Dzibilchaltun: a place that no one can pronounce or forget.

Or rather, Our Weekends are SO MUCH BETTER than your weekends!

Sabado, 19 de enero, 2008

Who could have thought that about 20 minutes out from the busy, noisy, modern center of Merida is a place whose ruins predate Christ?  I certainly wouldn’t have thought so.  In any case, there is such a place, and it is called: Dzibilchaltun.  I don’t know how to pronounce it, but I assume that one could say “Zi-bi-chal-toon”, and one of two things could happen: a person in Mexico could correct you, or a Gringo back home could say “Oooh, how exotic” and accept the strangeness of the name.  In any case, it was another eight-o-clocker as we took the van ride up to the site and learned a bit of the history as we stood in the gravel parking lot.  From what our driver/guide told us, it seemed that the place would only be the foundations of once-great buildings, the stones taken away piecemeal as souvenirs or hauled away to be ground up for gravel.  So into the museum we headed, paying ~$6 for admission and examining various Mayan artifacts, including weathered stone statues, various intricately carved idols of gods, artifacts from the Spanish conquests that are STILL older than our country, etc.  After seeing a typical Mayan hut structure, we headed for the ruins, first stopping at a thing our guide called the estile, or stile, onto which stucco was plastered and records of kings recorded into the material.  While the passing of years has worn away all records, leaving just the naked stone structure still standing, it was quite an impressive sight that towered above us.  Going next to the pyramid, our guide told us that it is the only building known on the whole list of Mayan ruins that has windows (oooh), and four of them at that, two facing east and two facing west to take lighting and religious advantage of the spring and winter equinox.  As we approached, we found it almost impossible to believe that we’d be allowed to climb up the steep, worn-slippery stairs these ruins and explore what (maybe) only those of highest holy power could see all those years ago.  Very, very exciting—and another opportunity to see pictures instead of hearing me drone on and on about it.  Having looked it up on Wikipedia, this ruin is called the Temple of the Seven Dolls (so called for the seven dolls found there when it was excavated in the 1950s), and it is the only known Maya building with windows and a tower—oriented such that the rising sun passes directly through the windows on the day of the equinox.

We next headed over to another huge pyramid, located on the outer edge of what used to be a huge gathering plaza/ball court (the Mayans used to play a ball game where the winners got to kill the losers, I think.  Fun, huh?).  Right smack in the middle was a chapel built by the Spanish masters-of-subtlety, who most certainly made their point with this building’s construction in whatever year.  At last, we headed over to the local cenote, and when considering its shape and the abundance of lily-pads, one could almost have mistaken it for a lake.  However, we knew by its clear blue water, absurd depth, and used-to-humans fish that it was a cenote.  Having brought my goggles this time, I got to swim down as far as was possible and see the rocks slippery with algae strewn about the bottom, the tangled, impenetrable roots of lily pads underneath their mass, the little dark shapes of fish as they darted past.  I can honestly say that this experience thus far is the closest thing to paradise that I’ve ever experienced—I mean, I’ve used and learned more Spanish in the past two weeks than I have in my entire life, and I’m at the point where I’ll stop whomever I’m walking with to get a picture of the bird hopping across the sidewalk, or even argue whether a plant is Helicaceae or Zingiberaceae.  Yeah.  This trip is INCREDIBLE, and I hope you’re all enjoying the start of classes back at Ursinus!  Or just the general coldness of the Northeast US.  Bye for now!