Mayan Magic

Mexico...what a contrast to Cuba. We arrived to adverts, bright lights, food...noisy crowded roads, and the ability to get something almost without question.

We arrived in Cancun on the shuttle bus from the airport, then took a local bus out to our couch surfers place by the beach. That makes it sound better than it was. Not that it wasnt a nice place, and that Mark wasnt a great guy, and that we didnt appreciate the bed and time he gave us, its just that we werent actually right by the beach. although we werent far away, and we did go swimming for the afternoon while we were there.

So, Cancun...bright lights big city. We didnt stay long, one day and a couple of nights for a break and to get organised for our short trip round Mexico. The most exciting thing we did was go to the beach. The sand was white, the water azure, and very warm. I dont care if Mark thought it was cold, it was warmer than any ocean we get in NZ. Warm enough that you can just stand thre, neck deep in water and not feel cold at all. Or maybe the most exciting thing was the food. The fact that there was some. And a choice, and fresh stuff. The first night all we ate was salad and cheese!

From Cancun we took a bus (not a tourist only bus, we could take any bus we wanted to!) to Valladolid, where we met another CS host, Gerardo. He lives in a small house in the suburbs, a short taxi ride away from the centre of town. The landscape on the way to Valladolid was pretty flat, the road pretty straight, the jungle not especially thick, but again a contrast to anything we had seen in Cuba. Not enough to keep us staring out of the window, but the alternative was a movie, ¨Christmas with The Kranks¨, in Spanish.

We got to Valladolid too early to call Gerardo so we left our packs in the bus station and went round the a cenote in the centre of town. This is where the limestone roof has collapsed into an underground river, leaving a big cave with a pool at the bottom and a big hole at the top. There are stalagtites and mites all around the edge, and roots hanging down inside. This was the first one we saw so we were not sure how impressive it was, it looked pretty neat, but was it big? small? plain? or wildly impressive?!

We met Gerardo and went back to his place. I'm not sure where he was expecting us to sleep as he only had one bed in his house! He did have a hammock, and managed to borrow another one off a friend, so we did all have somewhere to lie down in the end. Maybe he thought we'd be travelling with sleeping mats etc. Nevermind.

Just outside Valladolid were two more cenotes, which we hired bikes to go out and see. X'Keken or Dzitnup, entered via a dark and slippery tunnel, a big cavern with a pool at the bottom. Even after our eyes adjusted to the dark, we couldnt see the edges of the pool or cave. The only light coming in was through a small hole in the roof of the cave, and of course our torches (thanks IPL / NZRC for that headtorch, very useful!!) And Samula, more impressive that X'Keken. It had a larger hole in the roof and we were early enough to see the rays of light coming through, rather than just general light coming through. If that makes sense. Again there were all sorts of rock formations and tree roots. We could have had a swim in the pools, but we didnt bring our togs (and werent going to skinny dip), we had other plans for the afternoon that didnt involve walking around damp.

Those plans involved going out to Chitzen Itza, about 40km from Valladolid. There were crowds of tourists there, but the site is pretty big and we managed to find some quiet corners. Chitzen Itza is an impressive place. The first structure you come to is El Castillo, the trademark ruin seen on all the postcards etc. Most of the ruins there are blocked off so you cant climb them anymore. We are stuck between admiration for preserving them for future visitors, and frustration for not being able to explore them properly, not being able to see inside or look at the frescoes and carvings the signs tell us are up there. Still, you can still get to see a lot. The huge and impressive El Castillo, the ball court, the less well preserved / restored southern zone...they are all hard to describe, generally well restored but due to the type of stone not as good as some of the Inca ruins in Peru, vast but not on the scale of Angkor Wat and around Siem Reap. There were useful signs in front of each building with descriptions in three languages (Spanish, English and the local Mayan dialect) of what the building was and about any important features.

Just as we were waiting for the bus back to Valladolid, it started raining. Not just rain, but sheets and sheets of water, and plenty of thunder and lightning too. The brightness and noise suggested that the storm sat right on top of us for a while.

Next stop was Merida. We had some time to wander round the city, looking at the zocalo - the main plaza - and the cathedral meant to be the oldest cathedral on the continent containing the largest crucifx. A plain but stunning church, none of the usual gilt and glitz of catholic churches. The cross was jut big. The other main place we stopped at was the history and anthropology museum, housed in one of the great colonial mansions along the Paseo de Montejo.. It was a really interesting museum, full of artifacts from the various Mayan sites around the Yucatan. Not huge, but enough to make us want to explore more of these sites.

And so we did, travelling the Ruta Puuc and Uxmal. We had to take a bus that gave us limited time at each site, but there was only one or two places we wanted more time.

The first stop was Labna where only a few buildings had been rescued from the jungle and partially restored. The ¨palace¨was neat, as was a carved archway.

Next was Xlapak, a site with three uncovered but not really restored pyramids, and many more mounds in the jungle. It looks like there is a slow process to restore them, and maybe to uncover more.

Then it was off to Sayil where even a few more minutes would have been good. We saw a huge palace that was supposed to have contained 90 bedrooms, a mirador type structure and a temple with a few remaining hieroglyphics. There was a sign and path heading off to a southern group, several hundred metres away, that we just didnt have time to see.

Kabah was the site where we definitely needed more time. From a map at the entrance, there was heaps to see, and we only saw a part of it. An impressive part, but we prefer to explore more thoroughly that we had time for. There are some huge structures there, another palace and some kind of pyramid were the two main structures in the area we visited, but there were also offshoots and attached buildings. And a huge iguana.

The last stop, and the highlight, was Uxmal, pronounced Oosh-mal. The site was smaller than we expected, but still stunning, and the buildings were huge. Again hard to describe so hopefully we'll manage to get some photos uploaded. The trademark building here, and the first one we came to, is the Magicians Castle or Pyramid. The Nuns Quadrangle was huge and neat, and a real suntrap. From the large Governors Palace up on a hill, there are awesome views across the ruins and the jungle beyond. You can see some of the unrestored temples and buildings jutting up through the trees.

Uxmal was full of iguanas of all shapes and sizes, and colours. Each of the largest had their own turf, and there was a lot of posturing and aggressive behaviour if another one came too close. There were iguanas everywhere we looked, on the rocks, in the grass, poking out of holes in the ruins...

So, thats our first few days in Mexico, and the first few sets of ruins we visited. There are plenty more to come, hopefully we wont get sick of them before we have seen all we want to! These are just some of the many photos we have taken, just enough now for a taster. We'll post more of them somewhere later.

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Part of trip: Cuba and Mexico 2008

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