Chichen Itza

During a week vacation in Mexico, went on a tour of Chichen Itza. What an amazing place.

On the 2 hour drive our bus tour guide spoke about the area and the Mayan people. According to her, no one knows how many Mayans are still in the jungles because the government doesn't care and they aren't included in the census, nor do their villages get electricity or anything. Their main sources of income are from making and selling things to tourists, producing honey, etc. Orange flower covered trees were everywhere along the way!We stopped shortly before Chichen Itza at a large cenote where some people took a quick swim. Beautiful! I kinda wish we had more time there as I didn't want to jump in and out and then have to spend the rest of the day soggy. By the time we got to Chichen Itza it was so hot out. The buildings/structures are quite spread out so we were in the sun quite a bit. El Castillo or the Temple of Kukulkan:Our guide was horrible - a stuffy little man who spoke in a monotone voice and kept repeating the same things. It was as if he didn't know what else to say. He paused when we wanted to move on and quickly moved on when we would have wanted another moment. It would have been much better with a different, more animated guide. Other than the guide, Chichen Itza was amazing. Temple of the Warriors/Templo de los Guerreros:I've always heard about the ball park but I didn't realize it was that big!Nearby is the Tzompantl - a platform that held huge racks for displaying skulls of the sacrificed - captives of war or ritual sacrifices. Our guide said that the captain of the winning team from the ball games was sacrificed. That, of course, is speculation as no one really knows what happened back then.

It's hard to imagine what things were like there when it was alive with activity. As I do when I go to any historical place like that, I wish I could go back in time even for a moment just to see what it was like.
I put sunscreen on several times during the day, including 2 times in the hour or so that we wandered around Chichen Itza. My shoulders didn't burn, they just blistered!!!! White blisters sized from a pencil tip to a little pencil eraser. They didn't hurt so much and were very thin. Maybe my shoulders just got too hot? Once the blisters broke the next day they still didn't hurt, just peeled. Odd. It would have been much better to visit the cenote AFTER being out in the sun at Chichen Itza. A quick cooling dip would have been perfect. We did make that suggestion for future trips.
Now back at my home and over my Mexicoma (^.~) I LOVE my Chichen Itza purchase:It was the only one I saw the entire time that had these colors. Everything else was either bright rainbowy colors or just black/dark brown/white combinations.

March 19th: Amman

I'm still trying to finish posting about my trip earlier in the year but it is very time consuming. I'm working on it!!!
The bus drop off in Amman was not at any sort of station. It was in some sort of alley behind a small building, in a dirt lot. Hmmm. Odd. I didn't have any problems, though. Got my bag, headed to the main street and hopped into a taxi. I gave the taxi a business card for the Palace Hotel (I got the card from some of the people I met in Syria). He seemed to know what it was and started going. But then he kept stopping to ask for directions. Along the way, he said 10JD. I said WHAT?? NO! Meter. He said okay, 5 JD. I said NO. He said 4 JD. I said NO, Meter. Finally he stopped. I didn't see the hotel. I asked and he said it was on the other side of the street, back a little bit. He had passed the walk that was near it and didn't want to go and turn around and go back to drop me off closer to the hotel. He refused, even though I had my big back and small bag to carry, not to mention a knee that didn't seem to want to work. I got out, got my bags and paid him. It was quite a bit more than the meter rate. If I had smaller change I would have given him only what the meter said, as he was being a jerk. He drove away, almost knocking me over. Ack. I should have taken down his lisence plate number but was too tired and just wanted to get to the hotel. It was more than a block back!!!! Argh.

