Feeling the essence of the warm heat radiating off my skin and hearing the distant chatter of tourists pushing past one another, I smiled and looked all around in admiration. I was in Mexico for winter break, in the ancient city of Chi-Chen Itza, in Rivera Maya to be exact, and right now I was completely dazzled with the tremendous magnificence of this whole place. We went to numerous places in Mexico, but Chi-Chen Itza was the most memorable of them all. I will never forget the image of all the ancient buildings: my jaw was hanging wide open when we walked from one building to the other. It was amazing.

     Visiting Chi-Chen Itza was thrilling and exciting. We rode for three hours in the bus, and I had a sudden outburst of energy when we were let out of the vehicle. I quickly bounded off the steps before the rest of the tour group, and I was the first person from the bus to see Chi-Chen Itza, the ancient city. What met my eyes truly stunned me. Out in the distance, I could see the Kukulkan Pyramid in the ancient city, also known as the El Castillo, one of the seven wonders in the world. It was so huge I could barely look at it as a whole, and I kept gawking at its dominance and superiority, with thin, intricate steps carefully carved out in the front. As I gazed at the pyramid through my sunglasses, I could see snakes facing the ground, carved out of stone on each side, as it was believed that when the sun set, these reptile creatures would slide down to the Underworld. The pyramid had obviously been built with precision. Tremendous amounts of mathematical calculation must have been required, and it was astonishing to know that people had to work so hard on the measurements to construct the magnificent building, the size of an enormous beast, glowing golden in the sunlight.  The tour guide, who explained all the history and buildings in Chi-Chen Itza every step of the way, informed us that the pyramid was specifically designed so that when we clapped, echoes that sounded like birds would be reflected. As proof, our whole tour group clapped their hands on the count of three, and it really was true! Our echoes sounded like birds squawking in the air, and if someone didn’t know that it was the echoes of us clapping out loud, they might have thought it was a real bird. The whole concept of how the Mayans built the Kukulkan Pyramid amazed me.

     “Don’t mix Chi-Chen Itza with chicken pizza,” the tour guide joked. The ironic thing was that a few minutes before, I had seen and heard a man selling Chi-Chen Itza t-shirts by the sidewalk. “Chicken Pizza t-shirts for sale!” he had yelled out to everyone. I was momentarily confused, wondering why anyone would be selling chicken pizza t-shirts, and the thought just made my mouth water. It turned out, the man was just saying Chi-Chen Itza t-shirts for sale, and I had gotten the whole concept confused.

 

     As our tour group was walking with the guide, the sun was beating down on us, harder than ever. The sun was out and it shone an extravagant, bright color, as if to say, “Ha, bet you can’t bear the heat. You can’t even look into me!” It was unusually hot, and as we trudged forward I strained my ear, moving my sticky body, to hear what the tour guide was saying. Apparently, long ago in the city of Chi-Chen Itza, there was a very intense ball game, called Pok ta Pok, where two teams battled to get the ball into the hoop, but they couldn’t use their hands at all, only their stomachs. One game could take up to three days straight! Each season, a group of Mayans would willingly volunteer to participate in the sporting event, knowing that execution by the victors of the game was inevitable. The sporting event would be held at night, with the king, queen, and special guests sitting on high, official platforms with seats, on opposite sides. The spectators would be on the side, and each person would hold a torch, so it would be easy for the competitors to play. The loser lost his head, and even though it sounds cruel, they were willing participants, and knew that they would risk dying from the moment they volunteered to play in the annual games. More than twenty people would die a year because of the games.

     We also passed by a bunch of rocks and two startled iguanas were staring right back at us. Green and gray, blending in with the rocks, they froze, not even moving the tiniest bit. We came upon a stone wall with Mayan pictures and art. All the images on it were carved, displaying images of a loser of the annual games in Chi-Chen Itza getting his head cut off and other important events that had happened over the course of the years. There is a very easy way to differentiate the difference between a person of Mayan royalty and the common people: all princes and royal men had heads shaped like squashes because from when they were babies, their heads were put into squash-shaped molds. People of royalty thought that it was good to have a head shaped as a squash, and a person was counted as good looking if they had squash heads. People that were not royalty, on the other hand, did not have heads shaped as squashes.

     After a long day’s walk through Chi-Chen Itza, I felt pleased and satisfied. It was totally worth the time, and I learned a lot about the Mayan culture, too. With the humid air nudging my skin and the fragrance of the palm trees and the lush, dark green leaves with multiple sides filling my nose, I took one last glance at Chi-Chen Itza, with its grand Kukulkan Pyramid and the dry, dusty ground with large, leafy trees in the distance and savored my moment in the ancient city.