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Pictures From Our Mexico Trip | |
Pictures taken by Tanja (more to come soon!)
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The view from the window of the "Hotel Tankah", where we unexpectedly stayed our first night. |
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While we were there, Cozumel was having a festival similar to Mardi Gras. These three ladies were more than happy to show off for Tanja's camera! |
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This Mayan woman was making corn tortillas at the Mayaland Hotel, where the tour bus stopped for lunch after our Chitzen-Itza tour. The tortillas she made were delicious! |
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This is the mariachi band that wandered through one night
while we were at "La Choza."
(If you're ever in Cozumel, eat at La Choza! Good prices and excellent food!) |
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This is me in front of some kind of really big tree. Tanja took this picture of me at San Gervacio (The Mayan ruins on Cozumel Island). |
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A really good picture that Tanja took of an iguana at Chakenaab (Mayan for "Little Sea"). Chakenaab is sort of a state park built around a beautiful lagoon and a beach. |
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"Man Meets Iguana" |
Pictures taken by Mike
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This is a corner wise view of the main pyramid at Chitzen-Itza.
At the bottom of the front stairway (not visible in this picture) a snake's
head is carved. On the equinox, the corner of the pyramid casts a
shadow on the side of the stairway that looks like the serpent's body,
with the carved head at the bottom completing the image.
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This is a face on picture of the main pyramid at Chitzen-Itza.
You can see that most of the people on the stairway are clustered near
the center. This is because the stairway is so steep that a chain
has been anchored at the top and bottom of the stairway for people to hold
on while they go up and down.
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This view of one of the stairways gives a little better idea just how steep it is. The only way to REALLY see how steep it is, though, is to climb up to the top and look down! |
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This is the playing field for the ball game that the Mayans used to
have. Using only the right leg (which was armored) or a mallet held
in the right hand, the ball had to be passed through the rings mounted
high on the side walls of the court.
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This relief carving is found under the goals in the ball court.
From studying this (and other evidence), the archaeologists have decided
that it was the WINNERS of the game that were decapitated (to go live with
the gods). The losers were disgraced by performing the decapitation,
and then they were outcast.
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The main pyramid at Chitzen-Itza is built around a smaller, older pyramid.
A hole has been dug through the outer pyramid, and tourists can climb up
the smaller pyramid within the large pyramid. At the top is this
statue of Chak-Mool (the rain god) and a red jaguar.
(Apologies for the color balance - no flash photography was allowed, and the color shifted a little from the long exposure time.) |
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The red jaguar statue mentioned above (You can see it behind the Chak-Mool
in the previous picture).
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This is a picture of the solar eclipse of Thursday, Feb. 26th.
It was very cloudy that day, but occasionally we got a glimpse of the sun.
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This is the courtyard of the Fiesta Inn, the hotel we stayed at on
Cozumel Island.
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This is Ignacio (the maitre d' at La Choza, an excellent restaurant
in Cozumel) and Tanja. It doesn't come out in this picture, but in
person he looks just like Humphry Bogart! Tanja even accidentally
called him Rick once!
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