Mexico with the Maya: A Great Winter Break Vacation

What a great break! As you may know, history is a passion and driving force behind many of our vacations. This Winter Break we had the great fortune to have gone on a road trip in the Yucatan Peninsula in Southern tip of Mexico. The Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza and Uxmal were outstanding demonstrations of the power, creativity and ingenuity of the Maya Civilization. Here are a few fun shots:

On top of the Grand Pyramid in Uxmal

Chichen Itza

We learned a few things that I have to share!

1. The Maya often sacrificed to the Rain God Choc by tossing victims and sometimes volunteers into great water holes called cenotes. Carved in limestone in the rainforest, cenotes are as deep as 150 feet. Sacrificial victims died by drowning. An American archeologist bought Chichen Itza in the early 1900s and dredged the sacrifice cenote to find bones, jade and gold at the bottom!

2. The most comprehensive Maya Codices (hieroglyphic index) was bought and is housed in Dresden, Germany. For this reason, it is named the Dresden Codex. The German buyer has not agreed to sell it back to Mexico.

3. When the Spaniards arrived in 1519, most of the Mayan cities had been abandoned already, but Tulum (the famous runs on the beach) was so thriving that the Spaniards referred to it as similar to the grand Spanish city of  Seville.