come to think of it, they usually bore me senseless. and i begin looking for some dull object to gouge my eyes out with. or a wall to pound my head against. or window to jump out.
eric and i went off the resort only once during our week of bliss, for such an excursion.
it involved seven hours on a bus. and bad, oft-told jokes from the tour guide. and lots of opportunities to buy tacky, cheesy or otherwise offensive (think beer-toting tourist t-shirts) souvenirs. and a meal with "authentic" mexican dancers.
AND, hearing all about the mayans responsible for the structures at the ancient city of chichen itza and their culture. and, really, the fact that they were just a remarkable lot of folks.
and, so, in conclusion... i really liked it. our tour guide knew what he was talking about, and laid out for us the very complicated story behind the ruins in a very simple, palatable way. it was a neat lesson in the coming together of math, science, agriculture and astrology in a people that, really, shouldn't have been able to do all that. i won't bore you with it all, but it is quite interesting, if you're so inclined to google it.
that's the pyramid at the city-center. it's actually a giant, super-accurate calendar, a tribute to the "gods" and a miracle of engineering. it's tilted 17 degrees off the equator, so on the equinox, when the sun hits it around 5 o'clock, bit by bit, triangles appear that make up the back of a snake (whose head, which you can't see in this picture, is on the ground at the base of the north stairs). again, you're really just going to have to look it up.
snaaaaake. not THE snake. but just a snake.
this is the ball court. which had lots of significance in the mayan culture and other cultures around the world. and held even more significance for eric, who remembered something like it from the movie "the road to el dorado," which he insisted--since then--that we watch. and which we bought after an exhausting search at walmart. for $5. go us.
ruins vs. rebuilt.
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