The Ruins of "Chicken Pizza"

Tuesday we went to see the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. I hope I can find the list I made of the songs they played on the only American music radio station we could find on the dial. At some point dad said, "They're really playing some great songs, you know?" I really hope I can find the list to give everyone in blogdom a little insight to my pop's taste in music... but I digress.

The ruins were amazing. Our guide, Javier who was of Mayan descent, told us his ancestors were, like himself, "very short, very smart and very handsome." What struck me most was the astrological configurations of their architecture. The main temple (photo #1 above) is situated such that on the days of equinox, the sun hits the steps of the pyramid and the shadow that is cast forms the body of the snake whose head is at the bottom of the grand stairway. Elsewhere in the ruins is a statue of a reclining figure who, on the day of summer solstice appears to hold the sun on a platter as it rises.

We spent several hours there. We paid our guide $50 american. At one point a couple of the ladies needed to rest so they sat in the shade of a tree and Javier fanned them with his hat. Dad and I went shopping for souvenirs. Dad got a couple carved Mayan masks and a Mayan calendar carved out of bone. I got a carved wooden snake toy for Ian and a mask that depicted the Mayan month of January, the month of both Ian's and my birthday (although their months are shorter so I don't think my birthday actually would fall in January according to the Mayan calendar) and was out of money. When another peddler pressed me to buy something, I said I was out of money and he said, "Yeah, but you have a watch." So I traded my aging Timex Ironman watch for a carved Mayan Calendar. I've always wanted to know more about the Mayan calendar -- ever since I learned in Coach Ohai's history class that it was "more accurate than our calendar" and that it had an ending date -- December 24, 2011. It's the one thing I remember from that history class. I don't even know if it's accurate.