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How to Visit: Staying in the ChichГ©n ItzГЎ area allows visitors to visit early in the morning, out of the hot sun and without the company of the many tourists who arrive on day trip tours from MГ©rida and Cancun. Spring and autumn equinoxes offer the chance to see the incredible shadow serpent of El Castillo-but the often crowded site is absolutely packed at these times. ChichГ©n ItzГЎ's climate is consistently tropical-average temperatures are 93вњЇ (34вњ¬).

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We used CancunVans as private transportation for $350 usd 6 people on round trip with cold drinks and an excellent driver and attentive. Bus services connect to the international airports at MГ©rida (under two hours) and Cancun (two and a half hours). How to Get There: ChichГ©n ItzГЎ is located near the small town of Piste.

In a worldwide vote ChichГ©n ItzГЎ was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Recently this World Heritage site was accorded another honor. Scientists speculate that droughts, exhausted soils, and royal quests for conquest and treasure may have contributed to ChichГ©n ItzГЎ's downfall. Though they left behind amazing works of architecture and art, the cityвЂ™s inhabitants left no known record of why they abandoned their homes. During the 1400s people abandoned ChichГ©n ItzГЎ to the jungle. But after centuries of prosperity and absorbing influxes of other cultures like the Toltecs, the city met a mysterious end. It was also a sophisticated urban center and hub of regional trade. ChichГ©n ItzГЎ was more than a religious and ceremonial site. Competition must have been fierce indeed-losers were put to death. During ritual games here, players tried to hit a 12-pound (5.4-kilogram) rubber ball through stone scoring hoops set high on the court walls. ChichГ©n ItzГЎ's ball court is the largest known in the Americas, measuring 554 feet (168 meters) long and 231 feet (70 meters) wide. Archaeologists have since found their bones, as well as the jewelry and other precious objects they wore in their final hours. Spanish records report that young female victims were thrown into the largest of these, live, as sacrifices to the Maya rain god thought to live in its depths.

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This great cityвЂ™s only permanent water source was a series of sinkhole wells. The MayaвЂ™s astronomical skills were so advanced they could even predict solar eclipses, and an impressive and sophisticated observatory structure remains on the site today. As the sun sets, this shadowy snake descends the steps to eventually join a stone serpent head at the base of the great staircase up the pyramidвЂ™s side. Incredibly, twice a year on the spring and autumn equinoxes, a shadow falls on the pyramid in the shape of a serpent. Devising a 365-day calendar was just one feat of Maya science. Each of the templeвЂ™s four sides has 91 steps, and the top platform makes the 365th. The temple has 365 steps-one for each day of the year. This glorious step pyramid demonstrates the accuracy and importance of Maya astronomy-and the heavy influence of the Toltecs, who invaded around 1000 and precipitated a merger of the two cultural traditions. The most recognizable structure here is the Temple of Kukulkan, also known as El Castillo. Viewed as a whole, the incredible complex reveals much about the Maya and Toltec vision of the universe-which was intimately tied to what was visible in the dark night skies of the YucatГЎn Peninsula.

The stepped pyramids, temples, columned arcades, and other stone structures of ChichГ©n ItzГЎ were sacred to the Maya and a sophisticated urban center of their empire from A.D. The brilliant ruins of ChichГ©n ItzГЎ evidence a dazzling ancient city that once centered the Maya empire in Mexico and Central America.