Kukulcan Pyramid at Chichen Itza is Mexico's most famous Mayan structure

The journey back in time began with 91 steps.

The steep, stone stairs led to the top of El Castillo, a magnificent pyramid and a cornerstone of Mayan culture.

The climb was challenging and dizzying at times, but the reward was a breathtaking view of the stone ruins scattering the Chichen Itza archeological site and beyond, the lush Yucatan Peninsula.

Also called the Pyramid of Kukulcan, El Castillo -- the best known and most popular of Mexico's Mayan ruins -- was once the centre of a thriving village of 50,000 people, spanning 25 square kilometres by the year 900.

It was inexplicably abandoned by the year 1250.

The pyramid is also an astronomical wonder. On the days of the spring and fall Equinox, the play of light and shadows from the setting sun shows a serpent slithering from the top of the pyramid.

Tour guide Giovanni Avila Ruiz said the spectacle, particularly in the spring, draws as many as 60,000 visitors.

Around the pyramid are hints to the Maya's deeply religious and often bloody culture.

Nearby is the ball field where teams played a game that was a cross between soccer and basketball, Ruiz said. Carvings along the walls show the game ended with the beheading of the winner as a sacrifice to the gods.

"They play in order to reach the greatest honour," Ruiz said. "There's no real account of the end of the ballgame. It's a mystery for us.

"They are mute, but we wish one of these days these stones will speak," he said.

A ceremonial road, once paved in stone, leads to the Sacred Cenote, a well filled with bright green water, where the Maya were believed to sacrifice a young maiden every year to appease the rain god.

At least twice during the 20th Century, the cenote was dragged for gold jewelry and other treasures now residing in a Mexico City museum.

"They were some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen," Ruiz said.

Photo courtesy of Sarah Green, Toronto Sun

After the sun sets, the story of Chichen Itza is told in a sound and light show that bathes the ruins in red, green and blue.

The best time to see Chichen Itza is early in the day before the hot sun bakes the site and it fills with tourists clamouring for a postcard-perfect shot.

Mayaland is the only hotel on the archeological site, nestled among 100 acres of gardens and just steps away from the ruins.

There is a main house and 90 cottages on the five-star property, which has hosted royalty from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to Queen Elizabeth to Luciano Pavarotti.

Sunny afternoons -- after a morning history lesson -- are spent lazing around one of the five pools or snoozing in a hammock on a shady porch.

Chichen Itza is the first stop on the week-long Yucatan Explorer Tour by Signature Vacations.

The tour crosses the peninsula to allow travellers to scale the Mayan ruins at Ek Balam, photograph pink flamingos during a boat ride along Rio Lagartos and marvel at Merida's Spanish architecture, the state capital best seen from a traditional horse-drawn carriage called a calesa.

The Yucatan Explorer Tour appeals to an increasing number of Canadians looking for more than a suntan on their vacations, said Signature spokesman Martha Chapman.

"We now have six different escorted tours in Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic -- more than ever before," Chapman said. "All are focused on getting you off the beaten path, away from the beach and into the host country's interior."

Travellers looking for the best of both worlds can stay for a second week following the tour at all-inclusive resorts in Cancun or Mayan Riviera.

"It's a great combination -- what I like to call a learn 'n laze vacation," Chapman said.

Another impressive stop on the tour is Uxmal, a Mayan archeological site hailed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright as a masterpiece.

After entering through a gate and walking up a series of stairs, the trees open to reveal an oval-shaped pyramid, even grander in scale than El Castillo.

Called both the House of the Dwarf and the Pyramid of the Magician, it is shaped like no other Mayan ruin with its rounded corners.

Unlike Chichen Itza, the stairs on the east and west side of the stone structure can no longer be scaled by visitors. The greater challenge proved trying to capture the impressive structure on film.

Ruiz, the tour guide who has climbed the 118 steps, said the pyramid is steep.

"You can barely see the stairs," Ruiz said. "When you look down to descend, you can't see the stairs."

According to the legend, the pyramid was built overnight by a dwarf who was challenged by the king to a series of tests. One of the tests called for the dwarf to build a house taller than any in the city.

Nearby buildings including the nunnery and governor's palace are decorated with intricate symbols etched into the stone that offer a peek into Mayan legend.

"Until we find something like the Rosetta Stone to break the Mayan code, we're still guessing," Ruiz said.

For more information about the Yucatan Explorer Tour, see signaturevacations.com.