before the entrance

before the entrance 

to the underworld, the shaman

burns copal incense

Miguel, our Maya guide who works for AllTourNative, an eco-tourism company, drives our group to Ek Balam, a Maya village way back in the jungle, where the villagers live in thatch-roofed huts with wooden walls and speak only Maya and pidgin Spanish. After a delicious buffet of chicken, potato enchiladas, rice, black beans, squash soup, hibiscus tea and rice milk, we we walk to a small cenote, a freshwater sinkhole in a limestone cave. 

          Before we can enter the sacred waters, the village shaman, dressed in white shirt and pants, conducts a purification ceremony. Adolfo is short and compact, with golden brown skin, black hair graying at the temples, a thin gray mustache above a perpetual smile and sparkling black eyes. We stand in a semi-circle in front of the altar constructed of green branches, which holds offerings of squash, maize, beans, peppers, cactus fruit and flowers.

          Miguel explains that the Maya world view consists of the underworld, the middle world and the upper world. The cenotes are considered to be the entrance to the underworld and the purification ceremony shows respect to the aluxes, or spirits of the cenote.

          Adolfo lights copal incense, called pom, in a wooden chalice wrapped in vines around the top. Miguel explains that the copal, made from hardened sap, is for protection as well as purification. With Miguel interpreting, Adolfo asks each of us where is our home country, which he blesses during the ceremony. He waves a leafy branch in the four directions and chants in Maya, a sound that resonates pleasantly up my spine. Then he wafts the sweet-smelling incense over our heads.

          After the ceremony we take a shower and don climbing gear for descending into the cenote. The round opening is about 15 feet (4.5 meters) in diameter and the distance to the water appears to be about two stories down. We are given the choice to rappel down or be lowered down by two ropes. With my sore shoulder, I opt to be lowered. A man at the bottom gives us an inner tube, but I quickly abandon mine to swim about freely in the clear, cool turquoise water and explore the perimeter of the cenote. There's a low opening on one side that leads to the underground river which feeds the cenote, but we're cautioned not to enter. The last one to be hauled up, I emerge feeling truly purified by my immersion in the pure waters.

at the mouth of the well

at the mouth of the well

of the wizard of water, 

a Maya woman 

hawks her hand-embroidered

floral handkerchiefs

The ancient Maya city of Chichén Itzá is now populated by hordes of tourists and Maya locals hawking their wares of hand-embroidered handkerchiefs, hand-carved masks, obsidian daggers and the ubiquitous T-shirts with the image of the pyramid of Kukulkan, the feathered serpent deity.

          The pyramid, constructed around 1050, was probably used as a calendar. The four sides face the four directions and each has 91 steps. Including the top step, this adds up to 365 steps, the number of days of the year. The step pyramid beckons one to climb its nine terraces to the temple at the top. Unfortunately, the pyramid has been closed for climbing since 2006 when a woman from California fell to her death.     

          Death was no stranger to the ancient Maya. The Yucatán peninsula is an arid region where all rivers run underground. When the limestone roof above a river collapses, it forms a sinkhole, called a cenote, which looks like a huge open well. In ancient Maya,  Chichén Itzá means "at the mouth of the well of the wizard of water." During times of drought, the people of Chichén Itzá made sacrificial offerings to Sagrado Cenote, the sacred cenote, which provided life-giving water to the citizens. Materials recovered from the cenote include gold, obsidian, jade, pottery, shell, wood, rubber, cloth and the skeletons of men and children.