Feb. 12 was an open day where we could chose from optional activities. Several of us added a day trip to an additional site: the ruins at Uxmal.

Uxmal is notable for being in one of the few hilly areas in the Yucatan.

This causes problems with water availability. Chichen Itza, for example, is in flat lowlands over porus limestone, so there’s lots of fresh water below ground. Uxmal is too high up to reach the groundwater, so the construction included cisterns to capture rain water.

Uxmal also has round-cornered construction on post-classical buildings, where Chichen Itza was always square cornered.

You can still climb some of the pyramids at Uxmal… but that’s a lot of damn stairs.

As a bonus, we also got to see the site at Kabah. There’s been much less restoration here, so you can see some of the rebuilding in progress.

Carved stones waiting to be reassembled:

A restored wall that still has the chalk numbers from rebuilding: