Chichen Itza

A very early, 5am start to the day, so that we beat the crowds and heat of Chichen Itza. We were the first in the car park at 8am.

Chichen Itza was set out by the Mayans 1100 years ago, with three main Temple's around a plaza. They worshipped the Corn god, so each temple was located to aid the seeding and harvesting of it. The Temple of the Warriors had a statue in the middle of it which would line up with the sunrises on spring and autumn solstices (21st March & 21st September).

The Kukulcan Temple, the main pyramid at Chichen Itza, was used to determine midday on the Summer Solstice. It had 365 steps for each of the day's.

The Temple of the Jaguar lined up with the solstice sunsets. Each temple was precisely aligned with each other, using the open mouthed statue of a serpents head to align with the other Temple's. The Kukulcan Temple was even sloped south to North, so that the Sunrise on a certain day would light up the side of the North stairway, representing the serpents body, whose head was at the bottom of the stairs.Read more