Uxmal

Yesterday we visited Uxmal and even though we were still on the edge of the rain forest the day was beautifully warm and sunny and we hear that the UK is experiencing one of the coldest and snowiest winters for 30 years. In fact Barry sent us a picture of the snow ploughs in Milton Road. At least we think it was Milton Road as the snow was so high we couldn't see the houses!
Even before the restoration work Uxmal was in better condition than many other Maya sites thanks to being unusually well built. Much was built with well-cut stones set into a core of concrete not relying on plaster to hold the building together. The Maya architecture here is considered matched only by that of Palenque in elegance and beauty. Thanks to its good state of preservation, it is one of the few Maya cities where it is comparatively easy to get a good idea of how the entire ceremonial center looked in ancient times.

The Adivino (a.k.a. the Pyramid of the Magician or the Pyramid of the Dwarf – because Mayan myth has it that the vast structure was built in one night by a dwarf ), is a stepped pyramid structure, unusual among Maya structures in that its layers' outlines are oval or elliptical in shape, instead of the more common rectilinear plan. Again much of the site is laid out so that astronomical events can be observed and recorded and the carvings on the buildings reflect much of the Mayan belief system of numbers, intermingled with masks of Chaac, the rain god, and undulating serpents.



Gregg was still feeling unwell so he chivalrously sat at the bottom of one of the pyramids while Chris climbed to the top to take photographs. By the evening and after 24 hours without food he was well enough to start eating (and drinking) again. We went out with the other English couple to a restaurant that described itself as vegetarian/international and had an avocado pizza which is really just an introduction to us telling you that Denni emailed us the other day to say that she had been reading her local paper and thinking about us when she read that the name for Avocado comes from the Aztec word abuacati, meaning testicle, a reference to its shape and its supposed aphrodisiac qualities!