One of the 7 Wonders

On the solstices, the shadows fall on the staircase to make a serpent's body appear on the staircase above it's head in El Castillo (roughly "The Castillo")

In early August, Anne, HBomb and Mark had the opportunity to visit one of the 7 wonders of the world, Chichen Itza.  Granted, the original 7 wonders of the world were all in Europe, the Middle East or North Africa, but that is because the guy drafting the original 7 wonders of the world list didn't know that North America existed.  Both the NEW7Wonders Foundation and USA Today put this great site of Mayan ruins on their new lists of the 7 wonders of the world, so that's pretty good.

Nothing more welcoming than a couple of serpent heads and 365 steep stairs.

Chichen Itza is a site that was built by the ancient Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula in what is now called Mexico, but they probably just referred to as "home."  The Mayans were back in the news a few years ago, you may remember, for their calendar reaching it's end in 2012.  Some interpreted the end of their calendar to be a prediction of the end of the world, as if the Mayans had some cosmic insight into the details of that event.  Frankly, after visiting Chicen Itza, I am not sure I really trust the judgment of this ancient civilization.

Now don't get me wrong, this was a fantastic site.  The giant pyramid, the sports/deathmatch court and the ruins of the pillars were all phenomenal and I have a lot of respect for how this ancient civilization harnessed the power of astrology, geology and empire building in ancient America.  BUT - Mayans, come on.  The three most important things in giant pyramid real estate are location, location and location.  And this location was bad.  It is located right in the middle of a jungle.  Wasn't there a nice ready-to-build spot along with beach with some cool Caribbean breezes blowing in where you could have built this thing?  I'm not telling you how to run your ancient civilization, but hey, this is low-hanging fruit.  I mean seriously, it wasn't quite "Africa Hot," but it was definitely "Jungle Hot."  (see scale for further information)

HBomb and Anne going to see what all the fuss is about.

But despite the harsh conditions, our group sojourned on.  Hbomb showed no fear, rushing up to the pyramid and even attempting to run into the serpent's head on one occasion.

Checking out the serpent's head.

And after seeing and hearing some of the history of this place, maybe our group should have been a little more afraid.  One of the cool aspects of the site is the sports court seen below.  Off in the distance on the right, you can see a hoop that is attached to the wall nearly at the top.

Reverend "Moonshine Gerry" gets in for a closer look in the photo below.  The signs and guides say that the prevailing belief is that this court was used for a game, but there is no written record of the rules and we really do not know much about how it was played.  It appears that two teams played with a rubber ball, the game was important to the ancient Mayan rituals, and the hoops may or may not have been part of the game.

It's way up there.  Too high for even Moonshine to dunk on it.

Based on the carvings at the site, it appears that the captain of the winning team offered his head to the losing team, which then decapitated him.  This was a great honor because the now super-dead winning captain would then get a free ticket to heaven and not have to go through all of the intermittent steps that all other Mayans faced after death.  So, he's got that going for him.

Apparently, this is the gallery of past champions in the Ancient Mayan ball game.