Colonial Town, Cenotes, and Maya Ruins

This week we're traveling west (we use taxis and buses in Mexico) to the colonial town of Izamal. Visiting some cenotes, water filled sink holes. Then visiting another UNESCO site, Uxamal, an old Mayan city.

Izamal

You won`t want to miss our historic, Mayan - Colonial town, spending a couple of days to explore all of Yucatan's sights from here. Enjoy the tranquil atmosphere, take a ride in a horse buggy, rent a bike or climb the biggest pyramid in all of Yucatan. Explore the secrets of the Mayans and enjoy the natural surroundings. Explore Izamal's unique colonial buildings, the Mayan pyramids, the art and crafts route with stops at interesting handcraft workshops of your choice. Visit with local artisans weaving hammocks, making jewelry, carving wood icons and masks, crafting Paper Mache butterflies and mobiles, creating artwork pieces from tin, or medicine from Mayan traditional plants and herbs.

Immerse yourself a couple of days in this lovely town, walk around or rent a bike to discover the history, the nature, the hidden secrets of the town and see how Mayan life is nowadays. Either you stay in vivid downtown or you choose one of the more quiet and relaxing hotels at the edge of town - distance doesn't matter in Izamal, everything is close by, no more than 10 to 15 minutes of walking distance.

(8 min)

What makes Izamal a magical town?

Just enter the town and that question will be answered. The first thing that any visitor notices is that the town is painted yellow… all the colonial buildings, the market, the huge convent, everything! The next things that stand out are the cobblestone streets and the iron lampposts that give the town a tranquil ambiance.
To visit Izamal is to visit a city/town that is alive with three cultures – the ancient Maya, the colonial, and the present day bustling Izamal. Izamal is a monument of color, history and pride that can be felt in its streets and buildings. Art, music, and gastronomy are all around you!
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Izamal is a jewel of a colonial city, with almost all the buildings painted an egg-yolk yellow. Cobblestone streets and colonial lampposts complete the scenery. Clean, peaceful and quaint, this is a great town to stroll through. There are Maya pyramids, colonial-style buildings, parks and plazas, horses and buggies, and lots of people-watching.

Izamal, Mexico is a ridiculously photogenic and wonderfully walkable Pueblo Magico, in the heart of Yucatan State. Loaded with charm, Izamal wows visitors with its colorful colonial past, accessible ancient ruins, and friendly, small-town atmosphere. Izamal is also widely known as the Yellow City for reasons that will quickly become obvious.
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Izamal doesn’t yet get the numbers of tourists you might expect from a place brimming with well-maintained historic structures at every turn, but that will likely change in the not too distant future.
For now, Izamal occupies an ideal space on the tourist spectrum, offering enough sights and services for visitors to feel comfortable, without the tourist traps, crowds, or hustlers of better known destinations. A visit to Izamal, Mexico strikes a balance that is increasingly hard to find these days — but thankfully, still seems to exist here in this small corner of the Yucatan.

https://www.awaygowe.com/izamal-mexico-travel-guide/

The Pyramid of Kinich Kak Moo (Sun-eyed-Fire-Macaw) at Izamal is the largest pyramid structure by volume on the Yucatan Peninsula, and perhaps the third largest in all of Mesoamerica (Cholula is the largest). It is located right in the town of Izamal and dates to at least 700 BC. The structure was built over a cave which holds a sacred place in the religion and mythology of the Maya. Remnants of the cave are still visible on one side of the pyramid. It has "megalithic" construction, basically huge blocks of stone throughout the site, much like at Ake and a few other sites in the area and has a number of Sacbe's (sacred raised white roads) going off in different directions, the most famous one going to Ake, which stretches for 300 KM east to west through he Yucatan connecting up various sites. Another feature is protruding slabs that run at intervals around the circumference of the structure.
25 min exploration.

Izamal in the Yucatan of Mexico is the location of an ancient Mayan city dating to as far back as 700 BC, which has now been mostly built over. However, many pyramids and other structures, often with megalithic blocks still remain. In this video we visit four sites in and around the town including the recently discovered pyramid of Chaltun Ha. Izamal is famous for the mega-sized pyramid Kinich Kak Moo (Sun-eyed-Fire-Macaw), the largest pyramid structure by volume on the Yucatan Peninsula (see previous video), and the third largest in all of Mesoamerica (Cholula is the largest). Hugh Newman visits El Conejo (The Rabbit) stone platforms, Kabul, a wide, low pyramid, the impressive Itzamatul Pyramid, and a few other spots in town where ancient stonework still exists. Includes exclusive aerial footage. (13 min)

A tour and history of the town, pyramids and other Mayan archaeological sites of Izamal. (8 min)

Cenotes

The Yucatan Peninsula is home to the worlds most impressive natural swimming holes called Cenotes (Say-No-tehs)...

The facts… All Cenotes radiate from the center of what is known as the Chicxulub crater (Chik-shu-lube) caused by the impact of a huge meteor 65 million years ago. The first “Ring of Cenotes” is approximately 90 km from the center of the impact and there are subsequent ripples of Cenotes traveling from Chicxulub / Progreso and all the way to the Mayan Riviera and the Caribbean coast.

