The traveling adventures of SiMonica continued last week during our short six-day visit to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Monica had a little bit of free time between semesters of study and we decided to visit warmer and more humid climates down south.
We arrived in Cancun with a planeload of predominantly overweight Americans in a variety of gaudy Hawaiian shirts and fake tans. They were headed for the hotels and resorts in Cancun, while we hightailed it south on our little rental car (called the “Dodge Attitude”) along the Caribbean Sea to the city of Tulum. Tulum, which means “the wall” in Mayan is a small town along the highway about two hours south of Cancun. The town of Tulum itself is not that worthy of mention, but it is home to a beautiful former Mayan city/fortress that is situated directly on a cliff overlooking the sea. It also has a nice beach just outside of town.
We checked into our little cabana, which had the luxury of an attached bathroom. The roof was thatched with palm fronds. It was situated 20 yards from the water with a mostly unobstructed view of the sun rising in the morning. The other wonderful aspect was the hammock that was on the tiny porch. Shortly after we arrived, there was a brief torrential downpour, which led us to doubt the soundness of the thatched roof. It turned out to be well made and did not leak at all.
View from our cabana in Tulum
The next morning, on Sunday, it was overcast and rainy. We had hoped to be able to go snorkeling in one of the “cenotes” – limestone caves and caverns that have been flooded with water and were appropriate for diving and snorkeling. However, the dive shop in town dissuaded us from doing so in light of the weather, and they were right. Instead, we embarked on our first visit to a Mayan site – called Coba. Coba was an important large city for the Mayans with 50,000 to 100,000 people living on about 50 square kilometers. Archeologists believe that there were about six thousand structures on the site, but they’ve excavated only a couple dozen thus far, with the rest being overtaken by the jungle. Coba also has a few lakes abutting the main archeological site, which are reportedly inhabited by crocodiles. We didn’t see any. Coba is renowned for the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan, due to the fact that it is situated on a small mound. So after a short tour with a hired guide who gave us a summary of various aspects of the city and the rituals involved, we went exploring on our own. The structures were quite impressive, as were the trees that were constantly trying to over take them. As the day progressed, the sun came out and by the time we were ready to make the ascent to the Coba pyramid, it was downright hot and humid. At the top of the pyramid, we discovered a few things. First, that the Yucatan Peninsula is flat as a pancake. It is densely overgrown with jungle, but the trees grow to essentially the same height. The pyramid rose above the tree line, enabling us to see for what seemed like hundreds of miles. It seemed that we could see the curvature of the earth, though that is likely not the case. Getting to the top of the pyramid was rather tough, given that the steps are tall. Getting down the steps was more difficult, due to a lack of railings. If one has vertigo, climbing this temple is not recommended. The thing that is interesting is that Mayans are relatively short in stature, and thus the climbing of the pyramid, though seldom done, and only by the highest priests, was likely a real chore.
View from the top of the pyramid at Coba (notice the flatness of the landscape)
After several hours exploring Coba, we had some traditional Mayan dishes at a roadside stand in the form of Panuchos – fried tortillas topped with meat and pickled cabbage, and lime soup.
Panuchos
The next day, on Monday, we scheduled to take a trip with a guide to the Dos Ojos (Two Eyes) cenote, about 20 minutes north of Tulum. We were the only two people in the group, and we were led by a very friendly man named Luis. Luis, who came from state three hours north of Mexico City, came from a family of swimmers. As it turned out, his whole family regularly goes to the pool to swim prior to going to work. Luis’ company provided the wetsuits, transportation and lunch, and we brought our own snorkel equipment. Dos Ojos was formed thousands of years ago when the limestone sunk and was flooded. It is actually two caves that are connected. The caves have stalactites and stalagmites submerged under water (those are not growing any longer) and above water that are still alive. We snorkeled around these mesmerizing caves for several hours, looking at natural columns, going through small openings to other caves, and diving deeper to get a different perspective on the whole thing. In parts the cave was very deep and dark but we had underwater flashlights. Other parts of the cave were lit up by natural light. The cenotes are also popular for diving with many different parts available for exploration. In fact, the system of cenotes around the Yucatan is still being explored and a lot of them are connected. One has to be certified to dive in caves in order to explore these wonderful spaces. It seemed like a desirable activity judging by the number of divers in the cave. The cenotes did not have many fish, and the ones that did live there were relatively small. One part of the Dos Ojos cenote was called “the Bat Cave” and it did have bats living in it.