I was at the hotel by about 10 AM.
In the hotel I guess I was lucky as they had a single room w/bathroom left for 18JD/night. I say lucky as everyone I saw coming in after was told it was full, including a girl that came in with a reservation - they said the thought it was for the next day. I think they called a couple of other hotels for her to help find her a room. My room was okay but not fantastic. It was actually a double room with a private bathroom/shower. It was room #104 but to get to the room I had to go up to the 4th floor (3 on the elevator numbers, as it is 3 up), across the hall, out the door, along a balcony and then in a door to a long hallway. I think there are only 3 rooms in the hall and mine was at the end. It was a fairly cold room. The heater was on the opposite side of the room from the beds, under a drafty window. I had to use the blankets from both beds to stay warm. The Palace Hotel is fairly well known as a back packer hotel/hostel. It had Internet (for a fee, of course) on 6 computers in the lounge type area, which was great. Saved having to search for a Net cafe. The hotel let me have breakfast for free that morning. :) A simple breakfast but good; fairly standard from what I had been having in the Middle East.
After eating I went out to wander around a bit. I found the King Hussein Mosque. I didn't go in, though. I went through the fruit & vegetable market behind it and went up the hill.It was opposite the citadel hill, and so I had a good view of the citadel.I started making my way back down the hill, along another route. At one point, a group of guys started following me and making strange noises and laughing. I knew they were watching me... and making the noises at me. No matter what country, men are still men. I walked past the Wild Jordan Cafe, which looked fairly interesting, and down to the bottom of the hill and found the amphitheater. It is HUGE!!!I walked up the stairs and looked around. It held up to 6000 spectators!!! It would have been amazing to see how it was when it was built and used. On either side of the amphitheater, inside, are two little museums: the Museum of Popular Tradition and the Museum of Folklore, with clothes and tools and such. Not bad.Next to the amphitheater is the Odeon, a small theater that seated up to 500 people.From what I have read it is still sometimes used. From there I took a taxi to go up to the Citadel. For some reason, it took a long time to get him to understand where I wanted to go. I even pointed and he gave me a blank look. Eventually, though, he figured it out and I made it there. There are several structures on the top of the mountain of the Citadel: the Temple of Hercules which was possibly made by Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius:a 5 meter deep cistern: what remains of a Byzantine Church, the ruins of the Umayyad Palace:the palace entrance and the Ummayad Mosque. The difference between the old and the refurbished is so well defined![THIS link has a little map and information of these places.] The small Archaeological Museum has quite a bit to see including pottery covered skullsThe info card says:

Plastered Skulls
It is thought that skulls of ancestors were kept in
Plaster to be worshiped by their descendents
Found at Jericho
Neolithic

jar babiesThe info card says:

Child Burial
The burial of infants in jars was a common custom in
Mesopotamia, Egypt and Palestine. The jar was generally
placed under living room floor possibly to keep the
child within the family circle
Ghassul
Chalcolithic

Anthropoid coffins:The info card says:

ANTHROPOID COFFINS

The five anthropoid coffins on display were discovered in 1966 in the grounds of the Raghadan Palace in Amman among other archaeological finds in a cistern-like tomb. Made of baked clay, with crushed pieces of pottery used as grits, each of them has four handles that were used to transport them from their place of manufacture to their place of use. One of them has 16 handles at the back arranged in two rows, apparently serving to elevate the coffin when laid horizontally.
At the place where the head of the deceased would rest, a lid was cut out. the lug handles, one on the lid and one on the body of the coffin, were placed so as to fasten the lid to the body. On two of these lids, there are portraits of the deceased. Note the pointed noses, the small, elongated eyes and the eyebrows arranged in such a wasy as to connect up with the outline of the face. The ears are large and prominent, the lips small and straight and the beards of a pronounced length. Two of the coffins have arms placed on the sides of the body.
When discovered, it was found that each coffin contained two or three skeletons.
Very few sites have shown this type of burial practice in Jordan and Palestine. These include Sahab, south of Amman, and Lachish, Tell al-Far'ah, Besan and Deir al-Balah in Palestine. This burial practice was in use from the 13th to the 7th Century BC.

pottery bombs (maybe?):and other such interesting things. From the info card:

Architectural Relief

young woman wearing a laurel wreath holds a
mask of Pan, the herdsmend's god, or of a Satyr. She
may be Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, or be part
of a frieze in honour of Dionysus, the god of wine
Alternatively she may be the muse Thaleia holding
a mask of Pappos (father), as in the comedies of the
poet Menander which were the most popular on the
ancient stage at that time.
Nabataean, first half of 1st century A.D
Limestone, from Petra

