I have been on Second Life for almost a year – I guess I am still considered a n00b compared to some of the older folk that have been around since the beginning. And I admit, I first went into SL because I was reading about it everywhere, was curious to see what the hype was all about. Next thing I knew I was spending more time on SL than I should have – while my social life took a bit of a hit, I told myself it was research…and to some point it really was.

All this led up to Sunday, June 10, 2007 – on this day the Mexico Tourism Board (a Burson-Marsteller client) held the grand opening of the Chichen-Itza ruins in Second Life. The objective for the Mexico Tourism Board was really two-folded: to create a virtual replica of the ruins for people to visit and learn about the history – call it virtual tourism, which seems to be gaining popularity in SL. And at the same time, Chichen-Itza is one of the nominated sites to become a wonder of the world. Voters coming from SL get a traditional Mayan outfit, virtual of course – pretty revealing too.

The sim features El Castillo (main pyramid), El Cenote Sagrado, and El Templo de los Guerreros among others. Special attention was given to the builds, for example, there are a total of 91 stairs on each side of the pyramid, same as in RL.

One of the key highlights is the audio tour, residents ride on top of a large butterfly which stops at the various sites while the users listens to the history and background of each ruin. The market area features artifacts created and sold by residents, they were invited to set-up their shops free of charge. There will be weekly entertainment featuring various SL musicians such as Dann Numbers, Maximillion Kleene, Juel Resistance, Dexter Moore, Chronic Skronski, and Rookie Rossini among others.

The launch party was a great success, the sim had a total of 33,346 visitors, and traffic is holding up. Various events are scheduled for the next coming months. Come take a look for yourself:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Visit%20Mexico/195/60/37 (you will need to register and download the Second Life software)