A model of Chichen Itza’s main pyramid, the Temple of Kukulcan, is the world’s largest piece of chocolate candy.

Qzina Specialty Foods has broken the world record for largest chocolate sculpture with the model. The Irvine, California company built a 1/30 scale reproduction of the pyramid that weighs more than 1,800 pounds. The sculpture will be destroyed (does that mean eaten?) when the Maya calendar runs out on Dec. 21, 2012.

See the company’s story on how it accomplished this feat HERE. More photos can be found HERE.

For the past week the public bathrooms at Chichen Itza have been out of order.

A lightning strike last week burned out the pump that ran water to the restrooms. As of Wednesday the pump had not been repaired. That’s when the story hit the newspapers, which usually gets action. There have been no subsequent reports that the problem has been fixed.

If you are going to Chichen over the next few days, take precautions — just in case.

Some 28,942 people descended on Chichen Itza to watch Kukulcan descend the great pyramid, El Castillo. In case you missed it, here’s a video of the entire day in seven minutes:

If you watch the video and don’t see anything other than a series of triangular shadows against a staircase, well, that’s just about all there is. As the video demonstrates, the fun is watching the reaction by those who come out for the event.

INAH, the federal agency in charge of Mexican ruins, tweeted that more than 80,000 people visited 12 archaeological zones during the spring equinox.

(Reporting from Yucatan) — The Paul McCartney concert at Chichen Itza has been cancelled before it was even scheduled.

Yucatan Governor Ivonne Ortega Pacheco told the media yesterday that negotiations that would bring the former Beatle to Chichen Itza this spring may have hit an impasse because the proposed timing of the concert would put it in the period of “electoral silence,” a legal prohibition on rallies before the July 1 Yucatan state elections. Also, McCartney will be on tour in Asia during that period, the governor told La Reforma, a Yucatecan publication.

The governor had originally announced, via Twitter, that the state was negotiating with McCartney to play in late March/early April. Recently one Mexican publication reported a rumor that McCartney would play at Chichen Itza on May 19. According to other news reports, McCartney will play in Mexico City at Azteka Stadium on May 8.

The governor indicated that a date for a concert at Chichen Itza that works for the state and McCartney may still be found.

A artist’s reconstruction of a 13,000-year-old skeleton, via Vanguardia

A reconstructed skeleton believed to be 13,000 years old that was found in a sinkhole on the Yucatan Peninsula will be put on display at the new museum under construction near Chichen Itza.

Yucatan Governor Ivonne Ortega Pacheco announced yesterday that the skeleton known as “Mujer de las Palmas” (“Women of the Palms”) that was discovered in 2002 in an underwater cave near the town of Tulum on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula will become the centerpiece of the new Palacio de la Civilizacion Maya museum under construction near Chichen Itza.

According to physical anthropologists, the “Woman of the Palms” does not resemble the Maya, the indigenous people who populated Yucatan when the Spanish arrived more than 500 years ago. Nor does the reconstructed face from the skeleton appear to be a descendant of peoples from northeast Asia who are believed to have arrived in the Americas in ancient times over the Bering Strait land bridge. Instead the skeleton most closely resembles a woman Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia, which could indicate aboriginal peoples may have arrived by boats or other means.

Governor Ortega Pacheco, who was in Berlin to promote tourism to Yucatan, said two other skeletons found on the Yucatan Peninsula will also be on display in the new museum, one of a man from 7,000 years ago, and another of a child believed to have died 1,600 years ago.

The museum, currently under construction in Yaxcaba, a few kilometers southwest from the ancient city of Chichen Itza, is scheduled to open in September. Another museum related to the Maya is under construction in Merida and will open around the same time.

Sir Paul McCartney has begun announcing his tour dates for 2012. So far all are in England and northern Europe.

As for Chichen Itza, which Yucatan’s Governor Ivonne Ortega Pacheco tweeted in December that the show is confirmed, thought the date is not. McCartney will play Chichen Itza in late March or April, according to the governor.

According to the former Beatle’s website, he will play four concerts between March 24-29, in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and the U.K.

Even though his tour seems to be focused in Europe, it doesn’t rule out a one-time show at Chichen Itza. Elton John, for example, flew into Chichen Itza International Airport from the United States on the day of his show and flew out after it was over, only spending a few hours in Mexico. Paul McCartney could make the flight from Europe in a few hours and have a nice nap on the plane on the way back.

Chichen Itza and Maya Yucatan has been in the news of late as we move into high tourism season. Among the recent developments:

INAH, the federal agency that oversees Chichen Itza and other patrimonial sites, announced plans to treat wastewater generated by the influx of tourists at several large archaeological sites.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has already installed wastewater treatment systems at five of the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico, and will soon do the same at Chichen as well as Monte Alban, Tulum, Palenque and Teotihuacan. Because these sites receive millions of tourists each year, treatment of wastewater is a priority to protect the groundwater without harming the environment and the archaeological heritage.

INAH did not announce a timeline or when it would begin this work. It also did not say how this would affect visitors to these sites during construction.

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One of the major bus terminals in Merida, capital of Yucatan state, will offer hourly service to and from Chichen Itza during the spring equinox.

Central de Autobuses de Mérida (CAME), at the corner of Calles 70 and 71, will increase their normal three-times-per-day runs to Chichen Itza to hourly to shuttle tourists out to see the light-and-shadow effect at the ancient city. CAME is expecting heavier than normal crowds because of highly promoted end of the Maya Long Count calendar this year.

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Tourism promoters in Yucatan say ticket prices at Chichen Itza and other Maya sites are too high, and ask that the state and federal government allow children and students to enter for free.

