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Thursday evening: Kabah, Santa Elena, Uxmal


↓ Another road sign – 2 ruins and a cave.
We’ll see the cave tomorrow, and the straight-ahead ruin today. ↓
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45 2 ruins and a cave sign

Kabah

↓ Entrance to Kabah. The road passes through the middle of this ancient city
(which makes me think that perhaps this is also the route of the ancient road.) ↓
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42 Kabah entrance

↓ From the entrance, this is the left side of the two buildings we visited.
On the right is a retaining wall which supports a large terrace
in front of the other building. ↓
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89 at Kabah


↓ Building 1 ↓

↓ This is the right side and where we started; I’ll call it Building One.
We arrived a half hour before closing and, moving fast,
only had time to explore these two.
Here we are standing up on the high terrace mentioned above. ↓
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53 bldg 1

↓Info about Kabah's underground water storage. ↓
The terrace is the front porch, but inside it is also a water reservoir.
In the photo above ↑ we are walking on top of the cistern shown in the sign.
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55 sign

↓ Close up of Chaac’s repeated face. Chaac is the Maya rain god and
this palace of his oversees this rain collection system. ↓
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57 Chaac

↓ The only full nose still in place here. ↓
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58 nose in place

↓ There was a whole pile of Chaac's noses. ↓
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59 nose pile

Joe standing on Chaac's head which serves as a step
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61 joe standing on

↓ There are piles of rubble -- this stone is in a feather motif. ↓
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70 pile of rubble

↑ Some individual stones. ↓
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71 piece in pile of rubble1

I think this site had the most elaborately and finely carved stones that we saw on the whole trip.
Rosette motif. ↓
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72 piece in pile of rubble2

↓ Statues atop a high wall on the back side of building one. ↓
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92 statue

↓ Feather motif and rosette-carved stones in place. (Detail from the wall above.) ↓
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76 feather motif in place

↓ Doorway decorated with 4 bas relief panels (only 2 visible here). ↓
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75 doorway

↓ One of the doorway panels showing 2 people fighting over scarce resources. ↓
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77 bas relief

↓ Close-up of same. ↓
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77 bas relief


↓ Building 2 ↓

↓ Under the plants and rubble of this “hillside” is one end of building 2.
Signs request no climbing on top of this apparently hollow chamber; roofs cave in. ↓
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81 hillside which is a building

↓ This is the excavated end of building 2. ↓
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93 building 2

↓ Josh, Mary, and Joe in the plaza in front of building 2.
Go back to first photo in this series to see
that this plaze is a man-made terrace high above the surrounding landscape. ↓
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87 front of building 2

↓ Josh on building 2. Also shows fairly large rooms formed by false arch vaulting. ↓
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88 Josh on bldg 2

↓ Pillars at plaza level. ↓
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94 pillars

↓ Backside of building 1.
See the roped off doorway with the bas relief on the left,
and the late afternoon light through the windows, or “roof comb?” ↓
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84 backside of building 1

In the town of Santa Elena and the Flycatcher Inn



↓ Part of Mary and Josh’s suite at our home for tonight. ↓
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97 M&J suite

↓ Outside – a lovely garden at the Flycatcher Inn. ↓
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01 outside FCI

↓ Our spacious room comes with a hammock,
though we didn’t use it. ↓
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03 hammock

Tribes of children were roaming about gathering donations for their church
(a Christmas holiday activity) on the streets of Santa Elena.
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06 children of Santa Elena



Uxmal, the only heavily used site we've seen since day one (in Tulum).

↓ The grand entrance.
We went to the evening light show.
It was the only way we were going to get to see the famous Uxmal at all. ↓
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22 entrance

↓ The Magician’s Temple is beyond the near wall.
This is the big thing at Uxmal. ↓
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07 Magicians temple

↓ The light show was definitely disappointing. ↓
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12 light show

We recognized Chaac’s nose on the building’s corners.
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16 Chaac’s noses

↓ Numbered stones ↓
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17 numbered stones

↓ In the public restrooms at this big tourist site --
a slot of a trough instead of wash basins. I’ve never seen this before. ↓
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19 trough wash basins


Next, Loltun Cave -- bright and early Friday morning.
Only one day left!


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