Chichén Itzá – World Wonder (Mexico) – In Another Minute (262)
Chichén Itzá on the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico was a large pre-Columbian Mayan city. The collection of remaining ruins is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World and an UNESCO World Heritage site.
While in Mexico last week, we took a road trip from Tulum
halfway across the Yucatan to gaze at this wonder and roam the 5 square
kilometer site. This week, for the 5-year anniversary of the Moving
Postcard web series, I thought a World Wonder would be just the right
subject to celebrate. Yes, I do think it’s a bit of a wonder that for
five years, since May 7th 2010,
I’ve shot, edited and published a new 1-minute video every week and
that some of you are still watching. I love you, guys and gals!
Filming
Chichén Itzá had a few small challenges: As apparently with all Mayan
ruins, tripods were not allowed. In the first shot of the video, you can
see a lady with a big dark umbrella walk towards me and prohibit me to
use my tripod. An unfair fact: these utterly ridiculous selfie sticks
are allowed – even if they are actually monopods and only pretend to be
selfie sticks. Lesson learned.
The other challenge was the
ridiculous jungle heat, which kept us from seeing everything (instead we
managed to squeeze in street tacos and snorkeling in Gran Cenote later
that day). The guys making jaguar noises and yelling “cheapy, cheapy,
cheapy” I wouldn’t truly consider a challenge – but they were certainly a
bit taxing to someone I know. Perfect time to thank my husband Scott
and all of my friends, again, who have willingly explored with me and
patiently waited for me to get “just one more shot”. I love you all the
most!
In this video you’ll see images of El Castillo (the big
pyramid, which has been partially restored) and its feathered serpent
heads, Temple of the Jaguars and the Big Ball Court in the background of
people jumping for a photograph (why exactly do people do that in front
of famous sights?), Plataforma de Venus, Templo de los Guerreros
(Temple of the Warriors) with a statue of Chac Mool at the top and each
column representing a different warrior, the snake heads of the Osario
Temple, the Las Monjas complex with the Iglesia and finally El Caracol
(The Snail), which was the observatory. No video from the Yucatan
Peninsula is complete without at least one image of an iguana. Did you
see it?
There were a few things, I didn’t get to see, like the
wall of skulls, but quite a few other sights I captured that couldn’t
fit into this short video. I’ll either release a second longer version
soon or at least post a lot more pictures on my personal blog soon.
It
gives me extra pleasure that for the 5-year-anniversary video, I was
able to use a song by my old friend and talented musician Jason Matherne
again. He has been on this journey with me almost from the very
beginning. The song is called “Pegasus” – and I’ve probably used it a
few times already. Jason, gimme me some more tunes, please!
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| El Castillo (the gig pyramid) at Chichen Itza, Mexico |
P.S.: This is the second Wonder of the World I featured in the Moving
Postcard video series. Christ The Redeemer did not (yet) get his very
own one-minute video, but I featured that guy in this video: Rio de Janeiro – In A Brazil Minute (Week 147)