Campeche to Uxmal

Tuesday 29th January 2008, Campeche, Mexico
We had few regrets as we left Palenque this morning. The Mayan site had been stunning but there had been little else of merit or great interest.

As we travelled northwest towards the Gulf of Mexico, across a landscape of huge fields, coconut plantations and cattle, the jungle vegetation gradually being replaced by orchards of citrus fruit and more broad-leafed trees. Beside the road were dilapidated villages of decaying concrete huts with corrugated iron or thatched roofs. There was less litter than we have seen around settlements in Guatemala and Mexico appears to be a richer country. Such terms are relative however. Compared to our own standards the country is poor and the lives of the inhabitants, very basic. In Guatemala we encountered thousands of tuctucs. In the coastal villages of Mexico we saw rickshaws attached to motorbikes! Ideal for transporting goods but passengers get covered in fumes. Also as we moved north, the climate changed. It became dryer and unbearably hot.

On the outskirts of Palenque we passed an army vehicle surrounded by gun-wielding military with a machine gun mounted on the roof. Some time later we were stopped by a roadblock. Young men with dull, expressionless faces wearing army combat gear and carrying huge black guns called us to a holding area and climbed on board, eyeing us all in an intimidating manner, going through the overhead lockers and even checking out the onboard toilet. They must have been feeling bored because they then made us all get off the bus where they went through everyone's hand luggage individually. Finally they climbed into the luggage hold beneath the coach to check our suitcases! What they expected to find on a coach loaded with British tourists, none of whom would even recognise cocane if they saw it, we cannot imagine. We were told they were looking for drugs and guns. There is rather a lot to be said for living in Britain!

By lunchtime we reached the Gulf of Mexico. It stretched green and empty to the horizon. A thin strip of white sand ran along the shoreline with coconut palms scattered along the seaward side of the road. On the landward side there was nothing but forest. We followed the coast endlessly. The emptiness of the scenery soon became monotonous with just the occasional huge, elaborate villa on the seashore to add interest. Just out to sea were pelicans. They were very agile in the air, diving directly into the sea to catch their lunch. There were also huge frigate birds, graceful in flight, and on the lagoon were bright pink flamingos.

Fishermen on the Gulf of Mexico

North of Champoton we stopped at a beachside café for lunch. It was very basic but also very nice and extremely cheap. We opted for beer with empanadas de cazon (sort of sharkmeat pasties) served with salad, fresh limes and hot chilli sauce. While we waited Jill climbed over the wall to the beach just so she could brag about paddling in the Gulf of Mexico! It was warm and clear with no waves and appeared to have very little tide. Once past the detritus of floating plastic water bottles it was quite nice with strange little red-eyed fish swimming around my feet.

Beachside café on the Gulf of Mexico, Champoton

Our next stop was at the little visited Mayan site of Edzna where we watched as a huge Iguana flopped its ungainly way up the deserted staircase of one of the pyramids. Edzna is a site on a monumental scale. On one side of the Plaza Principal is the Nohochna or Big House an extremely elongated structure facing a series of steps which lead up to a further enclosure on the far side of which is the Edificio de los Cinco Pisos, a mixture of a palace and a temple with colonnaded facades on five levels. A struggle up the steep staircase in the blazing sun was rewarded by a magnificent panorama of the whole site and out across the flat forested expanse of the Yucatan peninsula. To the south, beyond the ball court is the Templo de Mascarones where archaeologists had stripped off the outer layer to reveal two masks of the sungod, complete with original colouring. Finally we viewed the puzzling Templo de la Escalinata con Relievos, a temple with what appears to be a late and clumsy attempt at a hieroglyphic staircase.

Structure with columns, Edzna

Arch in Area of Ambassadors, Edzna

Palace of the Five Storeys, Edzna

View over the site from the top of the pyramid, Edzna

Templo de la Escalinata con Relievos, Edzna

It was far too hot really to cope with all the climbing. At least the other sites had been in jungle settings with lots of trees. Here everything was out in the blazing sunlight and by the time we returned to the coach several of us were showing a marked lack of enthusiasm for Mayan archaeology!

We were eager now to reach Campeche the capital of the state of the same name. Founded in 1540 on the site of the Maya city of Can Pech it rapidly became one of the major ports of the region, which attracted the attention of pirates such as Drake, Hawking, Henry Morgan and others from several nations. After a particularly violent attack in 1663 the Spanish authorities decided to construct a defensive wall, which was completed in 1686. Many of the bastions remain and within the former circuit of the walls there is a grid pattern of stone paved streets lined with elegant colonial houses which have elevated the city to the status of World Heritage Site. One of the blocks forms the Parque Principal where people sat chatting under shady trees and children scampered. It was lined by arcaded buildings, a handsome library, the Centro Cultural with period rooms spread around a courtyard and the Cathedral, built between 1650 and 1850, its interior filled with rather naïve painted statues of saints. We found ourselves in front of the State Archives and attracted by a free exhibition went inside. A series of erratic videos in a colourful English version led us through the contents of each room which traced the turbulent origins of the state of Campeche, which became independent of Yucatan in 1857, with sections on the growth of education. The helpful attendant struggled manfully with the equipment, explained the documents in Spanish, and refused to accept the gratuity we offered.

