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...