Exploring an Ancient City

The city of Chichen Itza was a lot larger than I imagined. It was no Toronto or New York, but for a few thousand four foot tall slaves with flint tools it wasn’t half bad. I could see each stone in the buildings, never evenly cut, but each one looking almost like a puzzle piece. I listened to the tour guide go on about the history of the city and the mayan religion while a collective bucket of sweat dripped down everyone in the group’s faces.

It was an early morning that day, with juice boxes, bananas, and some weird bread as our fuel for our trip. It was a short ride to the ferry, and once on the boat i fell asleep to the rocking of the waves. I woke up when we were about 5 minutes away from the dock, and sat there half asleep until we eventually came to a stop. After a short walk we boarded the bus, and began the long sleep-filled journey to the ancient city of Chichen Itza.

When we finally arrived we were met with a welcome bottle of water and made our way to the tourist entrance of the city. The entrance area was filled with people buying food or simply talking and resting, but once inside, apart from the market areas, it was not too crowded. We met our tour guide who took us to the different parts of the city. He explained how unlike most cultures, the Mayan sun god was not the most important god. Chaac, the rain god, would bless the Mayans with rain for their crops, and because of this they thought of him as the most important god.

We were later taken to the ball court where the Mayans would play various games. The tour guide explained to us that the captain of the winning team would be decapitated by the captain of the losing team and the winner’s soul would travel to the sun and he would ascend as a god. While the majority of our group found that confusing, I could totally understand why someone would want to be decapitated. If it means Ascending as a god, that sounds like a pretty fair trade to me.

After thanking our tour guide, we were taken to a sinkhole that had been turned into a natural public pool. There was a set of stairs that led up to a platform maybe 10 to 15 feet tall that made the sinkhole swim the highlight of the trip. Jumping into the water refreshed me and felt amazing after a long day of creating puddles around a 2500 year old city. There were several tiny catfish in the water while we swam by, causing me to hit them a few times. We could only stay at the sinkhole for a few minutes before we had to leave, but at that point I was exhausted anyways, and leaving on the bus felt like a good conclusion to a day spent experiencing new things.