Courtyard of our hotel, Campeche

Cathedral, Campeche

Library, Campeche

Interior of Spanish colonial house, Campeche

Wednesday 30th January 2008, Uxmal, near Merida, Mexico
This morning we were out early to make the most of a couple of hours around the town of Campeche before we left and before it became too hot to walk. We discovered the impressive Spanish church of San José, built by the Jesuits in 1756. It looked a more attractive building than the cathedral, its front covered in blue and white tiles and the top of one tower was used as a lighthouse. This was the tallest feature of the town and reminded us of the towers on the merchants' houses in Cadiz. They had been used as look-out towers so that merchants could see their ships on the horizon and know they were returning safely from the New World. It may well have been from the port of Campeche that they had set sail. A similar tower here would be quite likely.

San José, Campeche

Sea front with national flag, Campeche

Fortified sea wall, Campeche

After a stroll along the seafront where the national flag of Mexico fluttered in the breeze we returned for breakfast and a quick departure towards Sayil, Labna and Kabah. Three sites in one day is something of a record, even for this tour, but they are small and close together in the Puuc Hills near the city of Uxmal to whom they were probably subject, being joined to that town and each other by a network of wide causeways. As the Yucatan is a dry region, a situation made worse by its limestone geology, the Maya gathered water in cisterns. Even these were insufficient and the cities were probably abandoned because of drought.

Sayil is famous for its three-storey palace decorated with a frieze of masks of the rain god Chac. It was worth keeping on his good side in a region where water is so scarce. It also makes use of columns, both free-standing and as a bas-relief motif, something we had not seen in the highland sites.

Palace facade, Sayil

Typical Mayan roof construction, Sayil

Part of a decorative frieze depicting the rain god Chac, Sayil

Detail from a frieze depicting Chac, Sayil

Labna is most famous for its arch which links two ranges of buildings. We were particularly pleased to see this as we had been reading Stephen's account of its discovery and had even brought along Catherwood's engravings to compare. (See Catherwood in Yucatan for additional images.) The palace is one of the longest structures in the Yucatan, about 120 metres in length, and like the palace in Sayil is decorated with masks and columns.

Detail from the palace, Labna

Section of a sacbe (white road) constructed by the Maya, Labna

Arch as drawn by Frederick Catherwood in 1848, Labna

Remains of the arch at Labna

Mayan pot chard found (and left) at Labna.

Unofficial site guide, Labna.

Present day thatch and adobe house, Labna.

In Kabah the most extraordinary structure is the Codz Pop, the Palace of the Masks, which is decorated with no less than 260 masks of the rain god with his curled nose projecting in an endless prayer for rain. It also has its arch, this one freestanding as a ceremonial entrance at the end of the causeway from Uxmal. At five metres wide it must be one of the widest spaces spanned by the Mayan corbelled arch. At its foot we disturbed an iguana, who unlike the others we had seen scrambling across the ruins or lazing in the sun on the tops of walls, did not disappear but allowed us to approach him.

Palace of the masks, Kabah

Detail showing masks of Chac, Kabah

Stela depicting warrior capturing a prisoner, Kabah

Ceremonial arch, Kabah

Iguana, Kabah

By mid afternoon we had struggled manfully around all three sites, where even the huge iguanas seemed to seek the shade. We were more than happy to board our air conditioned bus for the short drive to Uxmal and our cool hotel complete with a swimming pool! As Jill cooled off in the pool, Ian sat in the shade with a cold beer.

As darkness fell we returned to our coach for the short drive to the archaeological site of Uxmal for a son et lumière presentation. This turned out to be rather a disappointment with coloured artificial lighting playing over the surface of the buildings while inappropriate music blared out and through earphones we listened to translations of a fanciful recreation of imagined events in the lives of the Maya residents of Uxmal during the 8th to 10th century AD. It was all a far cry from the vivid images we had conjured from the writings and sketches of Stephens and Catherwood when they first investigated Uxmal in 1848.

Later, back at the hotel, we joined with other guests for a very enjoyable buffet supper. One of our travelling companions was celebrating her birthday which made it a particularly pleasant and friendly occasion. A huge cake with candles rounded off the evening.