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LANDiS ADVENTURES
and
The SECRET AT CHiCHEN iTZA
Welcome !
Join Landis and her best friend Maya
as they begin an exciting adventure
at one of the most interesting
Wonders Of The World, Chichen Itza,
and the little town beside it,
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 FLYiNG TO EK BALAM
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 DiSCOVERiNG THE GLYPHS
Chapter 4 RAY TELLS A SECRET
Chapter 5 A Letter Dated 1517 A.D.
Chapter 6 The CODEX TRANSLATOR
Chapter 7 Once Upon A Time 1191 A.D.
Chapter 8 LoGBooK PREPARATiON
Chapter 9 ViSiTiNG ABUELiTA'S PALAPA
Chapter 10 The Bat Caves 1191 A.D.
Chapter 11 GATHERiNG CLUES
Chapter 12 PiCNiC AT THE XToLoC CENOTE
Chapter 13 A Time For Marriage 1191 A.D.
Chapter 14 MEETiNG MALO
Chapter 15 MAYA`S HOUSE
Chapter 16 BaChoKo Gets Defensive 1191 A.D.
Chapter 17 THiNGS AiN`T WHAT THEY SEEM 1
Chapter 18 ViSiTiNG EL CARACOL
Chapter 19 BaChoKo Wants To Fight! 1191A.D.
Chapter 20 The SECRET CONTRACT
Chapter 21 ABUELO HOLDS A SECRET
Chapter 22 The Disappearing Writer...1191 A.D.
Chapter 23 THiNGS AiN`T WHAT THEY SEEM 2
Chapter 24 PoK TA PoK GAME
Chapter 25 The Coronation Begins 1191 A.D.
Chapter 26 The BROKEN GOBLET
Chapter 27 A Dark Shadow 1191 A.D.
Chapter 28 LIFESAVER!
Chapter 29 A Wonderful Discovery... 1191 A.D.
Chapter 30 BuLLY INTiMiDATiON
Chapter 31 JUNGLE ALARM!
Chapter 32 DAY OF THE EQUiNOX!
Chapter 33 DiSCOVERY!
Chapter 34 CASEY ARRiVES!
Chapter 35 A Love Letter 1192 A.D.
Chapter 36 EPiLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
FLYiNG TO EK BALAM
It was winter, but still pretty hot, as Landis was sitting beside Casey, her mom, who was piloting their Cessna over the jungle canopy of the Yucatan.
Landis’ chihuahua Chaya was on her lap excitedly looking out the window and shivering, which was what chihuahuas do a lot.
Landis was very excited because not only was it the first day of the March Spring break but she had just finished a book in school called ‘The Legend of Chichen Itza’ when her mum announced that Landis would be going to Ek Balam, the village right beside Chichen Itza, the home of the world famous Grand Pyramid!
And that meant, too, that Landis would be visiting her friend Maya and her brother, Ray!
Ray knew that Casey had a plane, so he had called Casey yesterday to help him on a very important mission. He said he couldn’t tell her more than that until she arrived in Ek Balam. Casey and Landis were ready the next day and were now flying very close to Ek Balam.
“It says the legend is two thousand years old and talks about how on the spring and fall equinox, one of the serpent sisters slither down the sides of the ‘La gran pirámide’, the Grand Pyramid. Can you believe that Maya’s village is two thousand years old?” asked Landis.
“And can you believe the spring equinox is tomorrow?” replied Casey. “It will be very busy here. Travellers from all over come to see one of the most spectacular displays of imagination, architecture and astronomy in the world!”
“The Mayan culture goes all the way back to 2600 years B.C.”, described Casey. “And as you know from your friend Maya, they are still here today. That makes some their villages over 4600 years old!”
