One bedroom condo in Cancun

There were 3 restaurants at the resort. All three had live entertainment, but this had a stage for dancers.

Just out the back door was a beach with refrigerated sand. The pipe you can see pipes the sand that gets eroded back onto the land.

This is a view from my bedroom window. The flag was flying the last day because it was revolution day.

My yacht ride around the lagoon.

This is the first stop on my bus tour. A rip off tourist trap. The seat was out front. I didn't buy anything.

CHICHÉN ITZÁ

This is the first I saw of one of the old buildings.

The main pyramid El Castillo in the Plaza of the Castle. The first shot shows the two sides that have been fully reconstructed. They only use the original stones for repairing all the buildings, so it is difficult for them to put them back together. This pyramid represents the religious calendar that had 365 days. On the solstice, triangles of lights go up the temple from the snake's head at the base of the stairway giving it a body.

El Gran Juego de Pelota

This is the largest ball court in Mesoamerica. It is formed by a long wall on each site, with embedded rings or hoops carved with images of plumed serpents. The slightly sloping walls are decorated with scenes of the sacrifice of ball players. At each end of the U-shaped court there are low walls supporting buildings richly decorated with reliefs and paintings. To the east, the Temple of Jaguars and Shields presents processions of dignitaries and battle scenes that offer a vivid image of the history of Chichen Itza.

The size of the court and the height of the rings indicate that, in this case, it is not likely that the ball was hit through the ring by the hip alone, although such game rules were generally applicable at the time of the conquest.

When these buildings were first made you would not be able to see the individule stones. The whitish colour you can see is a form of plaster made from limestone and would have covered the stones completely.

When the game was over, the winning team would walk up the steps of this temple to have their heads chopped off to be offered to their god.

The heads were tossed into the cenote. (sinkhole) The second picture shows what was most likely a platform they created to toss the heads from.

Platform of Venus

The Platform of Venus is very similar to the one of the same name in the Plaza of the Castle. In the center of one of its panels there is a relief of Serpent Bird Man, which is considered to be the representation of Quetzalcoatl - Kukulcan as the "Morning Star". Towards the stairway, one can observe the matting, which symbolizes power, and in the corners can be seen what has been interpreted as the "Knotting of the Years" alongside the planet Venus.

The platform was originally painted in red, green, ocre, blue and black.

An offering, consisting of a skull of a decapitated man, was found in the eastern stairway.

These are the Platforms of Venus in the Plaza of the Castle.

Just beside the sacrificial temple was the marketplace. This used to have a stone roof.

Round Platform

The Round Platform, one of the few buildings so shaped in Chichen Itza, held a container with offerings and a small, stone-paved area.. The Function of these buildings was probably as podiums for ceremonies, rites or dances.

Sacbeob 5 & 15

Sacbe 5 is a road which connects the Northern Plaza with the Observatory. It was built in three stages: the first two provided a simple line of stones outlining the road, while in the third stage there were walls, slightly higher than those observed today. There is an earth wall, dating from an earlier period, which was probably build as a base for an enclosure or defense structure made of perishable material, which eventually connects Sacbe 5 with the northern side of the Temple of Xtoloc. It is built out of re-used stones, of which there are many column bases and decorated stones. Sacbe 15, which crosses Sacbe 5 at this point, joins the platform of the Ossuary with the Xtoloc Centre and reaches the temple of the same name. However, it was partially dismantled, perhaps even before the arrival of the Spaniards.

This Sacbe is contemporaneous with the first period of Sacbe 5.

The roads are not shown, but there is a recreation of what the houses lining the road would have looked like.

This is the temple where they would sacrafice the virgin women to the fertility god.

They would lay down on this slab, have their hearts cut out still beating and mixed with water in the hole below. The mixture of the heart, blood and water would be scooped up in a bucket and tossed into the same cenote as the ball players heads. The cenote is located right next to this temple.

The Observatory

There are 7 cenotes located around CHICHÉN ITZÁ. This was the main one they used to get their water. Now used as a swimming pool.