Chichen Itza - aka. Chichen Shitza
Trip Start
Aug 12, 2010
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9
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Trip End
Sep 23, 2011
Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
To describe Chichen Itza is hard as its so so busy that it actually ruins the setting (see the crowds in the pictures below). The great pyramid and huge ball court (over 100m long) are very impressive with their scale and detail of inscriptions but we were left a little dissapointed as you couldn't climb any other ruins unlike those in Palenque. The site also felt very artificial and Americanised as the ruins have been recovered and restored so much that they didn't feel real, almost like a Disney theme park (no offence). We also got really annoyed with the amount of sellers that were at the sight, we were constantly being harrassed to buy something or continously hearing the jaguar sound of the sellers, it completely ruins the setting.
The strange thing is that the American 'tourists' that pour in from Cancun love it, whilst you can see all the 'travellers' walking around hating it. I think this is because backpackers have seen either the Palenque or Tikal ruins beforehand, where you don't get any of this hassle. We are still pleased we went to ruins as the actual buildings are very good.
After seeing the ruins we caught our bus to Cancun where we had something very special in store.
All our love x x x x x
