Chichen Itza, Coba and Tulum

Saturday 2nd February 2008, Piste near Chichen Itza, Mexico

Human sacrifice to Chaac Mool at Chichen Itza

We were the first to arrive at the Archaeological site of Chichen Itza this morning and happily the day was slightly overcast. Coral, our own archaeologist, was not permitted to guide us around the site and we were obliged to hire an official one with a rather limited English vocabulary and an even more muddled idea of Mayan archaeology. This was rather frustrating for us as we were intent on retracing the steps of Catherwood in the 1840s to find how the buildings had been restored from the tumbled ruins he had found.

Near the entrance to the site we were confronted by the emblematic shape of the Castillo, a massive pyramid topped by the temple of Kukulcan. The structure reflects the Maya calendar with four flights of 91 steps plus one on the top platform making a total of 365. Other numbers represented are the eighteen months of the Maya year and the 52 years of the Meso-American century. On the equinoxes the shadow of the sun undulates down the steps forming a serpentine line which ends with the carved snake heads at the foot of the stairs. It is a spectacle that draws crowds much in the same way as the solstice at Stonehenge. The public are no longer permitted to climb it since American visitors made a habit of falling to their deaths from the structure.

Temple of Kukulcan, Chichen Itza

Snake head staircase, Chichen Itza

Nearby was the Platform of Eagles and Jaguars, reflecting the two orders of knighthood introduced by the Toltecs. It is thought that they took over Chichen Itza after migrating from Tula in the Valley of Mexico in the tenth century. Certainly many of the features of the two sites are very similar, but Chichen is much bigger than Tula and the influence could well have been in the other direction. The debate continues. The platform is decorated by images of eagles eating human hearts. The destination of the heads of the hapless victims was clear from the adjacent tzompantli or skull rack, another import from the Valley of Mexico with its decoration of row upon row of impaled skulls.

Platform of the Eagles and Jaguars, Chichen Itza

Tzompantli or skull rack, Chichen Itza

Warrior on Platform of Eagles and Jaguars, Chichen Itza

A relief to arrive at the Temple of the Jaguars with its rather endearing jaguar throne. This backed on to the main ball court of Chichen, a massive arena with stone hoops placed centrally along the two facing vertical walls and the sloping lower levels decorated with gruesome pictures of the fate of the players, whether winners or losers is unclear. They are shown decapitated with blood spurting from their necks. Obviously a grudge match!

Jaguar throne, Chichen Itza

Ball Court, Chichen Itza

Stone hoop, Ball Court, Chichen Itza

Others did manage to die a natural death and were buried in low pyramids in the Osorio and surrounding structures. This was in an area where there were also residential structures, including the colonnaded Casa de las Mateles or house of the grindstones, evidently an area where corn was prepared. This is in the older classical part of the city where the dominant structure is the Caracol or snail, so-called from the winding stairway inside the circular tower which was evidently used as an observatory as the windows align to important celestial phenomena.

Caracol, Chichen Itza

On the southern edge of the small portion of the whole site that is open to visitors is the building named as Monjas. Like in Uxmal this was named by the Spaniards and it is more likely to have been an administrative building than a nunnery. It is elaborately carved with masks of the rain god Chac in the Chenes style. Nearby is a smaller building in the Puuc syle with the lowest level unadorned, dubbed the Iglesia, or church. Both of these facades were drawn in great detail by Catherwood.

Monjas and Iglesia, Chichen Itza

Iglesia, Chichen Itza

Las Monjas with Puuc-style decoration, Chichen Itza

We then crossed the whole site from south to north, proceeding along an old Mayan sacbe or causeway, lined with people hawking knickknacks, to the formidable cenote or well, a massive natural depression in the limestone where maidens were reputedly cast as sacrifices to the rain god. American archaeologists dredged the well and discovered the bones of men as well as women and many offerings of jade and gold objects, some of which we had seen in the museum in Merida although much has been spirited away to the United States.

Sacrificial well or cenote, Chichen Itza

Our last port of call was in the Toltec part of the city, the Temple of the Warriors, a stepped pyramid fronted by rows of columns carved with warriors in bas-relief. This is very similar in layout to a temple complex in Tula, and the rows of columns continue ad infinitum in the neighbouring Square of the Thousand Columns which is thought to have served as a market area.

