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Cruising Active Transport
We left San Francisco on September 7th 2008 and are off to see the world in our Tayana 37 Pilot House cutter.
Active Transport's Photos - Chichenitza
Photos 1 to 14 of 14 | Cruising Active Transport (Main)
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The Pyramids at Chichenitza are the prototype for all cast plastic Mayan pyramids sold at all of the sites we visited in Mexico. Like Uxmal the ruins here were not damaged by jungle growth and are in pretty good shape.
Here is one of the Mayan gods that was used as a depository for the beating hearts of human sacrifices. This is probably a replica but the guide we drew here was so bad that we all wandered off after a few minutes and did not get a lot of information on what we were seeing. Our guide seemed to be more interested in ingratiating himself to us by teaching us how to bargain for souvenirs rather than teaching us anything about the site. I guess he knew what worked for enhancing his tip with most of the visitors to this place. The reason we think this is a copy is that most of the good pieces like this are in the Anthropology museum in Mexico City and this statue had no protection from the elements.
This was a nice looking building that, like many of those at Uxmal, used a lot of columns.
The ball court at Chichenitza was so large that it was hard to believe that people actually used it for playing the game described by the Archeologists. The game was played with a rubber ball that is said to have weighed 8 lbs. But the goal on this court was about 25 feet off the floor of the court. The players are said to have hit the ball with their hips and shoulders and no hands. One explaination that we heard is that the game, at this site, was played with some sort of basket on the players arm, sort of like modern jaili.
Here is a shot of the goal at the Chichenitza ball court.
Another view of the ball court and goal with some people in the bottom for scale.
Another view of the ball court.
Like Uxmal, the sculptural details are well preserved.
details of buildings are still in very nice shape.
more deails
Shawn wearing his Uxmal tee shirt near the steam bath at Chichenitza
John
Chichenitza is loaded with columns. There must be a couple of thousand of them. One causeway with columns on both sides was over 1/4 of a mile long.
This is the steam bath viewed from the waiting room.
 
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