Day 3- Uxmal Mayan Ruins

Our first port of destination was Progreso/Merida Yucatan.  This is actually where Justin and I went on our SVOSH trip, so it was kind of crazy to go back.  The one day I was sick on the trip was the day that our group went and visited some Mayan ruins.  I saw that that was one of the excursions the cruise offered and both Justin and I really wanted to do it.  We looked into it and decided on the Uxmal Ruins and also figured out how to go through a private company in Mexico to save some money rather than booking with Carnival.

 
We dropped the kids off at the Camp Carnival for that day as we knew they wouldn't appreciate the experience in the hot weather walking around ancient buildings.

We were waiting for the buses to take us and started to ask some questions to one of the tour workers.  After talking to him for a bit he asked us if we were Christians, and what religion we belonged to.  When we said we were LDS he said he was too!  He knew just looking at us.  ;)  The girl in the blue sitting behind us was also a member.  It was really cool to talk to him and have that commonality.  He even gave us his name and told us to look him up on Facebook when we got home.

This is the largest building and the first one that we saw when we walking into Uxmal.  It is called the pyramid of the magician.  The legend has it that the king ordered a dwarf to build it overnight, and that is how it came to be.  

The lighter spots that you can see on the pyramid is the restoration that has been done, but the rest is original architecture.  .  

The backside.  

Uxmal had no water source other than rain so they spent their lives worshiping the rain god.  The symbols here (that look like an elephant truck) was the symbol of the rain god.  We saw them everywhere.  

The Nunnery Quadrangle was likely where the royalty lived.  

Everything was hand carved and had amazing details.  A common symbol also seen was snakes, two headed snakes, turtles, and birds.  

A view from the nunnery quad  to the governors palace on the left and the La Gran Piramide (or the Grand Pyramid) on the right.  

Walking to the governor's palace we walked through the ballcourt.  This was an ancient game that was played, much like our modern game of basketball

There was a hole/hoop on both sides of the court.

This is a different type of architecture with the columns.  They said they likely copied this time of building from a neighboring community called chichen itza, indicating that there was some sort of relationship between the two.

The Governors Palace

Iquana's are all over, but this one was a pretty big guy! Our tour guide was even impressed by it.    

The grand Pyramid.  At this point the tour ended and we were able to walk and explore on our own for about an hour.  

We were really happy we chose these Ruins because you could climb on them and from what we read and talked to people about, they said they are the most impressive in size as well.  (Our other option was Chichen Itza which is the more common one and just recently became one of the seven wonders.)  

On top of the Pyramid.  It was a really cool panoramic view of the Ruins.  (Don't mind the red faces.  It was about 96 degrees and humid!  I was literally soaked with sweat by the time we were all done)

They have an alter on top where according to our guide there is no evidence that they sacrificed humans.  Only animals.  Once again, their sacrifices was to receive rain.  This is the face of the rain god.  

To show how steep the stairs were going down...

The rest of the pictures we took while we were exploring on our own.

Right before we left to head back to the buses, we almost had the place to ourselves.  We got some great pictures in front of the Pyramid of the Magician.

I love this one of Justin standing at the bottom.  It really puts into perspective of how huge it really was.  

We had a great day and are so glad we chose to do this!  The whole time we couldn't help think of the Book of Mormon people and wonder if this is where they dwelt, or at least had some of the same sort of architecture.  It was really neat.