In our continuing quest to make the most of our remaining time here in Mexico, we did the unimaginable — an ultra-touristy bus tour to Chichén Itzá. How did independent travelers such as ourselves end up on a tour with forty tourists from the U.S., Canada, Spain and Argentina? Well, here’s the story.
Every spring and autumn equinox, thousands of people flock to Chichén Itzá to view the “serpent” slithering down the Pyramid of Kukulkán. There is no real serpent, of course. At certain times of day, the sun casts shadows on the pyramid making it look like a serpent body is crawling down the pyramid meeting an actual statue of a serpent’s head at the bottom. At least that’s what people say it looks like.
Libby wanted to see it even though we had already visited Chichén Itzá with our friends, Kevin & Lynette. John thought it sounded lame. Libby found a webcast of the slithering serpent from last year, hoping to entice John with it. Turned out the cloud cover made the serpent a bit shy last year. Libby was having trouble making her case.
Enter our friend Antonio who works for a local travel company. He is going on a free tour to Chichén Itzá the next day and there are 2 more seats available. The tour includes round trip transportation, morning at a cenote, afternoon at Chichén to view the elusive serpent, breakfast, lunch and all the soda and beer we can drink. Free beer? Now you’re talking! John’s in.
A day trip to Chichén Itzá from Playa means an early morning, so we boarded a huge bus about 7:45am. Yikes! After a breakfast of coffee, orange juice and baked goods (Try not to spill that coffee on the speed bumps!), we arrived at our first stop – Ikkil Cenote, just 3 kilometers east of Chichén Itzá. With 3 tour buses arriving at the same time, the place was packed. The water level of this cenote is about 80 feet below the surface, but a very easy walk down some stairs takes you to water level. The cenote was nice and some additional stairs led to a jumping platform. John made the 20 foot jump twice without hesitation, Antonio made the jump once after some consideration, and Libby chickened out and made a 10 foot jump instead.
Next on the agenda was an assembly-line style meal at some restaurant created solely to feed tourists on big tour buses. Nothing much to speak of, but hey, it was free! We finally moved on to Chichén Itzá, where we embarked on a Mayan guided tour. When we visited Chichén before, we did not hire a guide, but relied on a guidebook. Although we didn’t see as much on this trip, it was interesting to get the perspective of a Mayan. She purports that many of the stories we hear and read about the Mayans were created by the Christian Spaniards in order to put the Mayan pagans in a bad light – mainly stories about human sacrifices. (If you’ve read DaVinci Code, you’ll believe it.)
After the tour was over, it was time to nab a primo spot for the viewing of the serpent. Around 4pm, we started seeing the beginnings of the serpent. Over the next hour, the shadows very slowly changed until we finally saw the serpent in full effect. It’s a good thing we had seen pictures of it on the internet. Otherwise, we would have thought we had missed it. Okay, maybe John was right. A bit lame.
More interesting was the show put on by our fellow spectators. We were there the day after the official spring equinox, when the serpent is just as slithery, but the crowds are thinner. Still, there were plenty of people, most of them sitting. But some of those in the “first row” felt compelled to stand through much of the hour. Watching the sitters taunting the picture snapping/video-taping standers was quite amusing. Every time a stander was finally convinced to sit, there was applause. Hey, there was nothing else to do!
In all seriousness, although the visual effect of the slithering serpent did not wow these (perhaps jaded) travellers, the accuracy with which the Mayans produced such a precise effect on a precise date really amazed us. And it still works over a thousand years later. Those Mayans must have aced the math section of their ACTs!
And this concludes our tour.
Thanks so much to Antonio for getting us into that tour! ¡Que tipazo!
View our New Chichén Itzá pictures
I would have enjoyed this tour until you got to the Cenote - no thanks. Enjoy each day of your Mexician vacation. love,donna