At the foot of the stairs on the north face of El Castillo, in the Maya ruins of Chichén Itzá, Mexico:
Should you make it to Chichén Itzá, just remember — you can walk right up to the steps, but don’t even think about climbing them. Not that many years ago (until 2006), you could climb these to check out the temple at the top (and take in a fantastic view). But sadly, somebody slipped and fell down the stairs (to their death) — the structure’s been off-limits ever since.
The first thing you see once you’re in the gate at the Maya ruins of Uxmal, Mexico:
It’s an impressive structure — although a bit odd for photography. You get a better overall vista from the east side, but the architectural details are better on the west side.
Some years back, you could climb the stairs and either go all the way to the top, or pass through the tunnel partway up (giving you access to older temples now buried in the body of the pyramid). But sadly you can’t climb this structure any more — at least you can get good shots of most of it from the ground. This is actually stitched from two wide-angle shots, with colors tuned up a bit in Topaz Adjust.
Some details from Chichén Itzá‘s Tzompantli (“Wall of Skulls,” a.k.a. skull rack):
The Tzompantli is a big platform, ringed by these carved skulls in multiple rows — supposedly no two are alike. I processed this monochromatically to help bring out the texture of the surface.
A piece of fast construction at the ancient Maya ruins of Tulúm in Quintana Roo, Mexico:
The structure’s named for an odd little head-down figure above the door. Given the lack of cracks in the structure’s wall, it was apparently built leaning the way it currently does — so it’s thought to have been built for immediate use, not as something “for the ages” (much like modern shopping malls).
BTW, this little building is far beyond the ropes at the sight, so you need a longish lens to get any decent shots of it. Bonus points to readers who can spot the iguana in the picture…
A bit of ancient royal propaganda on the north face of the Palace at the ruins of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico:
This stucco is a bit tricky to get a good image of — you can’t get near it (for its own sake), and other parts of the structure it’s on block your view from ground level. So you need to work from a distance with a long lens.
I used Topaz Adjust to bring out the colors and structure a bit in this shot.
In the Maya ruins of Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico:
And by Great, they do mean Great — this is the largest ball court in the Maya realm. It’s so large, in fact, that archaeologists think it may not have been useable for the ball game — instead being used for ceremonies associated with the game. Meanwhile, Chichén Itzá has plenty of other (smaller) ball courts that could have been used for the regular game.
Definitely one of the steeper pyramids we saw on our 2011 trip, in the Terminal Classic Puuc site of Uxmal:
As you might be able to tell, kids had no problems with these steps — the bigger ones were racing each other to the top! Regular adults have to do the usual angle-walk up the steps.
You might also notice that this is the only one of the pyramid’s four faces that has been restored. Aside from saving money up front (restoration isn’t cheap), this saves money over the long run too — since once you restore something, you have to maintain it. Restoration also (in a way) destroys — since you can never be 100% sure you’re restoring something exactly the way it once was. So 3/4 of this structure is being saved for future generations of researchers to study and (maybe) restore at a later date.
At the ruins of Tulúm in Quintana Roo, Mexico:
You can’t actually walk on this beach (it’s reserved for nesting sea turtles), but a trail through the site runs right past it — and it makes a great foreground for shots like this! The only real problem is that trash tends to wash up after storms, so you need to clone it out of your shot (since, obviously, you can’t walk out and get it off the beach).
In the Maya ruins of Sayil, Mexico (along the “Puuc Route“):
If you’re looking for Puuc-style architecture, most of its sub-styles can be seen somewhere in this structure — its three levels were built in a mix of Puuc styles over hundreds of years. In the interest of preservation, you can’t go up the front steps any more, but with a decent long lens, you can get good views / shots of all sorts of architectural details even from down on the ground.
You’ll need either a wide lens, or some stitching software to get the whole thing in one image, though. I shot this with a 7 mm lens on my Olympus E-5 — so, equivalent FOV to a 14 mm full-frame setup.
Stucco decorations on the face of the Acropolis at the Maya ruins of Ek’ Balam:
This stucco is in fantastic shape for its age — in no small part thanks to the fact that it was buried inside the Acropolis pyramid not long after it was built. It’s a tricky photographic subject thanks to the protective thatched roof overhead (the light’s even, but low, all day long), but it’s worth it to preserve this amazing work.