“Wow, and some things really haven’t changed much, either - Maya told me her grandmother still cooks over a fire and lives in a palapa, which is a wood log and stick house with palm leaves for the roof! And – sometimes when it’s time to harvest chicle in the jungle Maya’s grandfather lives in a CAVE!” exclaimed Landis.
 |
| Abuelita making tortillas at Maya's |
“There are cacao trees here that grow chocolate and zapote trees to make chewing gum. So this is the real, live candyland, too!” laughed Casey. “Or more like, it WAS a candyland - a terrible fire has ripped through some of the area, luckily not hitting the village, but making a mess of the trees and palms that were just about to be harvested.”
“So that’s why we also loaded up the plane with the clothes I don’t wear anymore. And you bought some blankets and huge bags of masa flour that the villagers use for tortillas,” said Landis.
Casey pointed ahead and they saw where the fire had burned through a large section of the jungle, coming dangerously close to the village.
“How sad,” stated Landis. “I am glad it didn’t get near the village, but it’s sad to think of the animals losing their homes. I hope they all got out.”
“Oh yes, I am sure they did,” Casey assured her. “They would smell and sense the fire long before humans did!”
“Hey, there’s Chichen Itza Park. We can’t get too close to scare everyone, but we can see the Grand Pyramid. Just think it is over two thousand years old! Back then this town was so big it went as far as the eye could see.”
Casey tilted the plane to give Landis a good look.
Landis looked but all she saw now was a little village on one side of the Grand Pyramid and a big parking lot for tourei buses on the other. The rest was jungle.
“I know the pyramid is huge but from up here it looks like a little building block with ants all over it,” said Landis.
“It has 91 steps on all four sides,” Landis continued. “And if you add those up on each side that totals 364, plus one step at the top into the sanctuary where the Princess Itza Emerald must have been kept makes 365, which is the number of days in a year.”
“The Mayans were very clever putting interesting facts like that in the architecture of their buildings,” added Casey. “Okay, let’s buzz Ray’s house so he knows to come and pick us up when we land.”
She pushed in the steering column to lower the nose and the plane swooped down towards the little rows of streets and houses. Landis saw the town square – the ‘zocolo’ in Spanish – where she saw a bunch of teenagers playing the ancient Mayan game PokTaPok.
“I know the game because we studied it in school,” Landis said pointing to the zocolo. “It is the oldest team sport in the world. It is halfway between basketball and soccer. Instead of a soccer net, it has a basketball hoop on its side.”
“The ball is hard Indian rubber so the players can’t use their hands; they have to propel it around the court with their hips, which are covered in padding,” she added smartly.
As they buzzed the game, the teenagers stopped to watch the plane go over their heads.
“Hey, there’s Maya’s house,” pointed Casey, taking one hand off the steering column to show Landis. Casey knew it was there because she worked with Ray, Maya’s older brother, on special documentaries about his job. Ray used to be a tour guide in Chichen Itza but when the animal ranger retired, Ray got the best job in the world - to care for the descendants of ancient Mayan royal jaguars!
While they flew past the pyramid to the landing strip Casey explained that she and Ray had to fly to Mexico City to bring a very important package to the federal government and Landis would stay with Maya. Landis was thrilled!
But now Ray couldn’t go because one of the royal jaguars still hadn’t had her litter of cubs and Ray needed to stay with her after all.
“Don’t worry about me,” Casey declared. “I will be back just before dark tonight.”
“Hey – look!” Landis shouted. “I see Maya – that is so cool to BE Mayan, and be called Maya!” Maya was so excited to hear the plane she ran out of her palapa with her arms flapping!
Casey pulled the steering column towards her and brought the nose of the plane up, causing them to start climbing a little. They flew out over more jungle and Casey said that when they land at an uncontrolled airport - which meant there were no people in a control tower helping the planes land - that they should fly over the runway first to make sure everything was okay.
They flew over the runway and Casey saw that everything was clear. They made a steep turn and joined the downwind leg of the circuit.
