Travels in the Yucatan

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Carol's bit,

Cancun.

We had to leave the U.S because our 6 month visa had expired. So we went to Mexico to see the Mayan ruins. We arrived at Cancun airport and picked up the hire car. As we drove towards our hotel,
we passed one long road of hotels, and cheap shops. This is Costa del Yarmouth.





On the day going out again, we had a walk around the Artisans market, which was fun. If you have been to Morocco you know that you are going to be hassled by the vendors, and are expected to bargain with them. It was mostly cheap tat, but I managed to get a hand crocheted shoulder bag from $700 down to $550 ( pesos).

The Mayans are a quiet , friendly people, but obviously have a lot of anger towards the Spanish. The Mayan civilization was decimated with the Spanish invasion. Their buildings were built on top of ,and their books burned by a Spanish priest, who was trying to convert them to Christianity. The history is a bit sketchy because of that incident , the Mayans kept very good records, and were very advanced.

Whilst walking through the ruins at Uxmal I felt a light touch on my hand, when I looked down there was a skinny young bitch looking up at me. She was covered in mange and ticks. Somewhere she had puppies, or may be they were dead, she didn't look fit enough to look after babies. I had nothing to give her, but she appreciated the attention when I held her face in my hands. One of the other visitors had a plastic pot and gave her some water. Something needs to be done here, there is no animal welfare, and they have to fend for themselves. Other dogs at Ek Balam ( black panther) had made friends with one of the guides, and about 4 or 5 of them had established a nice life for themselves. They seemed happy and were fed every day. The guides were genuinely fond of them .

One of the places we stayed at was tucked into a jungle setting, and although basic, was very peaceful and comfortable, it would have been nice to have stayed longer here.
I found the roads here easy and pleasant to drive on, even if they did suddenly disappear into a ditch at the side.

We decided to have a meal at a roadside cafe called the Pickled onion.


The owner turned out to be British, from the north of England . She was in the process of setting up another business in holistic medicine, and had some of the locals coming in to do therapy work. Valerie herself was a Reflexologist and Reiki practitioner, I got a job offer. I think if I worked down here it would be animal rescue.

The ruins are fascinating and each one has a different Aura and feel to it. Apart from the poor little dog,I preferred Ek Balam. No one should go to Cancun and not see the ruins ( but they do)

CANCUN

We expected a cross between Blackpool and Benidorm and what we got was a little better but no much. The hotels are in a 20km long strip against the sea with lots of tshirts and other such tat on sale in little booths with aggressive vendors. It is a sign of the times and US big business that they have a new cry when they try to entice you into their shops, instead of “Lookee Lookee less than 1 dollah” they shout with pride “ Cheaper than Walmart”.

However the interior was better than we could have hoped for and the many Mayan people we met were unfailingly polite and helpful.

Our first stop on the interior was at Chichen Itza and the Mayaland Hotel where we had reserved a room at the extortionate rate of $165 a night. We had decided that one nights worth of luxury and to be next to the ruins made this worth while. But we got a lot more than we bargained for as they upgraded us to the Pavarotti suite, their most expensive at only $800 per night. The bed was about 8 foot wide, the ensuite jacuzzi had room for 3 and there was room for a cricket pitch in the room.


The grounds were fabulous, 3 swimming pools, several bars and restaurants and a variety of animals and birds wandering around.

[ YES Those are peacocks walking upstairs for the evening!]



We took in the sound and light show inside the ruins which was very atmospheric that evening and got an early start next day with the aim of seeing as much as we could before the tour buses arrived. The great pyramid greets
you first and you can only marvel at the industry required to build it and all the other structures.










The 1000 pillars might have been a market place. The Platform of the Eagles and the Jaguars are built in a combination Maya and Toltec styles. Each side has a staircase to the top. Carved into the sides are panels depicting eagles and jaguars consuming what appear to be human hearts.
Great Ball Court about 150 meters to the north-west of the Castillo is by far the most impressive. It is the largest ball court in ancient Mesoamerica. It measures 166 by 68 meters (545 by 232 feet). The imposing walls are 12 meters high, and in the center, high up on each of the long walls, are rings carved with intertwining serpents.



