The Big Set Piece (December 28 2009)

Chichen Itza - one of the seven ‘new wonders of the world’, We have decided to give it some time and so spend two nights at the Hotel Chichen Itza. This meant that we could walk into the site early in the morning, and get there before the hordes arrived on daytrips from Cancun and the coast.

It was as if we had the place to ourselves as even the tacky souvenir vendors hadn’t set up by the time we got there. Its an impressive site, the large stepped pyramid makes an immediate impact as you enter. Unfortunately, you can no longer climb the 91 steps to the top. Gill has however, been before and made it up five steps last time (well they are steep and there’s no banister….). Neither of us are good at ruins, but we tried and spent a happy few hours wandering about, with lots of rest stops. It is well maintained and looks ok considering it is 1200 years old. The ball court was our favourite, the captain of the losing team was always decapitated. They didn’t re-enact this for us. Like us, the people who built it had travelled from Guatemala.

We walked to the cenote – a limestone sink hole, in which in 1900 a combination of huge amounts of Mayan relics and jewels and bones were dredged up. The American guy who bought the area in 1900 for 750 pesos must have go the deal of the century.

Our entrance ticket allowed us to go back at nightfall for the son et lumiere. It was great to be there in the dark, even if the show was a tad dull. We left early. All in Spanish, the show explains the intricacies of the Mayan calendar – we realised we would not have been too good at this as this morning neither of us could even work out what day it was! The Mayan calendar also foretells big changes in the world in 2012 – we need to check out the film of the same name now out in the cinema.

This trip has been so relaxed and today was no different, we had a very lazy afternoon doing absolutely nothing apart from deciding on our next stops. The coast is so expensive, obviously Cancun is a no no, the rest may be attractive but at a minimum of 125 USD a night for a sand floor shared bathroom cabana, (for that read palm shed), no fan, no aircon, we were really stuck for ideas. However, some research unearthed Isla Mujeres, which whilst still expensive at least had a tiled bathroom for Gill. So that is where we plan to spend New Year.