Casey prepared the plane for landing and Landis had fun watching their shadow on the treetops fly right up underneath them. She loved to watch the shadow come closer and closer to them as they approached the runway until – WHAM! But -
“Whoa!” shouted Casey as she abruptly pulled the steering column back, raised the wing flaps and pushed the throttle in full force so the plane screamed off again without ever touching the ground.
“Phew, that was a close call,” she shouted as she levelled the plane out again and turned to make another circuit.
“What happened?” cried Landis. “We’ve never done that before!”
“We were just about to land and there was a huge green iguana sitting in the middle of the runway,” Casey looked over her shoulder to try to see the runway from the downwind leg. “I can’t believe I didn’t see her in the flyby, she just appeared out of nowhere! Did you see how big she was?”
Casey had been flying a long time so it was difficult to rattle her, but this time she seemed a little anxious. She composed herself quickly though.
Landis strained to look and see the iguana but there was nothing but empty tarmac. What she did see however was the rooftop of a white building off to one side of the open grassy arena of the pyramid. It was peeking out from some tall trees and appeared to have writing on it, but as they flew over, Landis realized it looked more like a symbol or something. And it wasn’t painted on, it seemed to be a different color of stone. ‘Interesting,’ thought Landis.
They made a short field landing and taxied off the runway to the parking lot. Just as Casey shut off the engines Ray’s pickup truck with Maya standing in the back squealed out of the gap in the jungle.
“I don’t think her arms have stopped waving since we saw her running out of her palapa!” Landis said to Casey. “I wonder if she is tired yet?”
Maya flew out of the truck before Ray came to a complete stop.
“Maya, careful,” he laughingly warned her, but Maya didn’t even hear him.
“Hey Landis – I am so happy to see you!” Maya was very exuberant and gave big bear hugs, so Landis braced herself.
“I think you might take all the wind out of me when you get bigger,” Landis remarked to Maya. “I am so happy to see you, too, Maya, this is going to be SO much fun!”
“Hi again, Casey!” Maya also squeezed Casey just as tight, but she was bigger and could take it.
Ray and Casey hugged hello too, and everyone helped to unload the bags of clothes and some presents they brought from the city. Casey brought Landis’ bike and Ray unloaded it last and placed it in the back of the pickup.
Maya saw it and squealed in delight. “It’s great you brought your bike, too, Landis, Ray gave me his old one. Now we can ride all over the place because there are tons of adventures here. Hey and you have a new basket on your bike now, too!”
“That’s a seat for Chaya,” explained Landis. “So when we are going somewhere fast she can sit in it!”
Casey was anxious to move on to her long flight to Mexico City but she wanted to see the momma jaguar first. “Hey I really should get going, Ray, but please, can you take me to see the royal sanctuary?” asked Casey. “I would love to meet your jaguar mother-to-be!”
Ray put the specially wrapped parcel he was going to give her back behind the seat in the truck and said, “Why sure, of course, let’s go! Everyone aboard!”
Maya and Landis sat in the back of the pickup on top of the soft bags of clothes. They had a lot of fun bouncing on them over the bumps. They laughed a lot but overheard Casey and Ray talking through the little window, which Landis passed Chaya through when it got too bumpy.
Maya asked Landis if she had ever eaten Chicken Pizza.
“Actually, no, I don’t think I have,” smiled Landis as she sensed one of Maya’s silly jokes coming on.
“That’s good because it’s Chichen Itza,” Maya shrieked with laughter at the joke and then so did Landis.
CHAPTER 2
The Legend of Chichen Itza 520 A.D.
Once upon a time deep in the tropical jungles of many lands far away called ‘Ulumil Cuz Yetel Ceh’, which means ‘land of the turkey and deer’ in Mayan, there were two green iguana sisters named 'B’u' and 'M’u', which are both Mayan for 'iguana'.
B’u and M’u were beautiful gigantic iguanas with soft scales and in the sun it seemed they were encrusted with beautiful pearls around their necks. They had shiny spines on their backs, which they used to show their happiness or unhappiness by putting them up or down to their friends.
