Chichen Itza

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Around midday on Wednesday we walked in the sticky heat with our bags to the bus station. We have decided after 6 months of study that rucksacks are a stupid way to carry your belongings and that suitcases with wheels are clearly a better option!
We didn't know what time the buses went to Chichen Itza, but luckily there was one leaving about 20 minutes after we arrived so we hopped on that and took the 2 hour drive to Chichen Itza. There are a few hotels near the ruins and we had booked ourselves into the sister hotel of the hotel we stayed in in Merida. It was quite nice and had a pool, but pretty crappy food that wasn't really Mexican, but wasn't Western either and generally arrived at the table luke warm.

We knew that the hordes from Cancun started arriving at around 10:30, so we got to the ruins nice and early. There were a few people about, but not many and we managed to get a few snaps of the Castillo without people in, something I doubt people managed later in the day.
Another reason for arriving early was to climb the Castillo (main pyramid) before it got too hot, but it was roped off and stayed that way all day. This is a new thing, as in our 2004 guidebook it says that you can do it. We're not sure why they've stopped people going up there, but if you fell you'd probably die, so better safe than sorry!

It was an amazing place to look around. There are many other buildings than just the Castillo. The group of the 1000 colums was pretty cool and you were able to climb onto a part at the back of there. All around there was intricate stone carvings, they looked great, but would have been even more stunning with all the original paint. There is also an observatory which they think was used for astronomical purposes. It looks just like you would expect. There was a huge ball court with nicely carved goal rings and various other pyramid shaped temples.
Defintely worth the visit.
On lots of postcards there are pictures of a Chac Mool that is relatively uneroded, but we hadn't seen it, we thought it was probably in the museum. Unfortunately they had closed the whole museum for renovation, which was quite disapointing. We had a look in a book and discovered that the Chac Mool was at the top of the Temple of Warriors so we had some lunch and then headed back in.
We were very glad that we had done our sightseeing in the morning as coach load after coach load of people had been arriving and when we went back in there were loads of groups of 30 or so people all around.
We found the Chac Mool but it was at the top of a closed off pyramid, presumably recently closed off, so we were unable to get very close.

We spent the rest of the day cooling off by the pool back at the hotel.

On Friday morning we needed a bus to take us 40km up the road to a large bus station in Valladolid. This meant we had to take our things and wait by the side of the road until one came along. We knew the rough times, but this is Mexico and they tend to run on their own special time. It was hot and dusty but eventually a bus came and we manged to get another bus from Valladiod to get us to Playa Del Carmen by late afternoon.