Temple of Kukulcan

El Castillo, the Temple of Kukulcan, is the step pyramid that dominates the centre of Chichen Itza in Mexico's Yucatán, and archaeologists catalogue it simply as Structure 5B18. It was built by the Maya between roughly the 8th and 12th centuries and dedicated to Kukulcan, the feathered serpent of the Yucatec Maya. The pyramid rises about 24 m on a square base some 55 m across, with a further 6 m for the temple on top. Each of the four sides has about 91 steps; add the top platform as a final step and the total comes to 365, the length of the solar year in the Maya Haab' calendar.

The building is also famous for a trick of light. In the late afternoons around the spring and autumn equinoxes, the sun catches the stepped northwest corner and throws a row of triangular shadows onto the balustrade of the north stairway, which is carved with plumed serpents — the feathered serpent appears to slither down the pyramid. Thousands gather for it every March, although the effect is visible for weeks either side and nobody knows whether the builders intended it. The stairway has a second party piece: clap your hands near its foot and the echo comes back as a falling chirp that acousticians have compared with the call of the quetzal bird.

The pyramid is a shell over an older one. In the 1930s excavators tunnelled inside and found an earlier, smaller temple with nine terraces, with a Chac Mool figure and a jaguar throne painted red with cinnabar, set with green jadeite and given fangs made from seashells, all materials brought in by long-distance trade. More recent geophysical surveys show at least two earlier building phases beneath the present shell and a water-filled cenote under the whole structure, which sits at the centre of a cross formed by four other cenotes.

Since about 2006, after a climber fell to her death, the site's manager, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), has not allowed visitors to climb the pyramid or enter its chambers; today it is seen from the great plaza around it, and the Sacred Cenote lies to the north.

Getting there

Chichen Itza lies beside the Mérida–Cancún highway, next to the village of Pisté. The Tren Maya has a station called Chichén Itzá on the Cancún–Mérida line. Valladolid is about 40 km away and has shared vans (colectivos) that take around 45 minutes; ADO buses from Cancún take about three hours. The nearest airport is Tulum (TQO), about 110 km away, but Mérida (MID, about 115 km) and Cancún (CUN, about 180 km) have far more flights.