They had no school because there was nothing to learn, except what their parents told them about how to live in the jungle with their friends the monkeys, toucans and the coatimundis. Their best friend was a white jaguar named 'Chilam Balam', which means ‘wise one’ and ‘jaguar’ in Mayan. Chilam Balam played with them and protected them because sometimes they could get themselves into trouble.
B’u and M’u grew up swimming every day with their friends in the sparkling water of the 'Xtoloc Cenote'; a deep sinkhole filled with refreshing underground water, jumping from the cliff walls, racing up and down the rocks with sticky suckered feet, eating juicy mangos and ripe bananas right off the trees!
They ate chocolate all day long and believe it or not, they chewed a lot of gum because it oozed out of the trees where they lived!
The sun shone hotly most of the time, and B’u and M’u loved to bask on the rocks and watch the clouds make fluffy animal faces and they would laugh with glee. It hardly ever rained, but when it did, B’u, M’u and Chilam Balam would run around enjoying the outdoor shower because it was always warm water falling from heaven!
 |
The Grand Pyramid - Chichen Itza |
The sisters were a little bit exasperating sometimes, because they did not like rules very much. If the old scary shaman guarding the revered Chichen Itza Pyramid did not see them the iguanas with their sturdy legs would bolt up the 91 steps to the top of the pyramid and see far out over the tops of the trees.
Chilam Balam never went up with them; he said it was wrong because it went against the rules of the village. And besides, if he went up they would all be seen and get caught for sure, he said.
B’u and M’u watched the monkey bands run across the tops of the tall trees, and depending upon the season the colorful orchids atop the jungle would sway back and forth like a meadow of daisies. They could see how big the land was that they lived in and how it went on and on forever.
If they were especially careful, they would enter the sanctuary temple at the top of Chichen Itza and gaze upon the Princess Itza Emerald, which was the most beautiful treasure the land had ever known, and which had to stay right where it was, or it could mean a big curse on the whole village of Ek Balam.
One fateful day when the shaman looked like he was sleeping B’u and M’u clambered to the top to look at the emerald.
The emerald case hasp was not fastened so when her sister wasn’t looking M’u quietly stole the emerald and hid it in her rolled up tongue. When she got home she could brag and show Chilam Balam what she had done. However, as she turned to leave the shaman sprang out and caught her!
When he suddenly appeared, she jumped and her sucker claws hooked on and broke her pearly scale necklace and all the little beads started bouncing over the edge of the steep pyramid bobbing and snaking downwards until they were out of sight.
The shaman ignored M’u’s necklace; he was clasping his shrunken head cane with his gnarly fingers and waving it at the girls.
The shaman demanded that M’u give him the emerald, as it must never leave the altar at the top of the pyramid.
M’u slowly uncurled her tongue and produced the emerald for the shaman.
He snatched it in his claw-like hand and thanked her for helping him to get the emerald. Another shaman had put protection on the emerald’s case to stop a human from stealing it, but not to stop an iguana!
M’u was horrified that she had helped the dreadful shaman steal the emerald and bring a curse down on the people of her village!
As he turned to leave he told them that as witnesses to his crime they would both have to stay on the Grand Pyramid. He said he would turn both the beautiful iguanas into feathered serpents and they would take the place of the Princess Itza Emerald forever.
B’u and M’u started to cry as the evil shaman fled the Grand Pyramid.
When their crying stopped they heard a voice and it was their friend Chilam Balam the jaguar, and he told them that he was their protector.
Even though he couldn’t remove the punishment the shaman gave them he could give them the chance to go out one time each per year to search for the missing emerald.
The girls agreed and chose the days of the equinox, when the days would be the longest to search for the emerald.
And so it was.
The Legend of Chichen Itza told the people of the village two important days of the year.
