Day 3
Chichén Itzá
Full day
El Castillo
The pyramid of Kukulkán is a calendar built in stone: four stairways of 91 steps, plus the summit platform, make 365. Nine tiers on each side of the stairways make eighteen terraces, the eighteen months of the haab calendar. At the equinoxes, the shadow cast by the corners draws a serpent that runs down the northern balustrade to a stone head. An older pyramid is nested inside, and a cenote has been detected beneath its foundations.
Juego de Pelota
The largest ball court in Mesoamerica, 168 metres long, with acoustics such that a word spoken at one end is heard at the other. The reliefs on the walls show the beheading of a player, seven serpents springing from his neck.
Cenote Sagrado
A natural well sixty metres across, linked to the city by a sacbé. Dredging in the early twentieth century brought up gold, jade, copal, textiles and human bones: it was a place of offering, sacrifices included, over several centuries.
El Caracol, Las Monjas and the Osario
El Caracol is a circular observatory whose windows line up with the extreme positions of Venus. The Las Monjas group, to the south, is Puuc in style and older. The Osario repeats the plan of El Castillo in miniature, above a burial cavern.
Good to know
Be at the entrance when it opens, no exceptions: this is the most visited site in Mexico, the first coaches from Cancún arrive around 10:30 AM and the Gran Plaza becomes impassable. Staying on site, as here, is the only way to be there before them. Two successive tickets to pay for on the spot: 100 MXN for the INAH and around 592 MXN for the Yucatán state AAFY, close to 700 MXN per person. Tickets are sold only at the site's ticket offices and machines, never online. Climbing El Castillo is not allowed. The Chichén Viejo sector, or Grupo de la Serie Inicial, opens only on Fridays and Saturdays, in two slots of 50 people, 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM and 12:00 PM to 2:30 PM, booked at the ticket office. Times and prices on the INAH website. In the evening, the Noches de Kukulkán show, a separate ticket from the daytime one, run by the state of Yucatán: nochesdekukulkan.com.mx, book ahead.