Today I visited two Mayan ruins close to Mérida: Uxmal and Kabah. They were the first Mayan ruins I visited with a guide - and as it turns out, I was right to visit the others unguided. Almost all of the information the guide gave was also available on the explanatory signs scattered throughout the ruins. The rest of the information consisted of stories that, while sounding nice, didn't always represent the current level of knowledge scientists have concluded about the ruins.
In addition, there never seems to be enough time in a tour. Instead of allowing a few minutes here and there to sit and quietly appreciate the view and the new information, the guide hurried on and on - only to include a lunch break that seemed to me about three times as long as would have been necessary. Ah well, I guess such tours are simply tailored to the extroverted half of the population.
The first site we visited was Uxmal, a world heritage site. This is the main building, called the Magician's Pyramid:
It seems that the buildings in Uxmal were rather well-built, with stones cut rectangularly that didn't need mortar to hold together. The guide explained that the builders used some kind of plant fiber as a saw. But since stone, even limestone, is stronger than plant fiber, it must have taken several strands of plant material to cut a single stone - causing a fair bit of deforestation in the process.
There was only one building in Uxmal that was open for climbing. It had just 65 stairs, so the total height must have been something around 20 meters - a lot lower than the 70-meter giant in Tikal. From the top I had a nice overview of the entire site:
Uxmal also had a 'nunnery' - but just like in Chichén Itzá, the buildings were actually used for government and administration. All of the buildings were richly adorned; just look at this detail on one of the buildings:
In addition to the government palace, there was also a huge palace for the governor. According to the guide, the governor didn't walk around the city, he was always carried - doesn't this sound familiar from other societies? What is it about rulers that they become too lazy (or feel too superior) to walk? Anyway, of course the governor's palace had rich decorations, too:
After a too short amount of free time in Uxmal, we went on to the ruins of Kabah, a small site close to Uxmal. A sacbe, or white road, bridged the 18km between Kabah and Uxmal. These roads enabled the Maya to walk between their cities even at night. In Kabah, there was an arch forming the entrance gate to the city:
In the region of Uxmal and Kabah, there are no rivers or lakes, thus making the population entirely dependent on rain water. That's why the Maya built cisterns, exploiting underground caves to serve as rainwater reservoirs. The interesting bit about the cisterns was how the Maya made sure that the water stayed clean and drinkable over the course of several months. They made a paste out of maize, moistened it, and let it stand for a while. What happens when you let wet mashed corn - or corn tortillas, nowadays - stand for a while? Well, it gets covered by a certain kind of fungus. Incidentally, by exactly that kind of fungus that can be used to extract penicillin from. So in essence, the Maya put penicillin into their cisterns to keep the water from getting bad. Fascinating, isn't it? This is the restored above-ground part of one cistern in Kabah:
The facade of the building you can see in the back of the cistern (the building is called Codz Poop, but most certainly not pronounced the English way) is covered with 260 masks of the rain god Chaac, one for each day in the Mayan calendar. As you can see in the picture below, Chaac's noses vary in length, and some even curl upwards again.
On the back side of Codz Poop, there were two statues whose arms protrude from the wall. They might be the reason why Kabah - which means powerful hand - was named like this.
At the parking lot, the guide pointed a huge ceiba tree out to us. To the Maya, the ceiba was quite an important tree: it is thought to stand in the center of the rectangular world, representing the underworld (roots), earth (stem), and heaven (branches). It also has more practical uses: its stem is hollow, so that it can easily be used to make canoes.
