Chich'en Itza

Hello, my name is Dan. I am Katie's husband and I am guest blogging today.

I recently, last week, had the privilege of going to Mexico with my brother Jer. We spent most of our time in Cancun, but we did take a whole day out of our busy sunbathing schedules to go and visit the 7th wonder of the world! I know, I know, you're like, wow, right.

"Chich'en Itza." Just think chicken pizza, that's how you remember.

We also swam in an enormous fresh water "Cenote". First the Cenote.

Northern Yucatán is arid, and the rivers in the interior all run underground. There are two large, natural sink holes, called cenotes, that could have provided plentiful water year round at Chichen, making it attractive for settlement.

After seeing this picture of me at the top or opening of the cenote, you now know why I had to take some time out of my sunbathing schedule. I redefine "gringo". This opening just magically appeared in the jungle. You could almost fall into it the jungle is so thick.

As you can see, it is also, very far down. It is fresh water, cool and refreshing and also filled with blind cave fish. That was weird. It was gorgeous, from every angle.

Back to the Mayan ruins of Chicken Pizza. Mayans were astrologers. Major astrologers. All of their grand temples and buildings reflect knowledge of "solstice, equinox and eclipse" timetables. They knew when they were to occur and built pyramids and temples demonstrating this. I have a BA and I don't even really know when these occur. Gimme a sec, I can find it on my i-phone. Except, there was no service out there, lol.

Here is my brother Jer and I.

I love this pic at the base of the temple. I took all of these pics by the way.

Don't you love the clouds in this one? The building is made out of granite. The quarry is over two miles away. By the way, they did NOT have the "wheel". It was not yet invented or blue print borrowed as they say. This is possibly my favorite pic. It is of the Temple of the Warriors. Behind it is the temple of the bearded man. Interesting, considering the Mayans were completely beardless.The Mayans had devised a calendar (the Haab) that was more precise than our modern day calendar. They could not or did not invent the wheel, but they had a calendar better than ours? That is interesting to me, but as I stated before, they were astrologers!

I want to give you a few more fascinating facts of this magnificent ancient culture.

The stairways are all 47 degrees, that is the most extreme a "top" can spin and still stay upright. Interesting.

Mayan calendar states, there are 5 human eras and on Dec. 21st, 2012, the last human era comes to an end. Interestingly, the main Pyramid will align perfectly with the center of the Milky Way on that day. Also, the center of the milky way is a black hole, (considered Feminine) and the Pyramid is considered Masculine to Mayans. Venus only lines up once every 26,000 yrs, this day in 2012.

They have snakes all over the art and buildings. Think Adam and Eve. They also believe in a tree of life. Again, Adam and Eve, creator and tree.

Positive-Negative, light-dark, heaven-hell. Equinox, solstice.

The Mayan calendar is cyclical, not linear, like our modern time line. The Milky way is a spiral, DNA is a spiral, (think life), the Sun goes down a lil bit different every day, yes it spirals. Interesting.

There is a lot of fascinating symbolism and information I learned from the tour. It was awe inspiring to me. If you get the chance, read up about the Mayans. One can only learn.

Dan