From the Citadel, the view of Amman is amazing, including a great view of the Roman Theater in the distance. I took a back route down the hill using stairs on one side near the Temple of Hercules. The stairs took me to one of the roads that winds along the side of the hill, along which I found other stairs to other roads. The sights along the way were very interesting, with old and new intermixed. Some buildings were being destroyed or just deserted and falling down. When I was almost at the bottom, a guy approached me and wanted to talk. He seemed decent enough so I decided to let him join me. Ahmed, an electronics engineer, is learning English. We walked for a while and then sat in the forum (the area in front of the Amphitheater) to have some tea. Then, since I was hungry, he took me to Hashems, a very famous little restaurant that only serves felafels and side dishes. It is said to be one of the oldest restaurants in Amman. It was SO delicious!!! And cheap!!!! I was so full by the time I finished but only payed a little more than 1 JD. After eating, he took me to Jabra, a cafe, for some coffee. An interesting place with a good atmosphere. A bit smoky, though, since it is a sheesha cafe. After we finished our coffee, Ahmed wanted to show me his favorite street in Amman, a little street just off of Rainbow Street. The whole area there is very wealthy. A huge part of Rainbow Street has cobblestones. I think they are trying to make it back into something of what it once was. [Here is a blog post I found that shows Rainbow Street in some detail: 360East.]
Then it was back to the hotel for me. I was sitting at the computers working on a post and adding pics when all of a sudden something went wrong and the whole post went blank. ACK!!!!! So much time wasted!!! Back in my hotel room, I froze. The room was soooooooooo cold. The little heater was right under the windows, which were not well sealed and which seemed to suck out any heat coming off of the heater. I had the blankets from both beds in the room on top of me and was still a bit cold. Not cool.

Palmyra II [updated with pics and more; first posted 12/03/09]

