Uxmal, farewell to the Mayan culture

I have so enjoyed the journey through Central America, the food the locals, the beer, and to some degree a few of my fellow travellers.

Ya know folk rave on and on and on, like a tramps overcoat, about Egypt and it's ancient structures. Well having seen those too it is without doubt m'lud in my honest opinion that I can state that the Mayan bits are far superior.

More than a four-hour drive from the spring break cliché of Cancun being "true Mexico", hence a wonderful site devoid of the fucking instasnapagram brigade

It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites of Maya culture.

The Adivino
The Pyramid of the Dwarf

In Mayan folklore the pyramid was magically built overnight during a series of challenges issued to a dwarf by the king of Uxmal. All well and good if one enjoys the myth over reality, the reality being that the pyramid took centuries to complete, without the assistance of a dwarf.

The construction of the Pyramid was completed in multiple phases, with new, larger structures built over the old ones. The one we see is the fifth pyramid and it dates from the 9th century.

The Govenor's Palace

The Palace, a long low building atop a huge platform, has the longest façade in the mayan world in the Americas.

The building is oriented to observe Venus and when reaching its maximum northerly extremes, Venus would have set behind the northern edge of the Palace. Venus was revered

Significant then that the decoration of the building's facade contains nearly 400 Venus hieroglyphs carved into the masks of the rain god Chac.

The Nunnery Quadrangle was so named as nuns were quartered here during the 16th century because it resembled a convent.

These are replacement rings, from the ball court where Pok a Tok was played out; the originals have been removed to protect them from the elements.

The bloodthirsty game already discussed previously.

Bye bye then our paths will never ever cross again