Hintze Family: Dzibilchaltun

Our final “tourist” excursion was a trip to the ruins at Dzibilchaltun. Considering that I tend to figure “you’ve seen one ruin, you’ve seen them all—this was a beautiful ruin. First of all, NO VENDORS. There was a nice little gift shop in the visitors’ center (and a nice clean bano, free, no less!). There were about 12 people, total, wandering around the ruins. The sky was mostly overcast, always nice on a not day in the Yucatan. And, we were allowed to climb, poke around and touch. Last but not least—we swam in the cenote! Just lovely!

We took a bus to the turn off, the walked about a half mile to the visitors’ center. We passed some Brahma bulls--

I don’t actually remember if I took this on the way in or the way out. Regardless—they didn’t move from their position, that I could tell!

To the left, from the Visitors’ Center, you walk to the Temple of the Seven Dolls. Evidently, while excavating, they found seven dolls. Hence, the name--

Frank and Gardner

These were here and there--

I guess Sharon came nose to nose with a larger iguana, cutting through some bushes.

This is standing, looking up, in the Temple of the Seven Dolls:

The walls were pretty thick, which kept it rather cool inside.

Looking out the front window—I guess it was the front.

Sharon and Gardner taking a break. They didn’t climb this time, they’d been there before.

Frank capturing every moment--

If you stand right at this pillar, or in line with it, at sunrise during the spring or fall equinox, the sun lines up perfectly through the windows of the temple and shine right on that pillar. I guess it’s crazy crowded at those two times of the year. Abby’s husband, Steve managed to view it while he was on his mission, to the Merida Mission. His mission president was right beside him, so it must have been a sanctioned activity!

Swimming in the cenote--

I had jumped out to give the camera to a lady from Portland, OR, who offered to take our picture. But that gives you an idea of how perfectly clear the water is.

The water comes up from an underground river—there are no above ground rivers in the Yucatan, according to Sharon. I’ve just taken her word for it. The water is a perfect, refreshing temperature. Little tiny fish swim around, I just kept my feet moving so they’d keep their distance. At one end it’s about 2 feet deep. At the other, where we were swimming it is 140 feet deep, coming up out of the ground. I loved it. Could this be, perhaps, what the Waters of Mormon were like?