Butt Stepping the Chichen Itza Pyramid

When you see pictures of Pyramid Kukulcan at Chichen Itza they'll sometimes show you tourists blithely walking up and down the pyramid holding a rope fastened to fence posts placed at varying points on the steps. It may be so, but it's not all that calm.

At the bottom of the pyramid looking toward the top it appears to be a grand and tempting site, and it is. The steps are steep but certainly manageable. However, coming down is quite another matter. What was once a sharp incline has suddenly become a vertigo nightmare. Even people who normally have no fear of heights become afflicted.

Without the guiding line you are left to your own devices. Should you stumble and start to roll down the pyramid, you will surely die. Those rocks that look old and dusty are quite hard and deadly. Some people merely begin their decent as if going down the basement stairs at home.

Others, me included, take another approach. You can go down one of two ways. Either facing backwards or forwards. Those choosing a backwards decent are bent over at the waist facing the steps of the pyramid. In their upside down V shaped alignment, they appear to be doing some weird stretching exercise rather than intently concentrating on putting one foot at a time onto the next step. I remember one backwards descending woman being photographed by her husband. She stated that if she survived, she'd kill him. She had a look of utter terror on her face and she wasn't amused.

Those people who prefer to see where they're going choose a face first approach. However, they're sitting on their butts. This is the manner I choose. Their seems to be a little more safety with the assistance of gravity holding your derriere down and preventing you from rolling toward a certain and inevitable death. It is certainly a no more a comical sight than the butt in the air backwards method. This face first, butt stepping down the pyramid gets you there intact, except for a little lost dignity. However, for those afflicted, we could care less about face saving, we're all about life saving.

However, my son's attitude was entirely different. I saw him nonchalantly waltz down the steps. I swear I even saw him occasionally take two steps at a time. He was also totally amused and possibly confused at the behavior of everyone else.

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