I was up at 4AM on the 10th to get ready to head out to watch the sun rise over the ruins in Palmyra. Ali was waiting outside the hotel with his camel. We headed up to what he called Zenobia Palace (the travel guide book says it is Diocletian's camp). Before the sun rose, we checked out a cave tomb behind the structures.Then we climbed up to the top of the ruins.The sunrise was good but not great. Not colorful or anything like that. After the sun rose, we went for a camel ride around the ruins.[tower tomb]After a bit, we stopped for a little break at the Baths: "It is known as Zenobia's baths, consist of three main parts; Frigidarium (cold), Tepidarium (warm) ,and Caldarium (hot). It has a nice facade with granite columns. (2ed - 3ed Cent AD)." The travel guide book says it is Diocletian's Baths, but the original structure was there before he arrived in Palmyra. I read that he just made the entry a bit fancier (he was obsessed with building). The columns at the entry are Egyptian red granite).That was when I took the videos of the camel munching away. :) Ali then left me to wander a bit on my own while he went to get his motor bike. [the Fakhr-al-Din al-Maani Castle is in the distance on the hill/mountain to the right.]Every ledge on the sides of the pillars at one time held a statue. Any remaining statues are now in the Palmyra museum and others. It would be amazing to see what the Grand Colonnade would have looked like with all of the statues as it used to be. Above every statue was one of these drain like lion heads (of which this is the only one remaining intact), or something similar:The explanation I got for the drains is that it didn't rain very often in Palmyra, but when it does, the water would run down over the statues from a roof (I think he was saying that the Colonnade was, at one time, covered), and clean them in the process.[The Tetrapylon marked the center of the city and was used as some sort of roundabout or traffic circle. It is 4 sets of 4 pillars, which were originally Egyptian red granite. It was reconstructed in 1939][view up the Grand Colonnade from the Tetrapylon][above is a wall on the side of the Agora, a large rectangular area used as a market place and place for public gaterhings][The Theater]The theater was buried in sand up until the 1950s and has had a lot of restoration work done.[Part of the aqueduct system?][another view of the valley of the tombs]We drove out into the desert, in the opposite direction from the previous day's trip to the Bedouin camp. The desert here is very rocky, not sandy and smooth like around Dubai or around Siwa in Egypt. After driving a while, we stopped for a breakfast picnic. He had packed tea, cheese (the little triangles like the Laughing Cow cheese) and bread (flat bread). Perfect for a breakfast out in the desert.[camels at a Bedouin camp in the distance, at 50x digital zoom, with camera just balanced on my knee]
Then we drove some more.[powerlines in the desert; photo taken from back of moving motorbike - a fairly rough ride, actually] Ali wanted to show me the new(ish) camel race track which is about 30 km out of the town. Before heading there, we checked out some ruins that are sort of near the track. Ali said he has passed them so many times on the way back and forth from the tracks, but had never stopped to see them before.It is one bigger structure and a few smaller ones.We climbed to the top of the wall.Quite the view, and very high (scary!! - I'm afraid of heights). It was amazing to sit atop the ruins with the desert all the way around, and no people.There's a gecko in this picture... can you find it? It's on one of the rocks in the corner of the structure. Guess it's a tad hard to see. :PHere is the gecko at 50x zoom.After taking in the view (and taking a few pictures), we headed for the track. The old one, closer to (in) the city, is only a 5 km track but the new one is 10km track.We drove along the road the follows the oval race track. Ali had raced on the new track about 6 months ago. He came in second. His brother, Adel (the one with the tattoos), came in first. For about 2 months before the race, they stayed at the track and trained the camels. They trained them to run longer races so that the 10 km would seem easy. There are enclosed areas nearby where the racers can set up camp.
After the tracks, we went back to the town.[a small dust devil on the road ahead of us]An odd building on the edge of the oasis: some sort of beehive house. There are a couple of villages of beehive adobe houses in Syria, but I didn't have time to go see them. Check out beehive houses on Google and you'll get all sorts of cool pictures. We went into the oasis and sat for a while in one of his uncles' garden.Ali and I made plans to meet later to have dinner at his friend's home, and he dropped me off in front of the Temple Of Bel, which is said to have been one of the most important religious structures in the 1st Century.I checked out the temple in a short time. It was only open for another 15 more minutes. Even though there was only a short time left, I still had to pay. That's okay. There isn't really that much within the walls. Only one main structure. I think some of the wall surrounding the structure were not quite put together the way they originally were. It seems they used some fallen pillars in the walls as there are sections of circular stone.Looks strange and out of place. There were 4 young Syrian police (or army?) men looking around the temple as well. When I went out (when everyone was kicked out), they approached me to say hi and they wanted a picture with me. Each one wanted a picture with me. LOL.They took turns and then said bye. I was walking away towards the main ruins and they ran after me again and said they wanted one more picture, with the ruins. Funny. I suppose I'm used to having people ask to take pictures with me from living in Korea and from traveling. It doesn't seem unusual to me. Only a tad funny.[Walking towards the entrance to the Grand Colonnade from Temple of Bel]
While I waited for Ali, I went back to the hotel for a while and then went out to walk a little. I didn't walk far as I decided to check out a little shop. As soon as you walk into a shop there (or in many places around Syria, really), you are invited for tea. The guy was very interesting to talk to and had some suggestions for places to travel and how to get places (though a bit too expensive for me on this trip). As soon as I finished my small glass of tea, he refilled it. A couple of times. That is how it works here. I wonder if by the time I return home I'll be sick of tea?? And they put a lot of sugar in it.
When it was time to meet Ali, he picked me up on his motorcycle and we headed out into the maze of the oasis to his friend's little home. His friend came with a huge platter. On it was a smaller, but still huge platter with a mountain of seasoned rice, topped with chicken and carrots and tomatoes. On the side there were dishes of salad and bowls of yogurt (unsweetened) for each of us - Me, Ali, his friend, his friend's brothers, one of whom was only 5 (?). It was soo good! That, of course, was followed by tea.
After eating and having tea, I went back to the hotel to head to bed. It was a long day and we had a plan to meet at 5 AM for another sunrise.