Our Cruise Progresso (Chichen-Itza)

If you haven't figured it out yet. It is best to read the text at the bottom, then look and read about the photos. I haven't figured out how to get the photos at the bottom yet.

Above is Dad at Chichen Itza. He got too hot and tired and had to leave the group early and go to the entrance where there was a place to sit. We were there less that 2 hours.

Person on the left is Helaman. (The other man is someone on the tour.) His parents joined the Church and from then on all of their children were given Book of Mormon names. Helaman lives in Cancun. He has one daughter under the age of 18 who lives in Mexico City (26 hours away) to go to the Church school to get a good education. Helaman said he used to not like to do LDS tours because he didn't know the answers to a lot of the questions. Then he was called to be a seminary teacher for six years and had to read the scriptures everyday which helped him to understand and be able to answer the questions. Now he and his family pretty well do LDS tours exclusively. He is very busy.

This is Dad and I a football field's length in front of the pyramid. It doesn't look very tall like this, but it is 75' tall. They used to let people go into the pyramid, but 3 years ago the government discontinued the practice in an effort to better preserve the ruins.

Above is a stand of the natives selling their goods at the entrance to Chichen Itza. There were many many such stands.

This is me with one of our towel sculptures - an elephant today.

On Wednesday we went to Chichen-Itza (chee-chehn eet-sah). We docked at Progreso, Mexico which is on the Yucatan Penninsula. There is a temple there, but we didn't see it because we didn't go into the city. Our tour guide, Helaman said it was about 40 minutes away right in the city.

David got us right off the ship at shortly after 7:00 AM. We had to take a bus to our bus. Only certain buses are allowed to the ship because there is a 3 mile trip over a causeway to the mainland. I think the water is very shallow around Progreso. We then got on our charter bus and rode for 2 hours to Chichen-Itza. The ruins are very impressive and the pyramid (Kukulcan's Pyramid) there is probably about the same size as the pyramids of Egypt (I will have to look that up). It is astonomically correct in that during the equinox (March 20) and the autumnal equinox (September 21) at about 3 PM the sun bathes the western balustrade of the puramid's main stairway. This causes seven isosceles triangles to form, imitating the body of a serpent 37 yards long that creeps downwards until it joins the huge serpent's head carved in stone at the bottom of the stairway. Our guide Helaman pointed out that the feathered serpent was a symbol of the Savior to the ancient people (just as the children of Israel where saved if they would look to the serpent while they were in the wilderness.) He also said that on April 6 the serpent is more complete than on the day of the equinox. (One ofcouse doesn't get such enlightenments from most quides to the area)

The problem with Chichen-Itza is that there are evidences of human sacrifice everywhere. The people had, of course, apostatized by this time. Their alter for human sacrifice is called a Cholah. On him is a "broken heart". Helaman said that they perverted the teaching of Christ to come with a broken heart and a contrite spirit to mean human sacrifice. He said coming to Chichen-Itza is a dark experience for him. He pointed out several places where Christ is depicted in their carvings, not as a serpent, but as a person. Ofcourse the rest of the world doesn't interpret that way because they do not believe there was ever a knowledge of Jesus Christ on this continent.

We had to be back on the ship by 2:30 so actually most of the day off the boat was spent on the bus, but it was worth it.