I recently went on a trip that included a visit to the Chacchoben Mayan ruins in Costa Maya, Mexico.  It wasn't as spectacular as some other Maya ruins but it was still interesting.  There were still several buildings still buried in the jungle.  I tried to take pictures of anything that would be interesting to a modeler or terrain builder including some trees and jungle stuff.

	First up on the tour is Temple 24 which dates from around 700 AD.  You can still see some plants growing out of the structure.  The entire structure was covered with worked stones so it had a flat appearance.  You can still see parts of the wall still covered in the stones but some are missing giving a glimpse of the interior stones.
A close up of some of the plants growing on the side of Temple 24.  It's kind of interesting to see the growth on the ruin.  I need to use this in one of my builds.
	Here's a shot of the side of Temple 24.  It was roped off so you couldn't climb more than a few steps but I can imagine the view from the top.
A shot of Temple 24 from the back.  The overhang is where the archeologists dug into the pyramid to see if it was hollow like the Egyptian ones (it wasn't).
	A closer view of the back of Temple 24.
Next on the tour was a big hill covered in jungle vegetation.  I know what you're thinking.  'So it's a big hill in the jungle, so what!'  Well, you'd be correct, except for the fact that the hill isn't really a hill, it's another structure that's completely covered by the jungle.
	Another wider view of the buried structure complete with trees growing on top of it.
A better shot of the buried structure.  You can even see some rocks that look like they might belong to something underneath.
	These stairs go up the plaza where Temple 1 and the Las Vasijas temple are located.
And this is Temple 1.  It is the tallest temple at the site.  There's a little alter directly in front of the Temple that was built centuries after the main temple by the descendants of the original Mayans who moved back into the area.
	Here's a close up shot of Temple 1 (on the right side of the picture above) showing the outer casing stones and the stones underneath.  The casing stones were smoothed out to make the pyramid appear to be smooth while the interior stones had a rounder natural shape.
This is a close up of a wall near Temple 24.  The main interest in this wall is the fact that it's an actual fieldstone wall.  It's nice to compare reality with the Hirst Arts pieces.  The line in the top right corner is where the archeologists found the stones on the ground and replaced them on the wall.  The line is how they tell what stones were in place when it was excavated and what was put back in place as part of the restoration.
	Here is the pyramid Las Vasijas.  It's next to Temple 1 and below it down some stairs.
Another shot of the Las Vasijas pyramid.
	Here's a shot of some of the remaining stucco and paint on Las Vasijas.  The entire side of the pyramid was covered like this.  This paint and stucco is over 1000 years old and still hanging onto the pyramid.
Now for some shots of the interesting flora around the site.  This is a shot of the jungle from the steps at the back of Temple 24.
	This is a tree the tour guide called a Strangler Fig.  There were several around the site and they were all somewhat different.
Here's another of the Strangler Figs that are around the site.
	And yet another Strangler Fig.  This is one tree.  I'm not sure if it started out that way or became one tree from several of them.  This tree was freaking huge, as you can see from the next picture.
Here you can see how big the tree is.  There's two people inside this thing.
	And finally, this tree stood about 30 feet tall and as you can see it was covered in thorns.  One of these days I'm going to make a tree for my gaming board with thorns on it.

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