Temple of the Warriors, Chichen Itza

Square of the Thousand Columns, Chichen Itza

By midday the site had become very crowded with coach loads of visitors coming out from the coastal resort of Cancun. Under what shade existed Mayan family groups had set up stalls selling souvenirs that ranged from quite nice brightly coloured striped Mexican rugs, belts and bags to the downright dreadful plastic pyramids, jaguars and Mayan heads. It was also very hot and sticky and nobody wanted to spend longer at the site. Coral suggested a nearby Cenote where we could swim and have lunch. It sounded an excellent idea but we were all rather disappointed to discover it was so deep the water was in complete shade and the atmosphere was rather foreboding. Nobody wanted to swim in an eerie, bottomless pit so we gave it a miss, going together for a buffet lunch instead. We are now hardened to the ways of Mexican waiters so hung on desperately to the sides of our plates to prevent them from being whisked away between mouthfuls!

Once our meal was finished there was nothing much to do during the heat of the afternoon, so we returned to our hotel, walked up and down the village street of Piste where we discovered the public library in a wooden shack with broken glass in the windows, no books at all and a bank of six computers! Nearby we found the cemetery, decked out with brightly coloured tombs and artificial flowers. The most interesting feature in the village was the Catholic church constructed from stones taken from the archaeological site of Chichen. A couple of jaguar heads incongruously adorned the church doorway and bits of decorative carving were randomly scattered amongst the walls.

Village cemetery, Piste, Chichen Itza

Catholic church, Piste, Chichen Itza

Sunday 3rd February 2008, Tulum, Mexico
We are now on the edge of the Caribbean about 80 kilometres south of the tourist Mecca of Cancun. It is strange to think that it is almost exactly a year since we last saw the Caribbean, in very different circumstances, from the coast of Trinidad. In both cases we had never really expected to find ourselves there but the opportunity presented itself. After the heat of inland Yucatan it is a very refreshing change to again experience the sound of the ocean and the cooling breeze that is carried on the trade winds. The sea is a brilliant turquoise capped with white waves. There is silver sand and there are palm trees. Why though you may wish to fry on the beach with nothing to do all day is a puzzle but there are obviously lots of young and beautiful people that are content to spend their holidays simply soaking up the sun on a beach bed while being served chilled drinks by the hotel barman. There are also quite a few red and corpulent ones!

Our tour is drawing to a close. We have visited our final Maya site and the travel company "Explore" thought it would be a nice idea to end the tour at an hotel fronting on to the ocean for a couple of nights until our flight home on Tuesday. Unfortunately we have been left here without any form of transport. Nor is there a shop or anywhere within miles where we can buy food or drink other than the hotel restaurant charging phenomenal prices. The rooms certainly look lovely but they are not very practical being badly lit and uncomfortably arranged. We have a hammock on a palm fronded balcony overlooking the sea. There is no street lighting on the road behind the hotel so we can't leave the site after dark and the telephone line is down so we cannot phone for a taxi. The price per night is excessive to our way of thinking but we have no choice as it is included with the package. We are not alone in feeling frustrated and we would have preferred to go home a day earlier.

Our first stop this morning was at Coba, a site lying between two alligator infested lagoons in an area of dense woodland which gave welcome shade and made the site enjoyable. The site was so extensive that cycles were for hire and rickshaws were available.

You never know how the kids keep themselves amused when they go out to play! Coba

After being guided round the group of structures near the entrance by a chap with gold inlaid teeth who rejoiced in the name of Isabel, we set off on foot under the trees to the pyramid of Nohoch Mul, the second highest in Yucatan. On the way we passed a series of structures attractively set in the woodland, including the Conjunto de las Pinturas, the starting point of a raised causeway, and a ball court. There are several eroded stelae, showing that the site was occupied in the classic period. In some ways the style harkens back to Tikal and other sites further south, in fact in one part of the ruins we did not have time to visit there are carvings that have been identified as Queens of Tikal standing on local captives. The Nohoch Mul is most impressive and, as it was Ian's last chance to climb a Maya pyramid he braved the heat and the 120 steep uneven steps. The view at the top was extensive, with the lagoon in the distance, but not as rewarding as Mayapan, where there is a good view of the other buildings on the site. In the covered temple on top of the pyramid a bat hung stoically, braving the continuous intrusions of tourists. Coba is most remarkable as being the hub of no fewer than forty sacbes or causeways, the longest running in an almost straight line for 100 Km westward to Yaxuna to the south of Chichen Itza. How they managed to engineer wide straight roads, paved with gleaming white stucco through trackless scrubby woodland with no hills to provide vantage points is a mystery. Modern Coba did not have a metalled road leading to it until the 1970s. In classic times Coba supported a population estimated at 50,000 and survived long into the post-classic period, with new constructions continuing into the 14th century.

