(Posted Jan 30, Piste)
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It was dusk when we presented our tickets and walked through
the turnstile and along the wide tree-lined hard-packed dirt walkway to the
outdoor seating area at Chichen Itza. As I exited the
walkway onto the large grassy plaza I was momentarily surprised to see the
large pyramid to my right, perhaps a hundred yards away. I suppose you could use the cliché, “awe
inspiring,” but really mean it. We
walked to the plastic chairs set up in long rows, perhaps 200 yards opposite
the north side of the pyramid. It was
becoming darker but the few clouds in the sky were still visible. The pyramid was lit with multicolored floodlights
and its features were still easily identified in the semi-darkness. We were given headsets that would allow us to
hear an English translation of the show.
The headsets were accompanied by stern warnings not to touch the black
knob or we could end up listening in French or German instead of English. The yellow knob we could touch. It was the volume control.
While we waited in our front row center seats under portable
lighting, the Maya story began playing in our headsets. The show had not yet begun. I suppose that the purpose of this “preview”
was to allow us to familiarize ourselves with the yellow knob and maybe to see
how many of us would touch the forbidden black knob and have to ask the
attendant for forgiveness and beg to have it changed back to the English
translation.
Meanwhile, there were a lot of people coming in and filling
the chairs. Somewhat surprisingly, many
of these people were teenagers who would take turns standing in front of us
(taking advantage of the portable light source) in order to have their friends
or family take their pictures with the lighted pyramid in the background. There was a teenage girl who posed in every
imaginable position while her girl friend snapped away. A rather large teenage boy came to the front
and took his place in front of us. He
stood as still as a statue, with a frozen expression, for several minutes. I began to wonder if his friend was having
camera trouble or taking hundreds of exposures.
I finally realized that the friend was shooting a video, even though there
was no movement at all for those several minutes.
At the appointed time, the headphones went silent and all of
the lights were turned off. We sat in
total darkness for perhaps 15 to 30 seconds.
During this period of absolute blackness I just happened to lean my head
back and look straight up. What I saw
took my breath. That portion of a minute
was more beautiful than anything the light show was to offer. The sky was crystal clear and against the
black background of the universe it seemed as if I could see every star and
planet in the heavens. My immediate
thought was that this was part of the show and that somehow the bright and
shining stars and planets were being projected into the dark night. But it was no such thing. With no cities within miles of this place
there was very little or no light pollution and I was really seeing the
heavens, as had the Mayans a thousand years earlier. They were noted astronomers and through their
observations of the skies they understood time and developed very accurate
calendars and a system of dates, which allowed them to predict the occurrences
of the summer, winter, spring, and fall solstices. I was almost sorry when the sound and light
show began and brought me back to the present.
Then I noticed that the English recording began where it had been
stopped when all the lights went out.
When the recording finished, 10 or 15 minutes later, it started over
from the beginning and went all the way through to the end again. I guess we got our money’s worth.
Tomorrow we would be coming back at 8AM for a guided tour
before the expected thousands of tourists would arrive in fleets of buses from
Cancun.
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