Thursday 28 February. Early rise, 6:30 am the taxi is at the hotel. Julius, Sarah, Franziska and I go with the taxi driver to Chichen Itza. It’s a long drive, about 2,5 hour, to get to the ruins. Our guide Monica shows us most of the site and tells about the Mayan culture and history. The ruins are impressive, apparently this site was for warship. Nobody lived here. We see a huge temple and people clapping their hands in front to hear the acoustics of the temple. If you make a loud noise you hear the echo, sounding like a bird. Quite cool. We see the platforms where they offered people and the ball game field. It seems they offered the winners of the game. After the guided tour we have time left to look around. We go to the observatory
and some other temples. The first part was from around 1300, when the Mayans left this place, the last classical period. The observatory is from an earlier age. Afterwards, we visit the Ik Kil cenote. A beautiful hole in the ground with fresh water at the bottom and green along the sides. Lunch is at a local Mayan food restaurant. We see how the lady makes the wraps on a plate on woodfire. A smoky room though. Food is good, but too much.
This trip more Mayan sites are on the list. Yesterday we saw Tulum, a Mayan site at the ocean. Amazing spot and at sunset we’re the only ones. The days after we see have a break at Caye Caulker to snorkel at the reefs and enjoy this island. See rays, nurse sharkers, Moray Eel and colourful corals. Next site is Xunantunich in Belize. Another beautiful Mayan site and again totally different temples and structures. All in the jungle. We a few people we do a trip to the impressive Caracol site. Maybe 50 people in total visiting this site. On the way to it we explore a cave and on the way back we have a swim and enjoy the falls. Tikal in Guatemala is the last site. A huge site with very steep highrise temples. Towering above the trees. On top of the temples the vies is amazing. In the jungle between the temples a lot of birds, toucans, trogons, turkey and more. Monkeys and racoons also like to wander around this site. Very cool.
Never thought the Mayan site could be so different from each other.
