The most famous, the most extensively restored and by far the most visited of all Maya sites, Chichén Itzá lies conveniently along the main highway from Mérida to Cancún, a little more than 200km from the Caribbean coast. A fast and very regular bus service runs all along this road, making it perfectly feasible to visit as a day’s excursion from Mérida, or in route from Mérida to the coast, or even as a day out from Cancún, as many tour buses do. But both to do the ruins justice and to see them, an overnight stop is well worth considering either at the site itself or in the nearby village of Pisté or in Valladolid, which is both convenient and inexpensive.

Though in most minds Chichén Itzá represents the Maya, it is in fact the site’s divergence from Maya tradition that makes it archeologically so intriguing. Experts are fairly certain that the city was established around 300 AD, and began to flourish in the Terminal Classic period (between 800 and 925 AD); the rest of its history, however, as well as the roots of the Itzá clan that consolidated power in the peninsula here after 925, remain hotly disputed. Much of the evidence at the site an emphasis on human sacrifice, the presence of a huge ball-court and the glorification of military activity points to a strong influence from central Mexico. For decades researchers guessed this was the result of the city’s defeat by the Toltecs, a theory reinforced by the resemblance of the Templo de los Guerreros to the colonnade at Tula, near Mexico City, along with Toltec-style pottery remains and numerous depictions of the Toltec god-king, the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl (Kukulcán to the Maya). Work since the 1980s, however, supports a theory that the Itzá people were not Toltec invaders, but fellow Maya who had migrated from the south (an explanation for their subjects referring to them as “foreigners” in texts). The Toltec artefacts, this view holds, arrived in central Yucatán via the Itzás’ chief trading partners, the Chontal Maya, who maintained allegiances with Toltecs of central Mexico and Oaxaca.

The old highway that used to pass through the site is now a path dividing the ruins in two: the Itzá-era Chichén Nuevo (New or “Toltec” Chichén) to the north and Terminal Classic Chichén Viejo (Old Chichén) to the south. If it’s still reasonably early, head first to the north and El Castillo (also called the Pyramid of Kukulcán), the structure that sits alone in the centre of a great grassy plaza. It is a simple, relatively unadorned square building, with a monumental stairway ascending each face, rising in nine receding terraces to a temple at the top. The simplicity is deceptive, however, as the building is in fact the Maya calendar rendered in stone: each staircase has 91 steps, which, added to the single step at the main entrance to the temple, amounts to 365; other numbers relevant to the calendar recur throughout the construction. Most remarkably, near sunset on the spring and autumn equinoxes, the great serpents’ heads at the foot of the main staircase are joined to their tails (at the top of the building) by an undulating body of shadow an event that lasts just a few hours and draws spectators, and awed worshippers, by the thousands. Inside El Castillo an earlier pyramid survives almost intact, and in the temple’s inner sanctuary, archeologists discovered one of the greatest treasures at the site: an altar, or perhaps a throne, in the form of a jaguar, painted bright red and inset with jade “spots” and eyes.

El Castillo marks one edge of a plaza that formed the focus of Chichén Nuevo, and in addition to a sacbé leading to Cenote Sagrado, all its most important buildings are here, many displaying a strong Toltec influence in their structure and decoration. The Templo de los Guerreros (Temple of the Warriors), lined on two sides by the Grupo de las Mil Columnas (Group of the Thousand Columns), forms the eastern edge of the plaza. These are the structures that most recall the great Toltec site of Tula, both in design and in detail in particular the colonnaded courtyard (which would have been roofed with some form of thatch) and the use of Atlantean columns representing battle-dressed warriors, their arms raised above their heads. The temple is richly decorated on its north and south sides with carvings and sculptures of jaguars and eagles devouring human hearts, feathered serpents, warriors and, the one undeniably Maya feature, masks of the rain god Chac, with his curling snout. On top are two superb examples of figures called Chac-mools, once thought to be introduced by the Toltecs: offerings were placed on the stomachs of these reclining figures, which are thought to represent either the messengers who would take the sacrifice to the gods or perhaps the divinities themselves. The “thousand” columns alongside originally formed a square, on the far side of which is the building known as the Mercado, although there’s no evidence that this actually was a marketplace. Near here, too, is a small, dilapidated ball-court. Walking west across the plaza from El Castillo, you pass the Plataforma de Venus, a raised block with a stairway up each side guarded by feathered serpents. Here, rites associated with Quetzalcoatl when he took the form of Venus, the morning star, would have been carried out. Slightly smaller, but otherwise identical in design, the adjacent Plataforma de Águilas y Jaguares features reliefs of eagles and jaguars holding human hearts. Human sacrifices may have been carried out here, judging by the proximity of a third platform, the Tzompantli, where victims’ heads likely hung on display. This is carved on every side with grotesque grinning stone skulls.

