When in Chichen Itza.....

Rated: PG-13 for violence (mostly Mayan)

Snapshots from a mad lark to the Yucatan:

Why is it that I always exhaust myself right before a journey? Two nights before we left, I stayed up all night editing Shine´s 50 page prospectus for her rhetorics dissertation on "the ineffable". (Good stuff on aesthetics, pain, spirituality, and the limits of language.) Then the night before our flight we only got a few hours sleep as we packed our gear and cleaned the apartment for a young guy who is subletting her apartment for the duration of our trip.

We arrived at the Austin airport to find out that our budget airline, VivaAerobus, is the only one located on the other side of the airport, requiring a $30 taxi ride to get there. We took off at 8am in the morning and the flight went smoothly, but I was unable to sleep during the trip. We arrived in Cancun at about 11am and Shine decided that we should head directly to Chichen Itza. So after a quick lunch and changing some dollars to pesos, we jumped on a 4 1/2 hour bus ride to the small town of Piste located near the ruins.

So I'm back in Latin America after many years, and the visceral memories came flooding back. Sure, there are a lot of visual recollections-----the brightly colored clothes of the locals, especially the indegenas, the lush tropical greenery, tired buildings, beat-up vehicles, and cracked roads. But the strongest mnemonic triggers have been olfactory-----car exhaust in narrow streets, chickens cooking on roadside grills, garbage, smoke mixed with the smell of rain; and auditory-----the calls of the street vendors, the roar of trucks down narrow lanes, latin music pumping out of homes and restaurants, and jungle birds - raucous in sound and color.

 

During the bus ride, the skys opened up and a deluge came pounding down. I found myself wondering what the hell I was doing in the Yucatan during the rainy season. In the city of Vallodalid, our bus waded through streets turned to rushing rivers as shopkeepers haplessly squeegeed water out of their stores. After three hours, the rains finally stopped just as we arrived in Piste, totally exhausted.

The next morning we went to the ruins at Chichen Itza, the focal point of this whole trip. Shine made a bee-line for the imposing Pyramid of Kukulcan (another name for Quetzl-Coatl, the plumed serpent god of the Mayans), called El Castillo ("The Castle") by the Spanish, which dominates the main clearing. She saw colors in intricate patterns all over the pyramid and began sketching all of the color schemes into her notebook.

 

The pyramid is impressive, not only because of it's size and symmetry, but it is also a literal calendar: it's steps, levels, and stone "panels" mark days, seasons, and epochs. But I was disappointed when it soon became apparent that visitors are no longer allowed to climb up the pyramid. When I visited this place about fifteen years ago, there was a chain handrail which helped visitors mount the steep stone steps to the temple at the top.

Much has been made in New-Age circles of the fact that the Mayans predicted big changes at the end of this era, specifically December 21, 2012. I've heard all kinds of predictions, from gradual changes in human consciousness to massive cataclysms across the globe ending human civilization as we know it. The Toltec shaman Tlahuizcalpantecutli (or, more familiarly, "El Gorila") that we met in Austin (yeah, I'm sorry---I know I haven't written about my time in Austin before this trip) said that "the sixth sun" would come on this date. (I assumed he was speaking of a solar "sun", but in retrospect, he may have meant a divine child "son".)

I've lost count of all the doomsday predictions I've heard over the years. There was the supposed prediction by Nostradamus that the apocalypse would be triggered by a clash between the Eagle and the Bear (the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.). The Brahma Kumaris predicted the end of the Kali Yuga ("Age of Destruction") and the dawn of the Sat Yuga ("Golden Age of Truth") in the 1990s, then changed the date at least twice when their predictions were incorrect. The Harmonic Convergence came and went with a whimper. And Y2K created a lot of doomsday hysteria too. And there have been many other failed End-of-the-World prophecies-----too numerous to go into here. (But if you're really interested, check out http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrld.htm which compiles a pretty exhaustive list.)