When it was time for the sun to leave the village B’u slithered down the side of the pyramid and told her friend Chilam Balam to tell the villagers to harvest all their crops and make their roofs stronger because the winds and the rains were coming.
 |
Serpents Head |
When the sun returned to the village her sister M’u slithered down the side of the pyramid to look for her fallen pearls, so Chilam Balam tells the villagers to hide anything that looks like a pearl, and that is when all the people hide their seeds in the ground. M’u told the people of the village the beginning of planting time.
CHAPTER 3
DiSCOVERiNG THE GLYPHS
On the way to the royal sanctuary, they stopped at Gracie’s palapa where Ray and Casey dropped off the bags of clothing. Gracie was a missionary from the United States who was living in Ek Balam and sharing some of her first world knowledge with anyone wanting to learn new skills.
She was very happy to receive the clothes and knew they would be of good use for the village people. Gracie was teaching a business course to some women who wanted to learn how to own and manage their own clothing shop.
They climbed back in the truck and took off again on the dirt road, and this time Landis and Maya’s bottoms got a little sore without their convenient bouncing bags to sit on. Chaya decided to stay in front again protected from the bouncing in Casey’s lap.
Casey and Ray started catching up with news about his family. “How is Reina? She’s due next week, isn’t she?” Casey asked Ray in the truck cab and Landis overheard through the window.
“Yes she is,” grinned Ray. “We are very excited. The midwife said since it is a full moon tomorrow night it could move her date forward so she could have our daughter any day.”
“You know it’s a girl, how exciting! Did you have an ultrasound?” asked Casey.
“No, we didn’t,” answered Ray. “We have a ‘Mayan tabla’ which tells us when the baby is coming based on the age of the mother and month of conception. So we are fairly certain.”
“How wonderful, so many babies at one time!” Casey exclaimed happily. “How is the rest of the family?”
“Well things are fine now, but we had a terrible shock yesterday morning when grandfather collapsed miles out in the jungle. He is a ‘chiclero’, which is someone who taps and collects the chicle latex for gum.”
“Luckily he remembered how to use the cell phone we had just given him and managed to call our mum. She found someone to drive them to the hospital in Merida. Mum called last night from the hospital and said the doctors were releasing him this morning. They are on the bus home right now,” Ray said.
“Oh my goodness,” exclaimed Casey. “So much in one week,” she said. “Did they find out what caused his collapse?”
“No, the doctors couldn’t understand it. He seemed to have symptoms of poisoning, but he hadn’t eaten anything funny and there is basically nothing around to poison him,” Ray continued. “They have taken blood and will do some more testing.”
“Well I am glad he is okay - so what is happening with our secret mission?” Casey asked and lowered her voice.
Ray suddenly appeared worried as he updated Casey on his news. “Salamanca’s security force is camping just outside the limits of the jaguar sanctuary. We will pass their encampment up ahead. They are getting ready to move in and claim ownership of the sanctuary in three days. I am sure we will have no problems beforehand with them.” He shifted nervously in his seat.
“So in three days they can legally squat on the property until the sanctuary is reclaimed into the federal zone again?” asked Casey.
“Yes, and while they squat on the property they can do anything they want. And we know what they want to do with it,” Ray sighed.
At that moment, their pickup truck passed an entrance recently carved from the jungle. Hanging around the entrance was a throng of shabbily dressed athletes in uniforms that Landis recognized from the PokTaPok game they had just flown over.
As their truck hurried past, the youths scrutinized them and a dark luxury sedan pulled to a stop beside the tallest teen. Landis looked back just in time to see the window slide down and a hand holding an envelope come out.
“That’s Malo, my middle brother and his gang,” spat Maya. “They are the PokTaPok players for the tourist show at the pyramid,” she said.
Their truck bumped along the gravel road for a few more minutes while everyone caught up with their stories.
Ray’s truck turned off onto a narrow driveway and after a few minutes came to a stop in a small clearing where a mass of rocks in piles without any apparent order surrounded them.
‘It was kind of like being an ant standing at the foot of a gigantic pile of Lego building blocks,’ thought Landis. These blocks had been there a long time though, because hanging vines and wet moss covered most of them.