Luis was a very pleasant guide. We realized that people in Mexico that we met never asked us what our professions were. It was refreshing and we wondered whether that’s an American obsession.
After the trip to Dos Ojos, we left our first hotel and proceeded to drive south along the sea toward the Si’an Kaan Biosphere Preserve. Si’an Kaan is a Unesco World Heritage site roughly the size of Rhode Island. The Mayans used to live there as well and used it along their trade route with southern cities. Now it is mostly uninhabited, except for one hotel and a few private residences. We stayed at that hotel for the night, and, despite their advertised kayak rental on the website, they no longer offered this. Of course, you could still have a guided tour for $50/person, but we opted to head down the road to a ramshackle old visitor center that rents kayaks out by the hours. While we may not have seen quite as much as we would have on a guided tour, the birds and nature we saw was quite enough. We saw an egret, and a pair of ospreys in their nest, as well as a lonely flamingo flying over us, and what seemed like a crocodile submerging under water as we were passing about 50 feet away. We were not sure about the crocodile and decided not to find out. All in all it was very beautiful as the sun was setting over the mangrove islands and we were paddling back to the dock. The beach and the water were clean as well, with a sandy bottom and no seaweed. What was rather strange at the first place that we stayed at was the lack of people swimming. The bottom of the sea was a bit seaweedy and the waves were higher than in other parts, but it was still pleasant. As an aside, when we woke up the first day, we saw workers digging holes on the beach and depositing seaweed that had washed ashore, into the holes. Several hours later, as the tide came in, the seaweed returned to the sea. What a strange exercise.
Si'an Kaan - Lagoon on the left, Caribbean Sea on the right
Sunrise in Si'an Kaan
Prior to leaving the Tulum area, we checked out the Tulum Mayan fortress, which was swarmed by busloads of tourists from Cancun. It was very pretty, and in a different architectural style than Coba. It was of a later era and was heavily influenced by the warrior-like Toltecs.
Mayan culture is presented to us as relatively violent and blood-thirsty. They were highly god fearing people with numerous rituals of bodily mutilation, blood letting, and animal and later human sacrifice. On occasion, they played a ball game the point of which was to pass a rubber ball through a vertically attached hoop using only thighs to manipulate the ball. The games were played by two teams of fourteen players, and due to the difficulty of the task, could take hours or days to conclude. The game ended when one team passed the ball through the hoop. As a sign of the highest honor, the captain of the winning team was sacrificed. However, the ball game and other appeasements to the gods were enacted on seemingly rare occasions centered around important dates in the Mayan calendar. But since these were important events, they were depicted in stelae and memorialized for posterity. Thus we have a conception of Mayan culture as violent and bloodthirsty. I imagine that everyday life was more peaceful in general as it was with other cultures. Yes, there was a strict class system and the lower classes were unlikely to live a life of happiness, but how is that different from Western cultures? What if the only depictions of Western culture that were left were paintings from the Middle Ages? Would scholars then conclude that Western culture was essentially bloodthirsty and reverential of people nailed to crosses?
But I digress. Tuesday turned out to be a beautiful day and after a little overheating at the Tulum ruins, we went slightly north to the city of Akumal, where we snorkeled right in the sea and saw four sea turtles and a nice coral reef with lots of colorful fish. Thereafter, we stopped at the Grand Cenote on the road from Tulum to our next destination at the city of Valladolid. The Grand Cenote did not require a guide, and though it was smaller than the Dos Ojos cenote, it was still very impressive. There are cenotes all over the peninsula, though some are more basic than others. The entrance fee is minimal, but it helps to bring your own snorkeling equipment. The temperature of the water is a constant 24C (75F) – i.e. warm enough.
