Uxmal...

It's Labor Day Weekend!  The first long weekend since 4th of July, and boy are we ready for a vacation.  We were going to go home to Washington to celebrate Eric's mom's birthday with family, but the tickets ended up being ridiculously expensive (since it was Labor Day weekend, of course), so we decided to unwind domestically.  My friend B lives out in Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula, so after a quick plane ride, we arrived at sea level, where the air was thick and hot, and where the Mayans thrived.  We got up Saturday morning and headed out for our first adventure, Uxmal, royal city of the Mayans!

 

Oh how exciting, I cannot wait!

This topiary is an example of what we will see later.

Ta-da!  As the topiary predicted, there was a huge pyramid that we could not climb.

Here it is from the side.  It looks so steep!

Uxmal was super interesting mainly because of all of the intricate carvings everywhere.  Hardly any surface was just left blank, unlike other Mayan sites.  The trunks here are apparently asking the rain god Chaac for more rain.

Here's a view of the courtyard.  It is rainy season all over southern Mexico right now, so everything is green and lush.  B says that the site is very brown and dried up when it is not rainy season.  I think these colors are very dramatic!

I wonder if the Mayans had a word for cheese...

More buildings on the courtyard...

Even more buildings...this truly was a massive city.  FYI, it is super hot and stinky inside those little doors.  I would not want to live in there.

Close up of some carvings.  Look out, it's Kukulkan, aka Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent!

Staying hydrated and looking awesome all at once.

This picture is incredible for a reason you may not realize.  Here we have a guy using a real lawn mower.  !!!  He is not using scissors or a weed-whacker or anything weird and labor-intensive such as that.   He is actually pushing a lawn mower.  It's a miracle.

Requisite ball court of doom.  I could make a picture book of all the ball courts we've photographed in Mexico.

One of the spectators waiting for the ball game to start.  There were hundreds of lizards here, you could hear them in the grass and you had to watch out for them (and their droppings) underfoot.

 As the uber-helpful sign indicates, this is the Governor's Palace.  It had pretty awesome carvings too.

This is the Jaguar Throne that the king would sit on and rule.  (Don't you dare think about sitting on it now and pretending to be king.  NOT ALLOWED!)  We all decided it seemed more like a punishment chair, though.  It was probably nearing 100 degrees, and the king had to sit there?  In the blazing sun?  No thanks!

They even had little monuments to Chaac underground. Que interesante!

 Here's a view of part of the ruined city, including a pretty clear outline of the ball court on the left.

The view out into the jungle.  It's so fun to think about what remains to be found out there...

Here's another temple, this time climbing was allowed.

From the top you could see another temple poking out of the jungle.  Let's get some machetes and explore!!

Close up of the intricate carvings at the top of the temple.  It is so detailed and amazing!

View from the top!

 These stairs were crazy steep, as you can see.

 

That's me, the purple dot in the middle, slowly but surely (and safely!) making my way back to earth.

Here is an in tact Mayan roof comb.  B tells us that the light does weird things here during the solstice, casting down shadows of a serpent.

Ruins in the jungle.

On our way out, we met this well camouflaged friend.  So fancy!

After Uxmal, we set out for Celestun to see flamingos.  More on that in the next post...