Temple in Conjunto de las Pinturas, Coba

Reconstruction of stela,Coba

Buildings in the main group, Coba

Nohoch Mul, Coba

View from the top of Nohoch Mul, Coba

Corner in Chumuc Mul showing how a new building is constructed over an earlier one every 52 years, Coba

Map showing routes of the sacbes, Coba

Jill and Coral, Coba

We continued to our hotel in Tulum where we bid farewell to Coral, our Mayan archaeologist. A few minutes on the beach were enough to convince us we were going to get bored here pretty quickly. So we stood on the roadside and eventually found a passing taxi to take us to the clifftop archaeological Mayan site of Tulum where the breeze from the ocean made the heat bearable. It is a very picturesque site, quite unlike anything we have seen elsewhere and in appearance resembles the archaeological sites to be found around the coasts of the Mediterranean.

Defensive walls, Tulum

Temple of the Winds, Tulum

Tulum is a post-classic town, probably founded around 1200, perhaps as a port for the town of Coba, to which it was connected by a causeway. It was clearly of strategic significance and was surrounded by defensive walls with watchtowers at the corners. The buildings are not spectacular but the seaside location and spacious layout makes it an agreeable place to visit, and it was crowded by day-trippers from the Maya Riviera. The dominant building is the Castillo, perched on cliffs above the sea and the buildings bear marks of Toltec influence. There is a temple to the Descending God, probably personifying the setting sun, and it is appropriate that this, the last of our Maya sites dates from the twilight of Maya civilisation. It was viewed from the sea by the Spanish explorer Grijalva in 1518 and a member of the expedition described its brightly painted buildings and the fire burning on top of one of the buildings. The site continued to be occupied by the Maya until the end of the 16th century.

Castillo, Tulum

North watchtower, Tulum

House of the Cenote, Tulum

Temple of the Descending God, Tulum

The site closed at 5pm and we took another taxi back to our hotel. Darkness has now fallen and, trapped here as we are, all we have to look forward to this evening is half a packet of crumbly biscuits and a bottle of tepid water!

Monday 4th February 2008, Tulum, Mexico
We go home tomorrow. Only a few more hours to survive this "luxury" hotel, Hurrah! It's a pity the end of our trip is proving an anticlimax as the main part of the tour took us to the places Ian had so long wished to visit. The planning had been good and our fellow travelling companions most congenial. It has been so easy for us not having to get ourselves from site to site and until recently it had been wonderful. Since Campeche however the planning has been less good. Overall we have wasted too much time in uninteresting, modern hotels with nothing to do and allowed insufficient time to explore the more interesting locations of Antigua, Campeche and Merida, all of which have museums that would have contributed significantly to placing the Maya people in context as well as allowing time to learn something of the more recent, turbulent histories of Guatemala and the Yucatan.

However, we are making the best of our rather trying situation on the Caribbean. Determined not to be forced to eat in the hotel restaurant last night, torch in hand we walked along the deserted road until we found a place renting out beach cabins with hammocks. They had a bar with tables outside. Compared with our hotel it was scruffy but fine for us. The beer and food was less than half the price of our hotel and the waiter – a Mexican lad in beach wear rather than a uniform – delightfully friendly.

We finished the evening, after a couple of beers, lying on the beach in the dark looking up at the starry sky trying to recognise constellations which here are oriented differently. We are not hot on astronomy and eventually gave up, returned to our room and watched a dvd on our computer.

Overnight we left the windows open and slept to the sound of the sea. At 6am we went down to the empty beach and watched as the sun rose over the horizon and the Frigate birds and Pelicans set off to sea in search of breakfast. Then we went back to bed.