Valladolid is a small colonial city on the way to the capital of Yucatan state, Merida. We chose Valladolid as the site of our stay due to its proximity to the famous Mayan city of Chichen Itza and the less famous site of Ek’balam. Valladolid was built in a typical Spanish colonial style, with a central square and a church abutting it (built partially from stones from Mayan pyramids) and with colorful two-story buildings with porticoes surrounding the square. Our hotel was right on the square. We walked around the city a bit, found some old period buildings. The city had a similar look to Salta in Argentina, and likely countless other Spanish colonial cities. In the center of town, they were busy modernizing signs, seemingly in order to invite more tourists.
Cathedral in Valladolid
The next day we went to Chichen Itza, the most famous Mayan city on the Yucatan Peninsula. The site is very popular and has been thoroughly excavated and cleared of jungle with informative signs (in Spanish, Mayan and English) by each structure. Unfortunately, one cannot climb the main pyramid at this site any longer, due to the popularity of the location. It is an impressive structure with serpent’s heads at the bottom of each of the 4 staircases. During the fall and spring equinoxes, the shadows of the pyramid create a serpent’s body along the side of the staircase. In the fall it is descending the pyramid and in the spring it is ascending. We did not witness this phenomenon as it was not the equinox, but they recreate this light show every evening for the tourists. We didn’t see that either, but imagined it. Other impressive aspects of the site were its tremendously large ball court, which was built with straight vertical walls instead of the slanted walls in Coba. Standing by one wall and making a noise produced 13 echoes (a lucky number according the to Mayan tradition). The site also had an observatory that lined up with stars during certain times of the year. Lastly, and very differently from the sites at Coba and Tulum, there were a plethora of vendors selling all kinds of Mayan related junk. The tourists were there in droves, and we had the benefit of gently gliding past them gathering tidbits of information in different languages.
The giant ball court in Chichen Itza
The day turned out to be hot so to take down some of the heat we snorkeled in another cenote on the way back to Valladolid. This one was just a giant hole in the ground about 60 feet below the surface and about 60 feet deep in parts. There weren’t any stalactites or stalagmites there, but there were very impressive roots from a tree that descended all the way to the water from the surface above.
The next day was our last day, and we visited a nearby Mayan city of Ek’balam. Ek’balam was abandoned many years prior to the arrival of the conquistadors, and many parts of it were only partly rescued from the jungle. We practically had the site to our ourselves. The pyramid was climbable, and supposedly one could see the pyramids of Chichen Itza and Coba from the top of it. We overheard a guide say that that was a myth and we could barely see the nearby city of Valladolid, just 20 kilometers away. The main pyramid was interesting in that the front side of it with the stairs was excavated and deforested, but we also walked around to the back to discover that they decided to leave it overgrown. Nearby mounds were other unexcavated structures. That was pretty neat.
Pyramid at Ek'balam
We had about four hours before our flight and the guide book said that it was only 150 kilometers to Cancun, so we figured that we had plenty of time to make it to the airport. There are two roads from Valladolid to Cancun – a toll road and a free road. We figured that the free road is likely more scenic and with time to spare we embarked down that route. The first 60 kilometers were fine, but then we hit a series of towns which slowed down our progress to a crawl. Instead of installing stoplights, the road is strewn with very steep bumps to slow down the passing cars. After passing the nth town, we realized that time was running short and that we still had to go about 50kms and the flight was leaving in two hours time. Once we seemed to be entering Cancun, we realized that we must have missed the airport as the planes no longer seemed to appear before us. Sure enough, we’d overshot the turn off as I guess they figure no one who takes the free road will be flying! After asking for directions from several people, we finally made it to the airport to drop off our car. The rental car people (are they ever honest?) charged us for an extra day of rental for returning the car one hour late. Ugh. The car was well worth it, but that left a slightly bitter taste in our mouths. The airplane out of Cancun was delayed anyway, so luckily we didn’t miss the flight.
Overall, the trip was a real pleasure. It was beautiful, warm and interesting. The snorkeling was superb and varied. The food, though, in my opinion, was not that great. I felt that the quality of the ingredients was sub-standard, and the prices were similar to what we pay in the Mission in San Francisco. Such high standards we have these days. Either way, it was worthwhile and I would recommend it as a short vacation to anyone. (Just don’t expect Thrifty Car Rental to be thrifty AT ALL!)