They all piled out of the truck including Chaya, who immediately ran around and started sniffing everywhere.
“Let’s take the short cut then,” Ray hustled the group through a small door in a wooden building that was sticking out between two of the large blocks. The door was marked ‘For Authorized Personnel Only’ on an old rusty sign hung from a nail.
The room had a sliver of light entering from a small window opposite the door they came in, and it was dark, dank and smelled of hay mostly. In a wooden pen on one side of the space lay a large black shiny jaguar stretched out on one side, panting.
Even though she was in a defenseless position, she was still very majestic. Most jaguars were spotted, but some rare ones were black and even rarer ones were white. Even though she was very scary looking it was obvious she trusted and loved Ray, because her tail flicked and she roared a soft rumble of hello as he entered her nest.
Casey and the girls were thrilled at the wonderful reception of the beast to the man and suddenly she did not seem as frightening as Landis first felt.
The girls started firing questions at Ray.
“How many babies will she have?”
“When are they expected?”
“What will they look like?”
“Where is the father?”
“That’s a lot of questions, girls, but I will tell you some really interesting facts about the jaguars who lived with our ancestors,” grinned Ray as he bent down to scratch the momma behind the ears.
He started with “Jaguars are nocturnal.”
“They sleep all day and prowl around all night,” interrupted Maya quickly.
“Yes, Maya, they do, and since the ancient Mayans were very suspicious people they felt that jaguars possessed wisdom because they were not afraid of the dark.”
“Like me,” stated Maya proudly.
Ray continued, “Because they are noble creatures that that are ferociously powerful, they were invited into the palaces and estates of the royalty and trained to protect the family. There are some really great legends about that.”
“But, listen girls, why don’t I get your mum back to her plane Landis and then when I get back you two can ask me as many questions as you like!”
Casey kissed and hugged the girls before she got into Ray’s truck. Ray said they could look around the Royal Sanctuary without disturbing anything, he waved his finger - much - and he would be back soon.
“Maya why don’t you show Landis the front entrance of the sanctuary, she will like that!” he said out of the window as he and Casey roared off along the jungle driveway.
Even though Chaya was just a small dog Landis felt safer with her sniffing around the perimeter protecting them from any wild jaguars or huge snakes.
“Come on, it’s this way,” Maya abruptly skipped off along the stone walkway that went beside the side of the wooden building. Landis set off after her.
As Landis rounded the corner of the building, she saw that Maya had already bounced under a tall archway carved out of limestone and made to look like two gigantic snakes rising out of the ground.
It stood in front of a dark cave-like opening between the blocks on the wall. ‘It looked more ornate than the rest of the building, so probably was younger, with less time to wear out the beautiful details,’ thought Landis.
She paused and studied the huge arch. It had a huge disgusting snake with large rounded scales on one side and another huge ghastly snake with more pointed scales on the other side. They met to complete the arch very high up.
At the top of the arch, their plumed necks twisted around each other once, and after that their fanged heads came together nose to nose at the very top. The whole effect was like an appalling kiss between two gruesome creatures.
To make the effect even more amusing the space left between their necks and chins formed a charming heart shape!
As Landis looked more carefully halfway up the writhing snake bodies she gasped when she noticed that one snake was winding around a man on one side while the other snake contained a woman in its winding clench on the other.
But, in contradiction to the unpleasant snake faces above, the faces of the man and woman were smiling and showed complete compliance of their position of being forever suspended in both time and in position.
 |
| XToLoC Cenote |
Maya re-emerged out of the dark cave opening.
Landis approached the opening. On the left side of the doorway the wall had a huge variety of glyph symbols. There were jaguars, people, a book, and many bird like glyphs with both happy and unhappy faces.
And, without any apparent pattern to them, there were raised square sections sticking out about two inches that had a carving like a doodled footprint on it, complete with five little round toes.
“Look at all the little feet,” chuckled Landis.