Sunrise over the Caribbean, Tulum

As late as possible we went to the hotel restaurant in search of our own breakfast. Normally we only need coffee but we discovered we'd already been charged for a full breakfast so determined to get our money's worth.

Down on the road we eventually flagged down a taxi which drove us into the town of Tulum, miles from the beach, the hotels or the ruins. However, it had a main street of shacks selling tourist junk and several bars and restaurants so we passed a couple of hot, sticky hours being pestered by vendors of sombreros, ponchos, rugs, jewellery and ceramics. In a side street we found an open church but were prevented from entering by a self appointed guardian who presumably wanted money from us. It is so horrid to be in a tourist area where everyone tries to exploit you.

Street signs are generally hand painted. We rather liked this one, Tulum

Shop on the main street, Tulum

At a bar we stopped for cold drinks. The water was turned off and the toilet didn't function. The town is really very run down, scruffy and only exists because of the development of the Yucatan coastal strip as the Mayan Riviera. We raided the only shop we could find selling foodstuffs leaving with a six pack of beer and several packets of biscuits before stopping another taxi to take us back to our "idyllic part of paradise."

So little to do Ian even took a photo of Jill! Tulum

Our room had been visited and on the bed was a basket constructed from a clean bath towel, topped with a spray of bougainvillea. In the bathroom the end of the toilet paper had been folded into a neat rosette! So this is what we are paying for is it? We are becoming such cynics!

Hint for a tip from the chambermaid, Tulum

On our hotel balcony overlooking the sea, (okay, so what else is there to do?) Tulum

After beers on the balcony we were ready to face the beach at last. Ian donned his swimwear!!!!! It has to be said that the sand was soft and the sea wonderfully warm though very rough. The perpetual breeze made a stroll through the surf quite pleasurable and Ian cheered up considerably when he realised several of the bronzed beauties were intent on getting a complete all over tan! We ended the afternoon constructing a Mayan sand pyramid and drawing a Mayan warrior and the rain god Chac in the wet sand.

The Great White God arrives from the sea! Tulum

View along the beach, Tulum

Head of a Mayan warrior, Tulum

This evening the whole group joined together for a final meal with our delightful tour leader Louise, who has done everything within her power to ensure things have gone smoothly for everybody. We chose another hotel further along the beach but in common with most around this area, it was high on price and poor on value. It did a great line in large white plates that provided an elegant frame for the small work of art in the centre. Several meals were either wrong, badly cooked or forgotten. As usual staff were incapable of working out the bill and as we felt the meal was overpriced we omitted to point out our bill was out by several dollars in our favour!

One of our group visited the ruins on the coast at Tulum this afternoon and managed to accidentally disturb a boa constrictor. It's the first snake any of us have seen around the sites, which is surprising given that there are several hundred species to be found in Central America.

Monday 11th February 2008, Exeter
We have been home several days now and have fully recovered from our exhausting journey that seemed to take us nearly two days! We left our beach hotel around lunch time on the Tuesday morning in a specially hired coach. After two hours of monotonous travelling along a straight dual carriageway cut through the wooded scrubland that seems to cover the entire Yucatan peninsula we reached the airport south of Cancun and bid farewell to our guide Louise. She was due to climb onto the roundabout all over again in a couple of days. It's not that glamorous a job trudging around the same old sites, coping with travellers' problems of lost luggage, mislaid possessions and moans about not wanting to stay in luxury hotels on the beaches of the Caribbean! Sometimes she must look after us all with envy as we leave the heat and brashness of Cancun behind and head back to the chill, damp air of England that stings our nostrils as we step off the plane.

Our first plane took us to Mexico City. It was fortunate that we had over two hours there to find our flight. It took all of that! It's the largest and most unhelpful airport we've ever used and we are sure there is a huge population of travellers who have spent years wandering the corridors searching unsuccessfully for their connecting flight. If Kafka were to be writing novels today, he would surely set one in an airport! It would make his traveller's attempts to reach the castle on the hill look like child's play!

We flew through time to Madrid starting six hours behind Greenwich time and arriving one hour ahead. Then back though time again to Heathrow and the long coach journey to Exeter. It was early Thursday morning when we finally reached home.