Mani and Mayapan

After Uxmal, we headed to Mani:

This was another adventure, as we didn't really know where we were going. Luckily, the roads were mostly well marked.

We stopped in Mani not because Mani means "peanuts" in most of Latin American (in Mexico they are called cacauates) but because of the Parroquia y Exconvento de San Miguel Arcangel. That is where Friar Diego de Landa ordered the destruction of over 5,000 Mayan documents. A horrible loss to history.

It happened here:

Sadly for us, the church was closed.

So we headed off  to Mayapan:

where there are more ruins:

There were even fewer people here.

But we saw some great ruins:

The scale of most of the buildings was much more human:

 Though there was one pretty big pyramid. You can see Gaye and Doreen in this photo for scale. More on that pyramid later.

There was a strange round building with a double wall construction:

 since we didn't have a guide, we don't know what it was used for. At some point, I suppose I will look it up.

There was also a building where prisoners were decapitated.

These reliefs are supposed to be original, but don't you think that one is the middle (where a prisoner would stick his head in to get cut off) looks like Mickey Mouse?

Here are some ruins that have not yet been curated:

This is the big pyramid:

and here I am scrambling up that big pyramid. I went alone - neither Gaye nor Doreen would come with me!

you can see them in awe of my climbing abilities down below.

I had to take some SPs while on top:

 Here is the odd round building I posted above.

 This site was crazy about snakes. You can see this one here:

which begged me to do this:

It was a good trip, a good day. We went home and wandered down to a restaurant called Apoala where we shared about a half dozen Yucateco specialties, as well as a couple of beers.