east side of Pyramid of Kukulcan, looking south-east, towards what is regarded as “old Chichen-Itza.”
36. View of Group of the Thousand Columns and Temple of the Warriors from north-east side of Pyramid of Kukulcan.
37. The Caracol (“the snail”) or Observatory. The small loopholes on the walls of the observation chamber face the cardinal points. The observatory was dedicated (aligned) to the summer solstice. The tour guide, Victor, told me that the observatory at Monte Alban in Oaxaca was dedicated (aligned) to the star Aldea in Capricorn.
38. The Church, and the Annex. It was called “the Church” due to the fact that it stands very close to the Nunnery and its Annex, supposedly religious monuments. The figure of a Mother-goddess wearing a rich headdress made of feathers and sitting within a stone fretwork frame is placed above the doorway.
39. The Nunnery. Tour guide, Victor, and I pose in front of what the Spaniards called the Nunnery because of its many rooms and also due to the tradition that there were priestesses among the Maya people.
40. Mayan natives in traditional and non-traditional clothes pose near the entrance building. A small fee of 2,000 pesos (about $1.50) was paid to “Mamacita” and “la nina.”
41. Elsa and I dress up for the Folkloric Ballet.
42. Dancers from the Folkloric Ballet.
43. Downtown Cancun.
44. Merchant stands near downtown Cancun.
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