Vernal Equinox at Chichen Itza — the stage set for a friendship made and renewed 30 years later.

Feature image: On the left of the pyramid, the plumed serpent descending El Castillo during the vernal equinox

As the play of sunlight and shadow created the silhouette of a serpent slithering down the northern balustrade of El Castillo, the stone temple built to honor the Maya god Kukulcan, I let out a collective sigh with some 50,000 other witnesses. Then came thunderous applause and arms outstretched to the heavens as the rays of the late afternoon sun completed seven triangles of light, finally illuminating the stone head of the serpent at the base of the pyramid. It was a remarkable moment, unifying all of us who had come to Chichen Itza, the fabled ancient Mayan site on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

We were there to celebrate the vernal equinox on March 21, when day and night are of equal length everywhere on Earth. To the Maya, whose astute astronomical observations made celestial events predictable, this solar representation of their plumed serpent god Kukulcan was a spring ritual of fertilization and an affirmation of rebirth. It has parallels to our own celebrations of Easter and Passover.

I had come this day, March 21, 1995, with fellow passengers from the 620-passenger Stella Solaris, a now-defunct Greek-owned ship whose seven-day “Maya Equinox, Monuments and Temples Cruise” once made this magical annual pilgrimage. It was a deep dive into the mysteries of the ancient Maya culture, guided by professors of astronomy, archaeology, anthropology and the developing science of archaeoastronomy.

While the sun was still high in the sky, some of us visited the cenote, or sacred well that gives Chichen Itza its name meaning “Mouth of the Well of the Itzas.” The Itza tribe, whose name is thought to mean “wizard,” lived in the area long ago, when the cenote was a place to receive offerings, which included human sacrifice.

Others visited El Caracol, the snail-shaped observatory with openings to view the planets, and the only round building erected by the Maya. Some settled in to study El Castillo, the awe-inspiring pyramid that is actually a complex Maya calendar in stone. Each of its four sides have 91 steps, which when combined with a step to the temple platform at the summit total 365, the number of days in a solar year.

One scholar from our 1995 cruise noted the increasing number of New Age seekers at Chichen Itza in recent years, and advised us to expect more of this with the approach of the millennium — as people, adrift with no spiritual anchors, seek answers across the boundaries of time, geography, and culture.

I considered this in light of our own journey. Here we were, a group of more than 500 strangers, who had sailed the seas, surveyed the skies, and tried to make sense of our universe through the eyes of the ancient Maya.

This was not only the vernal equinox, but also a national holiday that brings out tens of thousands of Mexicans each year to honor the birth of Benito Juárez, Mexico’s national hero and first indigenous president who served from 1858 to 1872, as well as to acknowledge the ancient Maya ritual. It’s clearly a day on which people revel in their identities, with Mayan women and girls dazzling in their spotless white dresses embroidered with brightly-colored flowers, the men in cool tropical guayabera shirts.

I was seated atop a stone platform next to a young girl of 8, while her father José, in his pale blue guayabera, was busily photographing the grand celebration for the local Merida newspaper Novedades Yucatan. We exchanged greetings in Spanish.

As the program began, young Eunice checked in with me to see if I was able to follow the dramatic Spanish narration. While I did pretty well, we laughed when I didn’t, and she helped me. What I remember most clearly after three decades is how to say “the claws of the jaguar.” Unfamiliar with the word “las garras,” I watched as she twisted her delicate hands into claws, her gentle face into a fierce growl. I have yet to forget the word to this day.

Fast forward to 2025, my first return to Merida since bearing witness to the plumed serpent slithering down El Castillo. It was time to reunite with José and his 8 year old daughter, 30 years later. His photos had illustrated my article for the Contra Costa Times in 1996, so I‘d retained his contact information.

And here I am, welcoming José and Eunice, now the mother of two boys, at my hotel. No surprise that she has become a teacher, given her early instinct to transform herself into a jaguar for my edification.

We shared a traditional Yucatecan meal of cochinita pibil (pork marinated in citrus, seasoned with achiote paste, wrapped in a banana leaf, then slow cooked in an underground fire pit) and many other tasty dishes like poc chuc, relleno negro, and escabeche with our newly-extended family that included Eunice’s husband as well as my husband, daughter, son-in-law, and 4-year-old grandson. The 3 boys played and conversed with some words in English and some in Spanish, but more in the universal language of ice cream and the mobile phone.

The following day, while Eunice worked and her boys attended school, José guided us through Uxmal, one of the most beautiful and harmonious of all Mayan sites.

We walked the remains of the once long narrow rectangular ball court with our grandson, pointing out two stone rings high on the facing walls, and explained to him the still disputed object of the game: to pass the “pelota,” a heavy rubber ball weighing as much as nine pounds, through one of the stone rings some 20 feet high — using no hands! Of course we left out any mention of the religious significance of the game, including the aspect of human sacrifice. For a youngster just learning to play soccer, the concept of using the hip to launch such a heavy ball high up through the stone ring was inconceivable enough, though perhaps more so to his grandparents with aging hips.

Later that day we met Jose Manrique Esquivel, a retired professor who was busy making a pelota from a large pot of milky white liquid boiling over a roaring fire in the backyard of his home. Committed to restoring to its rightful place “Pok ta Pok,” the Mayan name for the ancient ball game, el profe would scrape off the top layer of latex as it thickened in the pot, then wrap it, layer by layer, to build up each rubber ball to be used in the increasing number of games being played throughout Mexico and Central America.

Like the proud celebration of Mayan culture evident at the annual equinox gathering with tens of thousands of people at Chichen Itza, here in the backyard of the passionate profe, in the tiny Mayan village of Chapab, we found another inspiring example of the powerful cultural renaissance taking place in Mexico’s Yucatan and beyond.

IF YOU GO: See also the following articles: Yucatán immersion: culture, history, archeology and cuisine; and, Mexico’s Yucatan: Deep into Mayaland with Victory Cruise Line.