We took our first bigger outing yesterday and today to the pyramids of Uxmal. But to get there I need to take a bit of a rhetoric detour: of all the Maya temples and ruins to see in Yucatan, Chichen Itza is the most famous and recently made it on the list of the 7 new wonders of the world. For those of you who haven’t heard about these New Wonders: a Swiss not-for-profit group put up this contest to come up with seven new wonders as all but one of the ancient ones has perished (in case you shouldn’t have the ancient ones on the top of your head, here is a remainder: Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnus, Colossus of Rhodes and Lighthouse of Alexandria). The new ones were established by popular vote (allegedly more than 100 million people voted). And the winners are:
- Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico
- Christ Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
- Collosuem, Rome, Italy
- Taj Mahal, India
- Great Wall of China
- Petra, Jordan
- Machu Picchu, Peru
I had my doubts about this gargantum Christ statute in Rio beating out the Acropolis, Angkor Wat, the Easter Islands and the Alhambra. It all became a little clearer after I read about the massive “get out the vote” efforts in Brazil were the telecoms pushed “Christ” by sending people text messages urging them to vote and not charging for the calls made to vote.
The Pyramids of Uxmal
Anyway, I am deviating. If you now expect to hear about Chichen Itza I have to disappoint you as we made it only to Uxmal this time around in the somewhat rickety rental car. We were also unfamiliar with how long overland travel on Mexican streets take so we choose, for now, the closer sight. According to the people in the know (mainly European tourist who have seen every last temple in all of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo, Guatamala, Belize, …) Uxmal is definitely second tier compared with Chichen Itza but we had a good time. One reason – and I can say that because I am German – was the conspicuous absence of German tourists in large busses with scholarly travel guides.
The pyramids are impressive but we did forego a guide because Max probably would have died of boredom after 2 hours of talk about Mayan Gods, architecture and religious practices (so would I, but Max provides a convenient excuse). So we basically stumbled around for a couple of hours climbing every last rock we were allowed to climb (good excerise) and telling and retelling the story of why one is forbidden from climbing the “super-big pyramine” (too dangerous- that thing is steep – and too precious – newly restored – see picture).
The atmosphere was relaxed, lots of Mexican families – Mexicans get to visit for free on Sundays – hanging about and surprisingly many kids, elderly and, well plus-sized people dragging themselves up the steep steps of the accessible pyramids (when have you last seen grandma in a white embroidered dress and flip-flops hiking up a 45 dregree incline, smiling and chatting away?)
Max, decked out in a cap with an ad for Mexican beer, Uli’s small digital camera around his neck and a stick to help him climb the stairs, again got his share of attention and approving stares for his pello rubio y ojos azules (and maybe the 22 moquito bites on his left arm).
In the evening we went back for the “espectaculo” or the light show. Spoiled by TV and all the fancy stuff one sees there we found it a little underwhelming but so did the Mexican visitors, the two people next to me were sound asleep 10 minutes into the espectaculo.
To round out the trip we visited the Tol Tun caves today and walked around in huge underground caves with stalacmites and stalactites (don’t ask). Max did well on the long hike and made friends with Ricardo and his tour guide buddies by watching them play “with money” (some game that involved throwing coins) and learning a typically Yucatean word “pisima” which means “oops”, although, in my opinion, one might be forgiven thinking it might mean something a little stronger.
Tomorrow it’s back to school for Max and I am afraid, another trip to Wal-Mart for us (I know I won’t hear the end of that).