Chichen Itza
A two hour bus ride away and we arrived to the symbol of the Maya imperium. But Chichen Itza is more than just the pyramid that pops in to your head. It was a whole city, in fact one of the biggest mayan cities at the time (stating from 600 AD to somewhere around 1000 AD). Today, the biggest ruins you find are the Temple of Warriors, the Great Ball Court and the Kukulkán pyramid. These played an important part of the religious section of the city.
The mayan people originally have heritage from Mongolia and Asia. Their society was matriachal and one very important part of life was the religion. Sacrefices were common, and not only by sacreficing food offerings or animals. Human sacrefices also happened. One way to do that was to take someones heart out while still beating, and then cut the head off and stick it on a pole. The mayans even sacreficed their own blood. A man who wanted a child could for example offer blood from his penis, and a woman could pierce her tounge with a fish bone and let a long string pass through the hole. But pain in the mayan society was used for other things than to offer your blood to the gods. Changing your appearance with extreme body modifications was a way to show your status on earth and even in your after life. This included changing the skull of your high class baby, piercings, drilling in to your teeth or sharpening them.
The mayans were, together with the chineese and the egyptians, the first people to make paper. Therefor we should have a lot of the scripts and be able to know more about their culture. But actually we hardly know anything. When the spanish came to America and found the mayans they were certain that they worshipped Satan. Why? They did use the colour red a lot. But their way of life can also seem pretty... scary (anyone who watched the movie Apocalypto knows that). Human sacrefices, heads on poles, crazy face piercings... So the spaniards not only claimed the area to be theirs, they also destroyed all of the mayan history they could and built their own cities. In three days they destroyed five thousand years of history. Only four original books were rescued.
Today Chichen Itza is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Mexico and attracts about 1.4 million visitors every year.
The warriors temple
The Kukulkán pyramid
As tourist attraction Chichen Itza is great only for it's greatness... I would say. Seeing the ruins is of course a must, but it's a hot (more or less 40 degrees) and crowded place where they for some reason let people sell souveniers and fake jewelry to un-fake prices. Going there defenitly needs something more than just the pyramids, at least if you go from Playa del Carmen. It's a two hours drive and you need no more than an hour once you're there. We had lunch, met a schaman, went for a swim in a cenote (I'll get to that the next time) and stopped by a colonial town. But it was still a long time on a bus and a long day.
An umbrella for the sun and a good guide. That's my advice to you. Our guide was mayan which was incredible, but if you're not so lucky you might miss out on a lot of information since the site doesn't have much itself.
A proposal!!!! She said yes. But didn't seem very happy so it got really awkward.
Anyway, the spaniards did what they did and succeeded pretty well I guess. They destroyed what they didn't like, rebuilt it in their own way and spred the christianity. But yet today there are over two million mayan speaking people in Mexico. But they are far from having the great imperium they once had. Actually the mayans are not even welcome to the beaches of what we call the mayan riviera. Using mayan names has been forbidden for thirty years and the children who are born in to mayan families now have to have christian names like the rest. To keep the natives under control the mexican government use the tactic "ignorance". With other words, they want to keep the mayans stupid so they don't understand how discrimininated they are. Therefor they don't even learn spanish in school.
Sittning in my nice apartment in the paradise of Playa del Carmen it's difficult to understand what a divided country Mexico is. Riviera maya might be the face of it, but it's pretty face on a not so pretty body. So... Go Donald Trump... right?
Häftigt! <3