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The road from Cancun to Chichen Itza was a turnpike. The toll booths were
manned by armed soldiers giving the impression that they had emerged from the
dense jungle on either side and were posing as civil servants until the
tourists moved down the road to the next checkpoint. It was more comforting
than menacing: the presence of military vehicles and modern firearms made us
feel that civilization had finally gotten a toehold and we might actually
reach our destination before the jungle closed in again.
It was our honeymoon mine and Jenny's. Kirsten wasn't born yet; her fate and
Jenny's were yet to be writ at the intersection of 103 and US 69 outside of
Weir, Kansas, some nine years in the future.
We spent the late morning touring Chichen Viejo, the original city, with the
House of the Deer, the
Caracol, the Temple of the Reliefs, the Church, Akabdzib, the Nunnery, and the
Plaza of the Nuns.
Through the growing heat of the day we worked our way into the northern site,
Chichen Nuevo, its opulent grandeur reflecting the later Toltec influence.
As we climbed the steps of the great pyramid, called the Castillo by some, the
Temple of Kukulcan by others, Jenny turned to me and began a discourse on the
mathematical genius of the Mayans. There were ninety-one steps to each side,
she pointed out, making a total of three hundred and sixty-five if you counted
the top platform equaling the number of days in the year. Halfway up, I felt
as though I
had already climbed all of them. There was more moisture on my epidermis than
could be accounted for by my half-empty water bottle.
Jenny appeared cool and dry as she described the mathematics that went into
its architecture so that, twice a year, at the spring and autumn equinoxes,
the shadows would form a large serpent which would wind its way down the
northern staircase.
I interrupted her as she enthused over the fact that this event had been going
on for over twelve hundred years. "This is a dream," I asked, "isn't it?"
She stopped and looked at me as if seeing me for the very first time.
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"You don't want to relive one of the happiest times in our lives?" Her smile
was dazzling but her eyes were haunted.
"There were a lot of happy times, my love. Especially after Kirsten was born."
I looked out over the
grand vista that included the Ball Court Complex, the Platform of Venus, and
the Plaza of the Columns.
"But I assume that I've been brought back here for a reason. What am I
supposed to see?"
"Can't a dream just be a dream?"
I shook my head. "Not mine. Not anymore."
She took my hand. "Come with me."
We drifted back down the stairs like ghosts in a dream. "Where are we going?"
I asked as we almost but didn't quite touch down on the sacbé
leading northwards.
"To the Well of Souls," she said. A cloud passed before the sun and I noticed
that we were alone, now. The site was deserted; the tourists vanished like
ghosts, themselves.
There were two cenotes, great water-filled sinkholes, on the Chichen Itza
site. The Well of Sacrifice lay ahead of us, more than a hundred and ninety
feet in diameter with a seventy-some-odd foot drop to the murky waters below.
Behind us, the Cenote Xtoloc was smaller in size and lacked the lurid
reputation of the larger well: it was the city's water supply, not the
sacrificial pit where young girls were once sacrificed to Chac, Mayan Rain God
and Cosmic Monster.
But Jenny's hand pulled me to the east and we drifted out of the ruins and
into the jungle.
We floated through a sea of green. Time passed. Dreamtime minutes can be
hours. Or hours, minutes. We stopped a short dreamtime later at a rough
clearing where lush vegetation and ancient trees limned an opening barely
fifty feet across. Any ruins accompanying it were well concealed by the jungle
that crowded around the cenote's perimeter.
"Why are we here?" I asked slowly, the saliva in my mouth turning to molasses.
She took my hand and led me to the edge of the great hole and we stepped off
into darkness.
The Ancient Americans believed that the Land of the Dead was accessed through
these vertical portages into the earth. While some began their journey through
the nine levels of the Mayan Underworld by leaping into the vast watery depths
below, steps had been chiseled into the living limestone so that the priests
might descend and then return to the sun-drenched lands above.
We picked our way down a curving staircase of narrow rock plaques, placing our
feet carefully as the light dimmed and the stone surfaces became slick with
moisture. The cenote opened out beneath the collapsed portion of the ceiling,
a great subterranean vault spreading hundreds of feet to the south and the
east. A series of fissures and tunnels in the northern and western walls
channeled off into deeper, danker darknesses.
Where the cavern roof remained, scores of red limestone stalactites stabbed
downward like rusty sacrificial knives. Here and there, great twisted ropes of
wood dropped like an inverted forest from the great trees above: thirsty roots
in search of secret waters. A dark lake spread below us. It glowed blue-green
at its heart where beams of sunlight penetrated its mysterious surface from
the opening above.
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