There are estimates that 6,000 to 12,000 Cenotes dot the landscape of the Yucatan, like Swiss cheese, most of which are on private land and/or hidden deep in the low lying jungle.
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There are NO surface rivers in the Yucatan, all the rivers are underground. Over time as the limestone erodes, the caves get bigger and eventually the ceiling caves-in, or a tree will break through looking for water. This sinkhole provides access to the underground river system from the outside world and is called a “Cenote”.

In Maya “Cenote” is pronounced “Dzonot”, meaning “cave flooded” and “sacred well”. The formation of Cenotes can take hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of years. Depending on the age of the Cenote, there are different classifications.
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Mayan Legend says the entrances to the Yucatan cenotes are guarded by the Toh Bird

The Keeper of the Cenote… the “Toh Bird” aka Turquoise-Browned Mot Mot lives in and around Cenotes. Having a very distinctive far-carrying call, similar to croaking, sometimes remote Cenotes are found merely by following the Toh’s cry. In addition to their unique call, the Toh’s tail features two distinctive featherless barbs ending in an array of colourful feathers at its tip. There are various Mayan legends explaining the origin of Toh’s tail feathers. . . here is but one…

The Toh bird was appointed by the Mayan gods to keep the evil spirits trapped in the underworld by guarding the entrance of the Cenote. One day, in the middle of the afternoon, the Toh decided to take a siesta (a Mexican tradition), and while it was asleep Evil tried to sneak out of the Cenote and in the process stepped on the Toh Bird’s tail, waking him as he past. But by then it was too late and the Evil was able to escape the underworld. That is why, it is said… that we have evil in the world today. As a consequence, the Mayan gods decreed that the Toh Bird should not be able to grow its tail feathers back. Even today Toh Birds are born with tail feathers and they eventually fall off permanently.

We're unsure which cenote(s) we will visit. We'll ask our hosts in Izamal for a recommendation. We've been to several different ones over the years, but these look interesting.

(15 min)

Uxamal and the Puuc Route
The next stop is a small village, Santa Elena, near the Uxamal ruins.

Uxmal, ancient Maya City, is located 62 km south of Mérida, capital of Yucatán state in Mexico. Its buildings are noted for their size and decoration. Ancient roads called sacbes connect the buildings, and also were built to other cities in the area such as Chichén Itzá in modern-day Mexico, Caracol and Xunantunich in modern-day Belize, and Tikal in modern-day Guatemala. (13 min)

Part 1 of an exploration of Uxmal (meaning 'Thrice Built'), a spectacular Maya site in the Yucatan of Mexico (20 min). It is a classic period site with pre-classic foundations and megalithic elements that are often overlooked.The Pyramid of the Magician has five construction phases and local legend states it was built by a dwarf in one night who challenged the king of Uxmal in a battle of wills. The dwarf was hatched from an egg and brought up by a sorceress before he became king. He was also said to have used 'whistling' to levitate stones and create a Sacbe (sacred white road) between Uxmal and Kabah. The nearby Nunnery Quadrangle is also visited that shows stunning symbols of plumed serpents, the Tlaloc rain god (who was leader of the Quinametzin Giants) and other beautiful artwork in stone. Part 2 (coming soon) investigates more of the site looking at the geodetic and megalithic elements that could suggest this is much older that realised.
Part 2 of an exploration of Uxmal (15 min) Maya Site that has Toltec influences, in the Yucatan of Mexico. We visit the Ball Court, the House of the Turtles, the Great Pyramid and the Governor's Palace which rivals the Pyramid of the Magician as the masterpiece of Uxmal. It is an imposing three-level edifice with a 320 ft long mosaic facade, built in the 9th and 10th centuries AD. The building is oriented to another pyramid nearly 3 miles to the southeast. From there, Venus is observed as the 'evening star,' and when reaching its maximum northerly extremes, would have set behind the northern edge of the Governor's Palace. Kukulkan (Plumed Serpent/Quetzalcoatl) is heavily depicted who represented Venus (amongst other things). We also look at further geodetic and megalithic elements below it where a large monolith may have been seen as the sacred centre or omphalos of the entire site, that could have been there before the Maya built the main site. It is thought to represent the Central Tree (Axis Mundi), the Ya’axche Cab, which is mentioned in the mythology of the Maya.

The Puuc Route (Ruta Puuc) is a collection of five ancient Maya sites in the Yucatan, around 85km south of Merida. Thanks to its collection of well-preserved towering pyramids and grand palaces, it has become a must-visit attraction for culture-loving visitors to the region.

The ANCIENT MAYA cities of KABAH and SAYIL | Exploring the Temple of King Chac Xib Chaac (15 min)

One more ancient city to visit on this leg of the trip...
The Lost City of Labna, "The Old House"
This small and beautiful ancient Maya city has been described by archaeologists as "intense."

So another week of the trip. One more to go. Again internet is iffy this trip so I'll check in if I can. Other wise this is an open thread, so share anything that you want. See you next week for sure.