The Joneses Vist Mexico: Coba Ends With a Zip

On Friday, we headed for Coba. We had another rainy day walking through the trees. It's hard to complain with such beautiful scenery.

The ruins in this area are BIG. There are several large structures, and our guide told us there are many more in this city hidden in the jungle. Coba was settled between 100 BC and 100 AD and was a thriving city until somewhere around 1000 AD. At its peak, it was thought to have 50,000 inhabitants, although it could have been much more than that.

There were some taxis,

perfect for transporting Dad (and Kim to keep him company). 

Many of the trees in this area have camouflage-y trunks, due to the extremely high calcium in the ground water. 

I saw several of these nest in the trees, and decided they were home to some exotic jungle bird. Nope. They are termite nests.

Our guide for the day.

This tree looks like someone is tapping it for maple syrup.

It's actually a waxy doorway, made by local bees. The bees of the area are unique--they don't sting. Our guide says they make unusually tasty, expensive honey.

This is the Mayan ball court. Some of the courts were flat, but this one is slanted (said Captain Obvious). The Mayans used a hard ball made of layers and layers of rubber, weighing around 9 lbs. They could hit it with their elbow, hip, shoulder, knee. 

The idea was to get it through the hole. You got points for certain achievements, and could win by never getting the ball through the hole. The understanding of this game has changed radically over the years. The Spaniards thought it was a gambling game, but recently archeologist have determined it was a deciding game--if you could get the ball through the hole, it was a good day to go to war, for example. Think of it like Biblical casting lots. It was also once believe the captain of the winning team or the captain of the losing team was sacrificed at the end of the game, but our guide says this is no longer the belief. The ring looks an awful lot like an old Firestone tire.

A detail at the ball court.

Also at the ball court.

This stone stele had a variety of pictures in little rectangles. It was a record of important events, each rectangle a picture representing something significant.

They are constantly finding stone steles in the area.

Coba was also very famous for its road system. It had miles and miles raised highways made of stone and plaster, connecting the city to other cities and ports. The road was white, and mainly used in the cool of night, the moon and stars easily illuminating the bright, white road. It's kinda buried in the jungle now. Imagine the work of clearing trees, building the hills, and paving over, all without modern tools.

The modern path going over the ancient road.

 More rock steles. They are thought to be used as a way to honor a king. This stele shows (according to our guide) a king holding a snake as proof of his kingship. The upper left squares depict important days in his life--birth, marriage, etc. Somewhere are this stele is an indication that he would have to pass through three worlds to become a god. The stele would have been brightly painted with black, white, red, green, and yellow.

 

 

Here's the drawing of the above stele.

 Coba is famous for having the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan peninsula. It's 138' high with 130 steps. Some of our group counted steps and I think came up with 120, but there were a few places with a kind of half step. It's one of the few pyramids tourists can still actually climb. You can see there is a rope up the center if you feel the need to prevent yourself from tumbling down.

Looking down from the top. I am terrified of heights, but I actually didn't feel too uncomfortable climbing this pyramid. It felt a little like climbing a mountain.

The top structure of this pyramid has a couple of depictions of the descending god.

This one:

and this one:

Looking at the side you can see how much the jungle encroaches on everything here.

Proof we made it to the top.

What goes up most go down.

Another pyramid, visible from the top of our pyramid, that has been swallowed by the jungle.

 

The pyramid from a bottom angle.

This round house with reminded me of a beehive. The four levels of the house are to represent the four seasons and the cardinal directions.

Trees were growing right through the stone steps. It must have been a chore for the ancient Mayans to keep the jungle back.

These are tough trees.

Yellow-throated euphonia hiding in the tree.

This tree would not survive in Billings. Those poor, exposed roots would freeze in a Montana snowstorm minute.

Of course, the thatched roofs we saw everywhere wouldn't last long either. They do seem to withstand the rain quite well.

We saw this feature a few times- a long, short tunnel running under a building.

I'd love to bring him home and use him for a Halloween decoration.

This was likely a house. Remember, these structures would all be stucco covered and brightly painted.

A young fossil looking at the old fossil.

We left Coba and headed for lunch at a Mayan village. Along the way, we saw several private homes like these (taken through our van window).

We ate the most delicious Mayan lunch. I wish I had pictures of the simple foods: rice, beans, tortillas, chicken, squash along with a couple of fruit juices, one from hibiscus flowers, one from a local fruit. We were asked to leave our cameras behind at this point so that we could be forced to buy the expensive photographer's pictures so as not to get tangled up in our next adventure.

We paddled ourselves across a little lake,

donned these adorable helmets and zipline gear,

and climbed the trail to our death our adventure.

We zipped down twice, the first time facing backward (so as not to freak out?).

Yeah, that guide looks a little too excited to send Stan to his death.

It was pretty fun stuff!

