April 25, Hopelchen to Piste - 175 Miles

Today we achieved a second of our major goals on this trip.  We visited the Maya ruins at Uxmal.

Uxmal is one of the two most spectacular examples of the Maya architecture in the whole of Mexico.  (The other one is Chichen Itza', which we will visit tomorrow.)  Uxmal (meaning thrice built, but on one pyramid one can see five different building spurts.) was last redone in the "Classic" period of the Maya civilization, and the buildings and pyramids are just stunning.  It is almost unbelievable that such great art and building techniques were available before 900 A.D..  Some of them took 300 years to build and decorate!  Here are some examples.

Was it worth riding a motorcycle 2,600 miles to see these?  You bet!

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