While there is an understandable focus on the end of the Mayan calendar (a mere 3 1/2 years from now), the beginning of the calendar tends to be conveniently overlooked. According to the Mayans, the world was created on August 13, 3114 BCE. While interesting, this date doesn't jibe so well with our modern understanding that the Earth is about 4 1/2 billion years old, while the Universe itself clocks in at a spry 18 billion years.

Despite all my skepticism, I'm trying my best to maintain an open mind, and I must admit that I'm actually looking forward to 2012 with a certain degree of excited anticipation. After all, I'm always up for change-----heck, I'm addicted to it.

Anyhow, Shine went back to our lodge for a break at mid-day and in a matter of seconds the skys let loose with their daily deluge. I was soaked to the skin before I could even get my umbrella out of my backpack. But after an hour the clear blue skies returned and I headed off to explore more ruins along with throngs of other tourists who had been arriving in increasing numbers throughout the day, bussed in on package tours from Cancun and Merida.

 

El Templo de los Guerreros ("The Temple of the Warriors") and the nearby Mercado ("Market") with its numerous stone columns make up a sprawling complex that was fun to explore, but again, we weren't allowed to surmount the alluring temple. Another large complex contains the observatory El Caracol ("The Snail", named for its shape and its interior spiral staircase), a domed structure that aligned various constellations through windows on auspicious dates. My favorite site was the Tumba del Gran Sacerdote ("the Tomb of the Great Priest") adorned with twin serpents flanking the stairways on each of the pyramid's four sides.

Shine returned and we headed to the Cenote Sagrado ("Sacred Pool", one of many water-filled sinkholes occurring all over the Yucatan, apparently created by that big ol' asteroid that thumped the peninsula, possibly wiping out the dinosaurs). The Cenote was a huge round hole in the ground, very deep with dark murky water at the bottom. Despite seeing gold light everywhere, Shine still felt a "heavy darkness" over the whole area, mainly because of the human sacrifices that were made here, especially the young female virgins who were either shot with arrows or had their hearts cut out. Yikes.

One can't really talk about Chichen Itza without mentioning all the bloody rituals that occurred all over the place. The Mayans were already big on warfare and sacrifices, but things really got bumped up a notch when the Toltecs exerted their influence over the region. Chichen Itza has numerous artefacts commemorating their bloody lifestyle.

Besides the Cenote Sagrado, el Templo de los Guerreros also saw its fair share of human sacrifices. The Plataforma de los Craneos ("Platform of Skulls") is decorated with numerous skull glyphs that matched the real decapitated heads of sacrificial victims that were placed on the platform for display. It also features charming reliefs of eagles tearing open peoples' chests to eat their hearts. At the nearby Plataforma de las Aguilas y los Jaguares ("Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars") there are amazingly clear images of eagles and jaguars holding human hearts in their talons and claws.

The Gran Juego de Pelota ("Great Ball Court") features high walls with stone rings near the top for the Mayan game that was something of a cross between soccer, basketball, and hackeysack. And---cuz you just never know if the game will be entertaining enough---they apparently often decapitated the losing team! Imagine the Lakers and the Celtics playing for those stakes! (Though I read somewhere that they might have actually beheaded the winning team, sending them off to a glorious after-life in their version of heaven.)

Whenever I visit ruins, I try to imagine the daily life and rituals that took place hundreds or thousands of years ago. At the Sacred Pool I found myself imagining throwing tourists into the deep dark waters, their screams echoing off the impassive limestone walls. Hey, when in Rome.....

Maybe I was a Mayan priest in a past life?

"Ooh! We're over the ocean now! If we crash now, that means we're all gonna die!"
---little girl sitting in front of me on the plane

"You don't see the colors?"
---Shine to me, regarding the Pyramid of Kukulcan (No I didn't, not even after rubbing my eyes and hitting my forehead a few times.)

"What a waste of good virgins!.....Some monk, huh?"
---me, regarding the sacrifices at the Sacred Pool

"As you have seen, God did not appear on channel 18 and the end of the world did not occur last night. All of my predictions have turned out to be crap."
---Hoh-Ming Chen, leader of "God's Salvation Church", awaiting the end of the world in Texas in 1998