“Yeah,” grinned Maya. “That is a Mayan symbol, believe it or not. For roadway.”
“I wonder why there is symbol for roadway all over this wall,” questioned Landis. “Curious.”
On the other side of the entrance where a window should be was another carving, this one was not scattered, it was more like a big mural from astronomy class.
Taking up of most of the carving was a huge sun with long fireballs reaching out and touching a semi-circle along the bottom that might have been the earth, like one would see looking up to the sky if the sun was really close.
There appeared to be a long crack down the entire middle of this window from top to bottom, but when Landis looked closer it was really part of the carving. In the middle of the crack-line was a large hole that went right through to the interior room. The hole was large enough to fit Landis’ hand in a fist.
Between the sun and the earth there were a lot of different looking planets; the ones Landis learned in school – Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter - Landis remembered how her English teacher taught her to remember the planets in order. She said it out loud.
“My Very Elegant Mother Just Sat Upon Nine Porcupines!” she said and Maya looked at her completely puzzled.
“Que?” Maya asked.
“Look,” demonstrated Landis while pointing to the stars laid out from the sun outwards. “My - Mercury, Very – Venus, Elegant – that’s us Earth, Mother – Mars, Just – Jupiter, Sat – that’s Saturn, Upon – Uranus, Nine – Neptune, Porcupines – Pluto!”
“Wow, what a cool way to remember the order of the planets!” exclaimed Maya.
“Whoa, look at that!” Landis pointed at the top of cave entrance.
“Yeah, kind of gross, I think my ancestors had a really grim sense of humor,” moaned Maya. She reached out to touch the rock of the wall and remarked “And even though they call this flat carving a frieze, its’ not very FREE-ZING!” she laughed.
Landis started laughing too, and said, “Well grim or just not funny at least you have a sense of humor!” they were both laughing.
“But I agree with you, THAT is pretty grim,” said Landis as she pointed above the doorway.
It was a famous carving from many Mayan archaeological sites. It was a jaguar sitting down on three legs, and in his fourth paw he held what experts said was a heart. Landis had a difficult time picturing a mother leaving her child in the care of such a ferocious animal.
With a nervous flutter in her heart she entered the dark chasm in the side of the mountain of white building blocks and instantly felt the temperature drop.
“It’s freezing in here,” shuddered Landis, hugging herself. Maya laughed.
“The Mayans didn’t have air conditioners or refrigerators so they had to get smart about how to use walls, wind direction and shade to make their houses cold,” Maya explained.
Landis grew accustomed to the coolness in the darkness and looked around. The rock building did not look so big from the outside, but now, inside, the space felt like a huge dark gymnasium.
There were rows of columns around the outside holding the ceiling which was very high up. There were long benches of stone equally spaced around the outside wall.
The only source of light fell in from the arched doorway and the hand size hole Landis saw beside the entrance.
Both shone onto the floor, which was not like the limestone rock of the walls; this floor was a beautiful black and white marble checkerboard with golden veins running through each tile.
On all the walls were rows of friezes carved in the wall. 'Each jaguar frieze must represent a jaguar that lived in the royal sanctuary when the carver or carvers were there', thought Landis.
There must have been so many jaguars over the years! Each jaguar was a little different, by the pose, or the head shape or body shape. Also by the spot patterns on their fur.
Some jaguars protected from the outside weather entering the archway still had paint on them. There were flecks of blue paint mainly.
The Mayans made their own paint colors from minerals, including ‘Mayan azul’ that’s ‘Mayan blue’ which modern day scientists called magic because it lasted a thousand years without fading!
The entire effect radiated royalty and elegance but Landis still felt creepy and she shuddered again.
Unexpectedly a strong gust of wind came up and the girls heard a grating sound then a humongous crash on the roof above them!
Landis and Casey hope you enjoyed the first three chapters of
THE SECRET AT CHiCHEN iTZA!
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Hasta luego Baby!