Guatemala Day 3 Mayan Ruins at Iximche

So I did a really long post and tons of photos and the wifi is so bad here in Pana at our hotel and the wifi restaurant we found it won't post. So here is an abbreviated highlight post.

Today we left Antigua via private van and traveled 90 minutes to the Mayan city of Iximche. We hired a guide who gave us a tour and history. Here are my notes from that.

200 people lived inside the city of the ruling class. IXIM= corn and CHEE = plant (eesh shim chey)

40,000 Mayan people outside the city

Iximche was the city of one tribe of Maya

1465 founded

1524 discovered by Spanish 

Main alter shows 4 directions E W N S

The guide showed Ally how the Mayans really were right in direction by comparing it to the compass on her iPhone. 

Each corner has 5 angles which makes the whole alter have 20 angles which symbolizes 20 days and they had 20 days and 13 months in a year

All the walls and floors of the city were covered in Stucco

Nearest quarry for the stone was 7km away so all the materials were carried by slaves/people. Guatemala has no large indigenous animals and they had no wheels at that time. 

The city was built on a land peninsula with large ravine surrounding it on 3 sides

The very best thing for me was that after we said good bye to our guide and started exploring the site on our own Ally said "this is really cool". As a parent bringing her to her birth country so she can learn about her heritage and see it firsthand is really amazing.

Beth is demonstrating how to go up the steps. 

Many people believed the steps are so narrow because Mayan people have small feet. (We all laughed, our guide had very small feet for a adult and we all know Ally has tiny feet for her age) but it is just a legend. The real reason for the narrow steps is that the Mayan believe the steep narrow steps are to go up and down sideways so they never had their back to the sun. So you climb sideways. 

Ally loved posing for gymnastics poses at the ruins.