 

 



The Joneses Visit Mexico: Tulum and Turtles

We saw this bird EVERYWHERE in Cancun. He was at every site we visited, he flew around the dining room as we ate, he even perched on our balcony one morning. He's black or brown or blue or green, depending on the lighting, and he's pretty scraggly-looking. I've decided he's a great-tailed grackle, despite his lack of a great-looking tail.

Not surprisingly for a tropical land, we saw lots of bugs, including mosquitos that chewed my ankles raw, and ants, which our tour guide warned us to stay clear of. This looks like a grasshopper on steroids.

We saw these signs everywhere. You probably think this sign translates as "stop". I did too, but it obviously means something else. We never stopped, slowed, or yielded when driving past this sign. I didn't see anyone else paying any attention to it, either.

Like public places everywhere, Mexico has plenty of "do not" signs like these:
Do not smoke

Do not eat junk food

Do not walk on all fours

Do not let doves loose



Do not cross your legs when sitting (my mother always told me that, too)

and my favorite: Do not put paper in the toilet. Yep, Mexico has astonishingly bad sewer systems. Every bathroom had a small garbage can by the toilet, overflowing with used toilet paper. Most of the toilets didn't flush anyway.

                                                       

But I digress. On Thursday, we headed to Tulum, a Mayan city on the cliffs of a seaport.

Naturally, it was raining. This is rainy season.

Rain makes for beautiful foliage, so it all works out. This is a Ceiba tree, the Mayan tree of life. It is an important symbol in Mayan society, and is divided into three sections: the underworld (roots), the trunk or middle (present life), and heaven (the branches). The roots of this tree are deeper reaching than other local trees, and the other trees often tap into the roots of the Ceiba tree to get water and nourishment. 

An example of the Mayan depiction of the tree of life.

Close-up of the Cebia tree. I don't think I'll attempt a climb.

The topsoil in Cancun is only 3-4" with limestone below, and with the exception of the Ceiba tree, the roots are very shallow.



 

 

The city of Tulum is surrounded on three sides with a wall with little doorways like this one. The wall was originally about 16 feet high. Can you imagine the labor that went into this wall? The fourth wall was the sea.

The main structure is the castle, set on top of the hill, facing east.

 

This is the Great Palace. Tulum seems to be in rougher shape than Chichen Itza. This building would have had a thatched roof.

Same ruin, from the back.

It's easy to imagine how beautiful this city would have been when thriving.

Remind you of the leaning tower of Pisa? It was likely a house for a wealthy family.

 

 This building is famous for its Murals, although you can no longer go inside to look. You can see the underpinnings on the bottom left, intended to keep the leaning from becoming a topple.

The city of Tulum is famous for its depiction of the Descending God. You can still see the red paint, the feet up, the arms down. Our guide seemed to be a little befuddled by who this represented, and one of the informational signs I read described the Descending God as "an unknown God". Someone in our group mentioned our LDS beliefs about Christ's visit to the people of the area, something our guide had never heard.

Detail at the Temple of the Descending God.

If you look closely, you can see the round columns at this building, not unlike the ones in Chichen Itza.

This is one of the last cities built and inhibited by Mayans, and was occupied for another 70 years after the arrival of the Spaniards.



It's hard to see in this picture, but several of the buildings had a distinctive red handprint, the "signature" of the architect. 

This was once a city of around 1500 people.

 

 

There were several foundations of former homes or buildings left behind.





The most important building would have been the castle. It is a temple with two small rooms downstairs and a larger one on top. Hmmm. Where have seen a configuration like that before?

 

Another Descending God depiction.

The back of the castle, facing the ocean, has two small windows, one square, one rectangle.

Yes, this is a hurricane region.



One of the three surrounding walls.

Stan and I walked down through the jungle on our way out. It's beautiful, quiet and serene. I often had a "sacred grove" feeling, walking through these beautiful jungles.


Coconut tree.

After viewing Tulum, we ate lunch at a seaside restaurant.

The food at these places was always really good-better than the buffet at the hotel. They were made on site, using typical local menus. I think Americans over-spice cheap ingredients in the US when cooking Mexican. The food here was simple, lots of chicken, beans, rice, and vegetables with delicious homemade tortillas.

After lunch we headed for our next adventure: swimming with the turtles. That cute, young girl in the center of the picture was our snorkeling instructor and guide. She is from Sweden and met her boyfriend when vacationing here four years ago. She now lives here, and she was a delightful guide.

Unfortunately, we don't own a waterproof camera and there were no photographers to record Stan and yours truly snorkeling, but this is what it looked like. The turtles eat sea grass off of the ocean floor, a little like a grazing cow. We also saw several stingrays and a variety of colorful fish.



Dinner that night was at the Italian restaurant.

It was very tasty and

included a yummy dessert.