The Consejo Empresarial Turístico de Yucatán (Tourism Business Council of Yucatan or Cetur), a not-for-profit association of tourism-industry professionals, said that after two steep price increases in ticket prices over two successive years, Chichen Itza and other sites in Yucatan state have become too expensive. By enabling children and students to enter for free, the cost for families to visit these sites is more reasonable.

There was no public response from the government to this proposal.

View Andrew in Mexico in a larger map

To paraphrase the great Mark Twain*, “Everybody talks about the end of the world, but nobody does anything about it.”

The Internet these days is filled with a lot of chatter regarding the end of the Maya Long Count calendar on Dec. 21, 2012; one man has come to Mexico to sort truth from fiction.

Andrew Evans, a blogger on National Geographic’s website, is touring the Maya world and tweeting, Facebooking, blogging, Google Mapping about what he finds.

Evans is chasing the end of the world; that is, his itinerary is loosely based on ancient Maya sites relevant in some way to the end of the Maya Long Count calendar, an ancient clock of more than 5,000 years that ticks off its last second on Dec. 21, 2012. “Now, at a time when the world (and the internet) is so focused on the darker predictions of an ancient civilization, I intend to seek out my own answers to the mysteries of the Maya,” Evans writes in his introductory blog post. “Not only because I am a highly curious person, but because chasing a mystery is probably the greatest reason ever to travel.”

As of this writing, Evans has visited the Maya sites of Palenque, where he viewed the lid to Pakal’s tomb made famous by Erich von Däniken (who suggested the carvings represented an “ancient astronaut” flying a spacecraft); Tortuguero, which has the only Maya carving carrying the date of 13.0.0.0.0.0 (the end of the Maya Long Count); and Comalcalco, which recently became notorious for supposedly having another carving with the infamous end date (but, in fact, doesn’t have the date at all).

According to Evans, he is only using National Geographic from 1888 to today as his guide through the Maya world. But based on his reports so far, the Internet and its vast web of 2012 doomsday and New Age consciousness-raising prophecies are mostly what is pulling him along. It makes for enjoyable reading and a fun ride, although if you are looking for the real answers to mysteries surrounding the end of the Maya calendar or even “just the facts, ma’am,” that’s secondary to creating an entertaining travelogue.

I wish Evans would crack open those musty old issues of National Geographic (and maybe he will in future columns), because some of the best and most balanced writing about the ancient Maya world has appeared in that magazine.

Evans is now in Campeche and will visit the ancient Maya cities of Edzna and Calakmul, before pressing on to Yucatan state and touring Uxmal and Chichen Itza. He’ll finish in Quintana Roo, visiting Tulum, Coba, and the Sian Ka’an reserve. He’s snapping photos along the way, and making delightful observations of the daily life of the people who inhabit the Maya region, many of them descendants of the people who built these magnificent cities.

* Regarding the quotation, “Everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it,” it is frequently attributed to Mark Twain, but according to a wonderful blog called the Quote Investigator, it probably originated with Twain’s friend, the writer Charles Dudley Warner.

Video created by State of Yucatan to promote tourism development around Chichen Itza

Will Chichen Itza become like Cancun — hotels, restaurants, attractions — without the beach?

That’s what developer Juan José Cardeña, owner of 220 hectares (more than 500 acres) near Chichen Itza, revealed yesterday in an article that appeared in the Diario de Yucatan.

According to Cardeña’s representative, Jorge Ongay Lara, investors from Spain and Switzerland have been in discussions to commit more than a billion pesos ($80 million U.S.) to begin construction on a project Cardeña calls, “Paraíso Maya 2012″ (“Maya Paradise 2012″).

The project proposes to subdivide the property near Chichen into 33 large lots in 10 low-density hotels, extensions of chains that currently operate resorts and hotels on the Maya Riviera and Campeche. There are also plans for extensive shopping, a bandshell, and a giant saltwater “dolphinarium.”

Talk, of course, is cheap, and until some developer sends out the bulldozers, the extensive plans are only that — plans. As the video at the top of this post demonstrates, the state of Yucatan has plans for extensive development around Chichen Itza and so far is the only private or public developer to actually start building something — the Palacio de la Civilizacion Maya (Palace of the Maya Civilization), a museum dedicated to the ancient, present, and future indigenous culture of Yucatan.

What is not known is if Cardeña’s Paraiso Maya project has anything to do with the plans by the state of Yucatan. Or is Cardeña just another developer hoping to piggyback on those plans and the perceived interest in Chichen Itza, such as this landowner who is still looking for investors to his Chichen Itza project.

The light-and-sound show that plays at Chichen Itza every evening is cheesy. There, I said it.

For a half-hour or so, colored lights play across the pyramid El Castillo and the Temple of Warriors with less sophistication than a Christmas lights display on your average home NOB (north of the border). Apparently the secretary of tourism for the State of Yucatan feels likewise, for he’s requesting $8.5 million Mexican ($660,000 US) to update it.

According to the news service SIPSE, Secretary Juan Martin Pacheco reported he is seeking the money not only for Chichen Itza but to also install a light-and-sound show at Loltun, a spectacular cavern south of Merida near Uxmal once inhabited by the ancient Maya. Chichen Itza, he explained, is the most famous and popular site in Yucatan state, but other sites such as Loltun are just as spectacular but lack in tourism traffic, hence the need for something like a light show.

The upgrades at Chichen and Loltun should be considered part of recently commenced campaign to promote the Maya region in 2012, the year the Maya Long Count calendar ends. By investing in light shows and other enhancements to archaeological sites, “It’s an opportunity to restore the position Yucatan had for many years, of quality of service and care, demonstrated by the newly renovated airport and investment in infrastructure, in training and care for people and good service, in addition to having the safest state in the country, we can guarantee that people keep coming,”he said.

I would suggest that if the state of Yucatan is considering upgrading the light show at Chichen, they should bring it up to the 21st century and hire this company: