Month: October 2007

Our daughter on top of Structure VI at Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico

If you’ve never heard of the ancient Mayan city of Calakmul, don’t worry. Neither have most Mexicans. That includes people in the tourist industry and work just a few hours away. It also includes the people who set up the otherwise excellent Mayan museum at Chetumal, the state capital of Quintana Roo and at 3.5 hours away, the nearest large town to Calakmul.

But back in the day, Calakmul was the local city-state; ‘the day’ being roughly in the middle of the seventh century. Calakmul was the Snake Kingdom, vying for power with the huge city-state of Tikal (now in Guatemala).

The ruins of Calakmul are not what you’d call particularly accessible – even now when there’s a paved road which takes you all through the 50km of surrounding bioreserve . Until quite recently though it really was lost in the jungle. Archaeologists are only starting to uncover the history of the region. A major breakthrough came with the decipherment by Mayanist David Stuart of an inscription on a staircase at Dos Pilas. (See Maya Hieroglyphs Recount “Giant War” in National Geographic).

(There’s a recent issue of National Geographic with several great articles about recent findings in Mayan archaeology.)

Visiting the ruins at Calakmul, as well as those at nearby Chicanna and Becan, gave me the biggest ‘discovery’ buzz I’ve ever had at an archaeological site. Unlike other sites such as Chichen Itza, Palenque, Uxmal, El Tajin, Teotihuacan and Tula, the ruins at these three Campeche sites have been left relatively uncleared. The trees have been left growing between the main excavated structures, and in many cases, left growing out of the actual temples, as in the photo above.

There are howler monkeys and spider monkeys in the woods. They swing through the trees watching you progress along the trail.

That, plus the fact that in all these places we were practically the only people visiting the sites, gave us the feeling of what it must have been to discover these places…kind of like John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, the latter was the artist who produced such evocative pictures as the one shown below.

The downside is the mosquitoes, and the heat. The ruins of Calakmul and Chicanna are accessed by walking down a jungle trail, during which a cloud of vicious mosquitoes surround you and munch on every scrap of exposed flesh. Insect repellent may cut your bites down to twenty or so. Stop moving and they’ll settle for a good, steady drink of your blood.

But heck. It’s worth it.

becan ix
Originally uploaded by mgharris

We visited Becan yesterday, a ruined Mayan city in the state of Campeche. Readers of The Joshua Files will know the significance of this place – no spoilers please!!!

After the carnival of Tulum, Becan was a wonderful experience. Can you believe that we were the only people visiting this amazing monument? Yes, for the two hours we were there we had the whole place to ourselves. No other tourists, no tour guides, no vendors hassling us. Just the sounds of the surrounding jungle. And the racket we made – two children can’t be silent after all.

You catch a glimpse the summit of the tallest pyramid, Structure IX, over the tops of surroundings trees as you approach from the main road, Highway 186.

Closer though everything is shrouded in dense jungle, so you walk through trees and then notice stones and steps from the base of the temples, cool grey in the midst of green; leaves, creepers and a mossy ground. At Becan the temples really do appear to rise up out of the jungle.

Becan has four really huge structures which are quite well restored; Structures II, VIII, IX and X. There are a large number of other buildings too, but many are still swallowed by the jungle. I wonder why the place isn’t more well-known. I suspect it’s only recently been restored to this level. I saw photos of Structure IX years ago and the staircase was a pile of rubble. Now though, as you can see, this side of the temple is quite well restored, with the staircase good and sharp all the way to the top.

We didn’t climb this one – there was a helpful rope but also a note saying ‘please don’t climb the pyramid’.

We did however climb Structure VIII, from where we took this photo. And my cousin Oscar and daughter couldn’t resist crawling into a tunnel on Structure X, where they found a chamber with bats…

My valiant husband tried again to take some non-hideous photos of me for the publishers. About 90% were gruesome, but we do have some usable candidates now, especially if Photoshop can help out. The sun was beating down on us most of the time, and I was the only one allowed to use the brow-mopping cloth, so this ‘photo shoot’ was none too comfortable.

Lake Bacalar

Finally a chance to swim in the biggest and bluest freshwater lake I’ve ever seen. In southern Quintana Roo state, this lake was known by the Maya, apparently, as the Lake of Seven Hues. The aqua coloured parts are where the base is shallow and sandy.

We ate fish fajitas, ceviche and Mexican beer in a lovely little garden restaurant on the edge of the vast lake, which stretches for miles. Hardly anyone around and nortenos playing on the loud stereo. It felt really nice and properly Mexican. I thought of my uncles in Mexico City and felt a bit guilty that we weren’t sharing this with any of them.

Still – cousin Oscar Raul arrives tomorrow! And then it’s off down Highway 186 to Becan.

There have been a lot of blue Nissan Tsurus around, ooer. Readers of Joshua Files will know what I mean…

No Internet access here, but my BlackBerry is working so I’ve been sitting on the beach outside our room (about 30 meters from the sea) exchanging emails with my agent and the desk editor at Scholastic re some final touches for the book.

Tulum has changed a lot since I was here with my husband and fellow biochemistry student, Becs, almost 20 years ago. Back then we hired a taxi for $80 US dollars and the taxi guy drove us down from Cancun, hung around the makeshift car park while we traipsed around the ruins, carefree as you like. On the tiny but gorgeous beach by the ruins we met some people from Didsbury, Manchester of all places (where I grew up). The sea was rough that day. The whole area was experiencing the beginning of what would become a tropical storm. We drove back along the coastal road with the windows down – no aircon and stopped en route for a swim at the blue, blue lagoon of Xel-Ha. (pronounced shell-ha)

Around 3 weeks later the storm became Hurricane Gilbert and devastated Tulum.

These days Tulum is a BIG tourist trap, Xel-Ha too. Big car park, coach loads arriving all day long, massive arts and crafts shops and restaurants. Official tourist guides take you round and give you a terrific spiel, all the latest findings. No more free wandering around the ruins, no more clambering over the pyramids.

Ernie, our Mayan guide explained how all 52 structures in Tulum played their part in a ceremonial centre which also functioned as an astronomical and weather calculator. He showed us the place where at around 5am on 13 November the light from the rising sun passes though a small window in one temple and lights up the door in the surrounding wall – to the west. This would be the signal to harvest the last of the crops before winter. Another portal would trap light to signal the time to sow. And by an amazing feat of engineering,the Temple of the Wind God uses a pole and a temple window to raise the alarm of an approaching hurricane, whistling like a flute when the wind speeds start to get dangerous.

Tulum is a city with natural protection from invaders – mangrove swamps to the west, the Caribbean to the east and offshore, a long reef which prevented Spanish from landing anywhere close. So why did they need to build a 6ft high wall all the way around the ceremonial centre? It’s the only example of such a wall in a Mayan city.

Ernie gave us the latest explanation – and it’s ingenious. “Tulum’s biggest danger was always the hurricane” he said. “Where do you put 2000 people in a place like this, to protect them from the hurricane?” The buildings held at most 600 people – and they were in danger of having their palm rooftops ripped away. The answer was this: the wall. It was long enough for all 2000 people to line up behind the wall as a shelter.

Ernie is a bona fide Mayan – comes from a tiny place deep in the interior of the Yucatan peninsula. “If you want to see the real Mayan people,” he chuckled, “get a guide to take you in a 4×4, and tell him you want to go where the tourists don’t go. He’ll take you where you won’t hear a word of Spanish – only Maya.”

Well maybe next time. Our kids are way too whingey for that right now. The heat and crowds of Tulum got to them. Chances are that Becan and Calakmul – in the Campeche jungle to the south – is going to be too much.

All the way down from Playa del Carmen, the highway cuts through the jungle. I peered into the trees. Poor Josh Garcia – in “Invisible City” he spends hours lost in there. Me – I wouldn’t dare to step 20 meters into that place.

Tomorrow, Chetumal, the state capital of Quintana Roo and the place where Josh’s Mayan adventure begins…