The Return of Kemmelo

Before his escape out to warm Ecuador, Matto decided to brave the wintry winds of Chicago and come visit us. It gave us an excuse to get out and see some of the sights we should have been seeing since we moved in.

The Art Institute...

the spitting fountain...

the bean...

the traditional Chicago hot dog...

and last but not least, the Sears Tower.



(which is now named but rarely called the Willis Tower)



To end the weekend, we continued our grown-up Easter egg hunt tradition...

and the Young boys renewed their love of candy.

Day 4--The End of the World

Our final full day was spent in two places--both of which deserve a full day, for those of you who might follow in our footsteps.

Our first tour was in Coba, where we had a killer tour guide who was just a walking encyclopedia on Mayan culture and history. Much of the sight had trees and forests and it seemed much less well preserved or well restored than Chichen Itza.

This calendar originally started the 2012 doomsday hypothesis. According to our walking encyclopedia, a talented Mayan sculpture carved out the symbols for the years leading up to 2012 (it being the final one). Somewhere along the line, an archeaologist came along, looked at the calendar, and assumed it meant the end of the world.

The highlight of the sight was climbing the largest Mayan pyramid in the Yucatan. For those of you who are familiar with Kenny's love of heights, being at the top and climbing down was a little interesting. He also enjoyed being the "border police", ensuring that I didn't get too close while at the top.

The climb was a bit daunting...

...but the view from the top was spectacular.

This is what we saw on the way down (on our bums, sliding, no less). The stairs were quite steep and had no railings or safety nets on the sides, and the only support was an old, frayed rope trailing down the middle. In the US it would have been a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The really beautiful pictures came from Tulum, the only Mayan town to have been built on the shore. Unfortunately, walking into Tulum, I managed to stub my big toe and rip off a significant portion of the skin (being in flip-flops--probably not the wisest decision, as Kenny swiftly pointed out). A kind life guard patched me up with some frightening looking iodine and gauze that he rested on the floor before applying it to my open wound. But my toe is still intact and infection-free, so no harm done.

A little model of the entire site--note the wall surrounding the entire thing, another unique thing about Tulum.

Here's a little house at Tulum--the "town" itself was a merchant town, being on the sea. So there weren't as many inhabitants as some of the other ruin-sites.

The Mayans had some other equinox tricks up their sleeves--a small hole in the building allows the light to shine through when positioned correctly. So surprising, in fact, that most archaeologists didn't know it was there until it was happened upon accidentally. This particular building is also a typhoon warning, whistling if the wind picks up fast enough to bring on a storm. Still works, too.

We only had about an hour to explore Tulum, which is not nearly enough to really enjoy everything, but we did get to see the highlights.

Beautiful beach...

beautiful blue...

beautiful buildings...



wild turkeys?..

beautiful day.





Day 3--All By Our Lonesome

This was my favorite day. We were able to get up early and be some of the first tourists at the archaeological site, allowing for some fabulous pictures. Observe the ball court:

Lots of tourists(day before)...

Kenny all by his lonesome.

We'll take you on our tour of the ruins.

Again, the ball court.

Kenny attempting to play by himself.

Interesting note: these hoops are not the originals. The originals have been removed and put in a museum somewhere in Mexico City. The originals were also never that high but were actually at elbow height. So it was less of a basketball and more of a...human pong.

Me and El Castillo. (note the lack of other people)

Kenny and the serpents.

Sad fact: climbing the pyramid is no longer allowed since someone decided it would be humorous to urinate in the temple of Kukulkan.

There are apparently more ruins that extend outward from underneath the pyramid of Kukulkan, whose excavation is seen here. We tried to find more information about it, but there wasn't much to be had. Points to whoever can figure it out.

This statue has held more freshly extracted hearts than probably (hopefully) any other. The human sacrifices of the Mayans would have their hearts removed and would be placed on this reclining individual as an offering. Much as Kenny's head is illustrating here:

Apparently it was the Mayans who first invented Tic-Tac-Toe.

A lot of the ruins at Chichen Itza are still in "ruined" mode--Kenny's pointing at a mound of rubble that will be restored at some point, if they ever figure out how it was originally.

 One thing our tour guide was extremely adament about was the fact that the Mayans built with SQUARE columns, not round. Most of them depicted nicely carved warriors and beheaded victims as decoration. Kenny is having a staring contest with this particular one.

We also discovered that most if not all of the structures at Chichen Itza used to be incredibly colorful! We managed to find a little niche of color underneath one of the ballcourt structures and did some twisting and leaning over the barriers to try and get some good pictures.

Here's the skull structure, where they would put the heads of their beheaded victims. Appropriately, the building is covered in lovely carved skulls.

Kenny has a new(?) favorite Mayan God, the God of rain known as Chaac. His most defining characteristic is his swirly nose, modelled somewhat reluctantly by our Kenbuds.

Chaac in triplicate...

Me and the observatory...

Kenny in a Mayan well--it has obviously been covered over, but after stepping into it, Kenny noticed an odd hollow sound and hopped out pretty quickly. Notice the fixed smile...

Kenny and a classic Mayan arch.

Finally...

Day 2--The Descent of Kukulkan

Forgive the series of posts, but I was afraid I would never begin the blog if we didn't split it up into smaller segments.

The next day we took a little tour down to Chichen Itza just in time to see the elusive spring equinox--for those unfamiliar with the phenomenon, the light from the spring and winter equinoxes creates an interesting snake-like image with the steps of the Temple of Kukulkan. The temple was built specifically for Kukulkan, also known as the "fiery serpent god", by the Toltecs when they conquered/moved in peacefully?? (this point is debated) with the Mayans. Apparently our guide has lead a tour to the equinox fourteen times and has only seen it successfully four times. I was expecting a bit more than what actually appeared, envisioning wiggly magical snakes spilling down the stairs, but instead the whole thing took about 45 minutes as a stream of light became more and more pronounced in a crooked line that ended at one of the serpent heads attached at the base. The real phenomenon, in my mind, was the sheer number of people present (a large portion of them native).

If you squint a little you can see the squiggly light along the wall and hopefully make out the head of the serpent in the bottom left-hand corner.

Later that evening we saw the light and sound show in Spanish--also attended by hundreds of people--and found a nice friend named Paty with splendid English who was willing to translate for us. The whole story revolved around Kukulkan and some of the legend's history...but I'll let Kenny tell more of it, if he ever feels inclined.

The serpent clearly illuminated...

...the pretty glowing temple.

Our hotel, the Mayaland, was right next to the site, which meant that we were not only within walking distance of the ruins but had our own private entrance into it. We were also upgraded to a bungalow...

...complete with thatched roof, mosquito nets...

...carved wooden doors...

...(forgive us, we were tired) and stained glass windows.

And as an added bonus, we found a friend running around our bathroom the next morning. I'm sure there were many more that we were thankfully never aware of.