A city that was born in the late fifth century AD, a place that – five centuries later – was occupied by a different people, different architectures that blend harmoniously, giving to the visitor that the languages of the Toltecs and Maya they can not tell. Welcome to Chichen Itza, 120 km east of Merida, Mexico. Before you can admire the creativity and skill of the artists who have worked in this broad ceremonial area of the Yucatan. Looking south you can find the “cenote Xtoloc”, while to the north the one of the sacrifices (where they were found valuable offers and human skeletons). http://www.cptm.com.mx/
Since 1923, many archaeological explorations have taken away the forest hundreds of buildings, but if you want to see the observatory spiral, then you have to walk to the southwest of the “Cenote Xtoloc”. The advice is to go and see this circular observatory (built in different eras), remembering that the warriors heads and feathered serpents are the gift of the Toltecs, while the contribution of the Maya is structural and formal. What you see in the middle of the archaeological area – right in the middle of the plain – is the temple of Kukulkan, what the Spanish called “El Castillo”. http://www.merida.gob.mx/turismo/index_in.htm
Do you want to know something more about that temple? Good. That building is steeped in the cosmological symbolism: nine steps are to symbolize the nine heavens, four steps are the cardinal points, 365 steps are the days that the sun takes to navigate the entire sky. You know? Within this structure there is one more ancient, containing the red jaguar throne. Looking north-west, you can see a giant ball court, but if you want to know the fate of the players, you have to go near that monument full of reliefs carved in the rock: among them, there is a scene that represents the sacrificial beheading, at the end of the race. http://wikitravel.org/en/Chichen_Itza