At the base of the high interior walls are slanted benches with sculpted panels of teams of ball players. In one panel, one of the players has been decapitated and from the wound emits seven streams of blood; six become wriggling serpents and the center becomes a winding plant.

We walked down a SacBe an old Mayan white road.

As well as being highways connecting their many centres together they have a religious significance to the Mayans and you sometimes see the locals utter a brief prayer before crossing a SacBe.


It led to the Cenote,
one of the two water sources for the site and home of many sacrifices.





These old time Mayans were a bloodthirsty lot.



Our next stop was Merida. We took a walk around the central plaza with a local guide, and learned that there had been 5 pyramids in Merida when the Spanish arrived. They enslaved the local mayans and forced them to tear down the pyramids and build churches on the flattened sites. They also burned all but three of their books. This was a thousand year old culture which had erected magnificent edifices, run a trading empire thousands of miles across and kept meticulous written records of their achievements.

We stayed at a little bed and breakfast run by a couple of cuban ladies and their cat named doggie. The outside street was pretty rough looking and Carols comment was “This is a right sh** heap”. But inside there was a tiny swimming pool and lovely little back yard that we could use, filled with plants. The owners were a goldmine of local information.

We visited Dzibilchaltun just north of Merida. As well as significant Maya ruins there was a museum full of Maya and Spanish artifacts including pirate memorabila. The deep cenote freshwater well
looked excellent for a cool swim but I did not bring my trunks.







Our next stop was Uxmal, much less visited than Chichen Itza but as impressive and perhaps of more archaeological significance.



Unlike Chichen Itza where a strict no climbing rule was applied we were allowed to walk and climb our way around and over much of the buildings except the roofs.


My calves are still aching from the climb up the pyramid and boy o boy were the steps narrow and steep.


Coming down was pretty scary and over the years several people have fallen and either died or been seriously injured. Some descended on their bottoms but Scottish machismo prevented me from doing this.






We stayed at a charming little place called Sacbe,
[Mayan for white road]




in a spotlessly clean little bungalow in grounds where a bewilderigly wide range of trees and plants were lovingly nurtured by the owner. Carol was in her element.

and ate at the Pickled Onion just down the road.


Carols Bit has covered the owner already, a Lancashire lass now living happily in Mexico.

We finished off our ruins tour next day at Ek Balam. This much smaller site was only recently discovered. Excavations and restoration is still going on but in some areas the degree of preservation is astounding. This giant idol was mostly intact when discovered.

The guide said only a small amount of restoration work had been done this area. It was all original stonework and only the stucco had needed some filling and retouching.






We are both more than a little skeptical about some of what we saw and read. Buildings were reconstructed from piles of bricks to some 1950s idea of what a Mayan temple looked like and explanations are little more than guesswork. But whatever the mistakes and misconceptions there are there remains an unmistakable truth, this was a complex, long lasting and successful civilisation.

Some Mayans still live in traditional oval houses with a thatched roof but here the wattle and daub wall looks like it might be cement to me.


The television screen was an anchronistic touch though!





After this we returned to Cancun where that peculiarly American College tradition “Spring Break” was in full swing.



We were lucky to find a quiet room and avoid the drunken mobs reeling from bar to bed to bar along the 20 kms of the hotel zone.



Amongst the memories we have of the Yucatan are
1 The enormous semi feral but friendly stray dog population
2 The crazy and scary bus drivers.
3 The even crazier and scarier taxi drivers. You would stop for a red light and the taxi behind you would take to the pavement, drive around you and run the red light.
4 The friendly and unfailingly polite Mayans.
5 The person who sat on the bonnet of our hire car in Merida, denting the bonnet.
6 Last but not least the "Get out of jail card" provided by the hire car company which we needed when John got stopped and accused of " Not respecting the red light" and not having a back number plate.