What is Chichen Itza?
Chichen Itza, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the seven wonders of world, was one of the greatest Mayan cities in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Chichen Itza, meaning mouth of the waterhole of the Itza tribe, is one of the most popular tourist sites in Mexico.
Mayans left Chichen Itza in 1300AD and the limestone temples were soon subject to the jungle and trees which hid Chichen Itza. Only for the site to be rediscovered in 1843 and the first restoration took place in 1920. Today, only 10% of the city has been restored, with the rest still being covered by jungle and trees.
The religious part of the city was protected by a city wall which was 4m high.Only those in the higher class could be inside the city. Chichen Itza wasn’t just home to Mayans though. They faced an invasion by the Toltecs who brought a different culture to Mayan’s and this culture was human sacrifice. They also bought a new God who replaced the most important Rain God, Chac, for Mayans. This new God, Kukulkan, was known as the feathered serpent.
Chichen Itza should definitely be on your list of places to visit when in Mexico. You’ve come this far, it would be a shame to not see one of the wonders of the world!
When to visit?
It’s best to visit Mexico between November and April. This is when the weather is best and it’s outside of hurricane season. Also, try to avoid visiting on a Sunday, as Mexicans get free entry on Sundays so there are more crowds.
It’s best to try to arrive when it opens, we arrived at 8:30am after reading that it opened at 8am. There already was a slightly queue, but no ticket offices were even open! So we had to queue for a while until they opened at 9am. I’m glad we arrived early though, as there were less people around when we started our tour compared to when we finished the tour.
Where is it & how to get there?
Chichen Itza is located in the Mexican state of Yucatan. It is about 2 hours from Tulum and 2 hours 30 minutes from Playa Del Carmen.
I’d recommend hiring a car and driving to Chichen Itza. It will give you much more flexibility with getting their early and also visiting the cenotes later. Parking at Chichen Itza costs 80MXN.
However if you don’t want to hire a car, then it’s probably best to join a tour. Transport will be included and they’ll often include a visit to Cenote Ik Kil as well.
How much is it?
The entrance fee for Chichen Itza is comprised of two parts, and costs 571MXN per person. This is split into 486MXN ticket and then 85MXN Government tax. The tax has to be paid by cash so make sure you have some. But don’t worry there is an ATM if you do forget. Also when paying, there was only 1 cashier that took a credit card so the queue was much longer. Bring enough cash to pay the whole fee if you don’t want to wait.
You can also purchase your tickets online before and skip the queue here.
How long does it take to visit Chichen Itza?
Guided tours take around 1.5 hours, but the overall experience will take you around 2-3 hours. This includes queuing up to get your tickets, finding a tour (explained below), and time for photos after.
How to get a tour?
First of all, should you get a tour? The answer is…absolutely yes! Without the tour it’s very hard to appreciate the culture and understand all of the context surrounding the ruins around the site.
If like us, you don’t go with an organised tour, don’t worry. You can get a tour when you arrive, tour guides cost a fixed rate of 1000MXN regardless of how many people on the tour. If you hoever round the common area where the shops are, you will likely find other small groups of people looking to form a larger group for a tour. The tour guides themselves, also help to find people and pull groups together. We ended up in a group of 10 people, so it only cost us 100MXN for the same tour that would’ve cost 500MXN per person if it was just the two of us.
Top things to see at Chichen Itza
Kukulkan Temple
This is the main temple in Chichen Itza, standing at 30 metres high and it is the best representation of the Mayan Calendar. It comprises of 91 steps on each side and with four sides this equates to 364 steps plus one at the top, this adds up to 365 steps equivalent to the number of days in a year.
There are also 9 platforms to the left, and 9 to the right which add up to 18 representing the number of months in the Mayan year. It’s amazing how intentional the architecture of these temples were!
Mayan’s built these huge temples so that they good be up high and close to the Gods, before 2007 you could actually go inside this main temple but it is now hollow. Inside you would see 2 figures, a jaguar and a messenger. The messenger was there for speaking to the Gods and the jaguar is a local animal and is a symbol of love and power.
The Great Ball Court
The 168m long ball court, is the largest one where the popular Mayan game Pok-a-Tok was played. The game was played by two teams, one local and one away, each consisting of 7 players. The aim of the game was the get a 6lb ball made from gum from the local rubber trees into a hoop 8m high off the ground. Doesn’t sound too tricky right? There’s a catch…you can only hit the ball with your hip. The game ends when one person scores, this means that it could last anywhere from 1 or 2 minutes, to 1 or 2 days to even a week!
Along the ball court, you can see these amazing detailed engravings telling the story of the beheading of the sacrificed winner, even down to seeing the blood gushing out after they’ve been beheaded. You may think why on earth would the winner be sacrificed, well back then being sacrificed was an honour. Whilst standing in the middle of ball court, if you clap loud and strong enough you’ll hear the echo following your clap. This resembles what the audience heard, as the game was very quiet and so they would just hear the echo of the ball as it hit the walls of the stadium.
Temple of the Warriors and Thousand Columns
Here you’ll see not 1000 columns as the name suggests but 200 made up of two different types of column, square and round. These columns signified the entrance to the market place and to the left you’ll see the Temple of the Warriors. At the top of the temple you can see two walls and between the two walls, 2 columns, between the two columns the messenger, the one who can talk to the gods. During the summer solstice, the sun rises behind this building and shines on the messenger.
Skull Platform
Behind the ball court you can see this platform with hundreds of engraved skulls to remember those who were sacrificed.
Engravings
Throughout all of Chichen Itza you will see beautiful detailed engravings. These engravings all tell a story and describe the culture. You’ll see many engravings depicting jaguars, snakes, warriors and eagles it really is amazing!
Cenote Sagrado
This cenote was used as a place of sacrifice, for humans and other precious items like jewellery. In fact, if you reached the bottom of the cenote you would see 680 skulls and hundreds of jewels! Guess what, all of the skulls will be female! This is because both the females and jewellery were a good gift to the gods. The way in which females were chosen was that the most beautiful Mayan princess was selected at the main temple. Then they walked to the cenote were she was part of a private ceremony. During the ceremony, her body was tied with rope and jewels, then she was dropped in the water and left to drown.
What to do after?
After visiting Chichen Itza, an absolute must do is visiting the nearby cenotes. Cenote Ik Kil and Cenote Suytan are two popular ones to visit. For more information on each of these have a read of my cenotes post. With more time, you may want to explore the city of Valladolid. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to do this so is on the list for next time!
Top Tips:
- Get there early. It gets very busy later in the day and this also means you’ll get to the cenotes earlier as well.
- Take cash if you don’t want to wait in line to pay by credit card.
- Join a tour if you want to understand things properly! Many tours congregate after the ticket queues so you should be able to find a group that’s looking for more people to join. Tour guides cost 1000MXN regardless of many people you have. If there are 10 of you like there were on our tour it will only cost 100MXN per person!
- They don’t let you take food in so you’ll need to put it in a locker. This will cost 50MXN plus a 200MXN or passport as a deposit.
- There’s no shade so make sure you have enough water and take a cap
- Bring your swimming gear to visit the nearby cenotes, they are really stunning!