Chichén Itzá’s Gran Juego de Pelota (ball-court), on the west side of the plaza, is the largest known in existence, with walls some 90m long. Its design is a capital “I” surrounded by temples, with the goals, or target rings, halfway along each side. Along the bottom of each side runs a sloping panel decorated with scenes of the game. Although the rules and full significance of the game remain a mystery, it was clearly not a Saturday afternoon kick-about in the park; for more on the game’s significance. On the panel, the players are shown proceeding from either side towards a central circle, the symbol of death. One player, just right of the centre has been decapitated, while another holds his head and a ritual knife. Along the top runs the stone body of a snake, whose heads stick out at either end. The court is subject to a whispering-gallery effect, which enables you to be heard clearly at the far end of the court, and to hear what’s going on there. The Templo de los Jaguares overlooks the playing area from the east side. At the bottom effectively the outer wall of the ball-court is a little portico supported by two pillars, between which a stone jaguar stands sentinel. The outer wall panels, the left and the right of the interior space, are carved with the images of Pawahtuns, the gods who supported the sky and who are thought to be the patrons of the Itzá people. Inside are some worn but elaborate relief carvings of the Itzá ancestors inserted in the Maya creation myth a powerful demonstration of their entitlement to rule. The Cenote Sagrado lies at the end of the sacbé that leads about 300m off the north side of the plaza. It’s an almost perfectly round hole in the limestone bedrock, some 60m in diameter and more than 30m deep, the bottom third full of water. It was thanks to this natural well that the city could survive at all, and it gives Chichén Itzá its name (literally “at the edge of the well of the Itzá”). The well was regarded as a portal to the underworld, called Xibalba, and the Maya threw in offerings such as statues, jade and engraved metal disks (a few of them gold), as well as human sacrifices all of them boys, recent research has shown. People who were thrown in and survived were believed to have prophetic powers, having spoken with the gods.

The southern half of the site is the most sacred part for contemporary Maya. They were built for the most part prior to 925 AD, in the architectural styles used in the Puuc and Chenes regions. A path leads from the south side of El Castillo to the major structures, passing first the pyramid El Osario (the Ossuary; also called the High Priest’s Grave), the only building in this section that shows Toltec-style detail. Externally it is very similar to El Castillo, but inside a series of tombs was discovered. A shaft, first explored at the end of the nineteenth century, drops down from the top through five crypts, in each of which was found a skeleton and a trap door leading to the next. The fifth is at ground level, but here too was a trap door, and steps cut through the rock to a sixth chamber that opens onto a huge underground cavern: the burial place of the high priest. Follow the main path and you arrive at El Caracol (the Snail, for its shape; also called the Observatory), a circular, domed tower standing on two rectangular platforms and looking remarkably like a modern-day observatory. The roof has slits aligned with various points of astronomical significance. Four doors at the cardinal points lead into the tower and a circular chamber. A spiral staircase leads to the upper level, where observations were made. Immediately to the south, the so-called Monjas (Nunnery) palace complex shows several stages of construction. Part of the facade was blasted away in the nineteenth century, but it is nonetheless a building of grand proportions. Its annexed, on the east end, has an elaborate facade in the Chenes style, covered in small heads of Chac that combine to make one giant mask, with the door as a mouth. By contrast, La Iglesia, a small building standing beside the convent, is a clear demonstration of Puuc design, its low band of unadorned masonry around the bottom surmounted by an elaborate mosaic frieze and roofcomb. Masks of Chac again predominate, but above the doorway are also figures of the four mythological creatures that held up the sky a snail, a turtle, an armadillo and a crab. South of Las Monjas, a path leads, after about ten minutes, to a further group of ruins that are among the oldest on the site; this is a good area for bird watching, with few people around to disturb the wildlife. Just east of Las Monjas, is the Akab Dzib, a relatively plain block of palace rooms that takes its name (“Obscure Writings”) from undeciphered hieroglyphs found inside. Red palm prints frequently found in Maya buildings adorn the walls of some of the chambers. Backtrack along the main path to the building opposite El Osario, the Plataforma de las Tumbas, a funerary structure topped with small columns; behind it is a jungle path that heads back to the main east–west road via the site’s other water source, Cenote Xtoloc. Just 1.6km east of the Dolores Alba hotel, the Grutas de Balankanché are a refreshingly cool way to pass an hour. These damp caverns were reopened in 1959, when a sealed passageway was discovered, revealing a path to an underground altar to Chac. Tours with taped commentary (in English daily 11am, 1pm & 3pm) lead past an underground pool, stalagmites and stalactites to a huge rock formation that resembles a ceiba, the Maya tree of life. Around its base lie many of the original Maya offerings, such as clay pots in the shapes of gods’ faces.

Arriving at Chichén Itzá, Hwy-180 around the site to the north, making an arc that merges with the site access road (the original highway straight through) at both ends. All first-class buses drive right up to the site entrance. All buses stop in Pisté as well, at one of two stations, on the west end of town (eastbound buses) or the east end (westbound buses). The main entry to the site (daily winter 8am–5pm; summer 8am–6pm, last entry an hour earlier) is on the west side. A huge visitor centre (open until 10pm) houses a museum, restaurant, ATM and shops selling souvenirs, film, maps and guides. Guided tours of the ruins can be arranged here: private tours in one of four languages (Spanish, English, German or Italian) last ninety minutes; group tours cost a little less. You can book two-hour horseback trips around the wilder, southern part of the site, Chichén Viejo, at the hotel reception area (with guide). A sound-and-light-show in Spanish runs nightly (7pm in winter, 8pm in summer) it does recreate the shadow-serpent effect on the stairs of El Castillo, and it’s the only thing to do in the evening. About 3km west of Chichén Itzá, Pisté is an village straddling the road. Its main function is providing visitors with accommodation, so they can get up early enough to beat the buses that arrive at the ruins around 10.30am. There’s an internet café here, opposite the bus station, at the east end of town. In Pisté, there are two bus stations: if you’re heading east, go to the station at the east end of town, near the Pirámide hotel; westbound buses go from a small station just east of the crossroads at the west end. Many second-class Oriente buses (nearly hourly departures) and first-class ADO buses (just a few) depart from both Pisté and the ruins themselves to Mérida (1hr 45min), Valladolid (45min) and Cancún (3–4hr) (last one at 9.30pm, in either direction).You can bypass Cancún by taking a secondclass bus to Tulum (4 daily; 2hr 30min); the 7.30am bus stops at Cobá (2hr).