After leaving Las Coloradas we headed towards Merida via Izamal.
A short jaunt off the main highway we came upon an abandoned ruin of a church. Somehow it seemed so beautiful with its cracked wall, grassy roof and the door leading to a door leading to a window... Just, standing there with the elements of time adorning it like the lines on the face of a well lived woman.
Izamal is an important archaeological site of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization.
The city was founded during the Late Formative Period (750–200 BC) and was continuously occupied until the Spanish Conquest. The most important constructive activity stage spans between Protoclassic (200 BC – 200 AD) and Late Classic (600–800 AD). It was partially abandoned with the rise of Chichen Itza in the Terminal Classic (800–1000 A.D.) until the end of the Precolumbian era, After the Spanish Conquest of the Yucatan in the 16th century a Spanish colonial city was founded atop the existing Maya one; however it was decided that it would take a prohibitively large amount of work to level these two huge structures and so the Spanish contented themselves with placing a small Christian temple atop the great pyramid and building a large Franciscan Monastery atop the acropolis. Completed in 1561, the open atrium of the Monastery is still today second in size only to that at the Vatican. Most of the cut stone from the Pre-Columbian city was reused to build the Spanish churches, monastery, and surrounding buildings.
Pope John Paul II visited Izamal in August 1993. ~ Excerpts from Wikipedia
Izamal's nickname is The Yellow City... It remains a pilgrimage site and is the home of a distillery which produces an eponymous mezcal from the hearts of the locally grown agave plants.
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