Day 11 – Indiana Jo’s Jungle Adventure Part 1: Chilling in Yaxchilan and Bonampak Unpacked

5:30 pickup from the hotel but let’s be honest, I hadn’t slept a wink. (I never seem to sleep or get tired. I may have been vampirized on Day 1. Totally using up my 100 sick days when I get home if that’s the case.) I was like a kid on Christmas morning looking for a big fat Santa sack of Mayan goodies. Bring me history, archaeology and the ancient world now!! Plus I am a bit of an early riser anyway. I get up at 5.45 for the gym before work 5 days a week. You may have noticed that my switch is permanently set to On. I don’t really know how to sit down and chill, so the title is a bit of an in-joke. Except you know it now too.

First stop was actually breakfast. The Kijnum Balam tour operators weren’t so cruel as to force people into the jungle for 12 hours uncaffeinated. Might as well perform ritual sacrifice on us. Might be kinder. The restaurant was more of an outdoor cafeteria with free ranging chickens and cats. I hit the buffet of huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs), tortillas, beans and my old mates, the fried platanos. I threw down two black coffees with the speed and confidence of mezcal shots (well, within reason – I like my trachea to function). Then time to like on for 2 hours to Yaxchilan.

I was literally and metaphorically in the dark as it was still very early and the guide didn’t speak English. Poquito Espanol is one of my favourite phrases. It means ‘little Spanish‘ – like I speak enough to order my dinner, make myself understood and pick out key words but there’s no way I can pick up slabs of verbosity spouting from the mouth of a guide like a verbal AK47. So when he gave us the plan for the day I had no idea what was going on. He asked me for something – I thought he was talking about the air conditioning. He wanted my nationality. He then read choices for a set menu for lunch but it was at the speed of light. He asked me and reduced the lengthy options to chicken or beef. I went chicken.

The van eventually hit the dock – Embarcadero sorry – that’s a very cool word – much better than dock. I got something about toilets and snacks. That was it. Clearly a crucial piece of information was missing about timeframes because one minute I was buying a cheap necklace of my homie King Pakal of Palenque and nek minnit, there was no group but I saw this empty dock and a boat clearly waiting for the next lot of people.

Thanks for waiting. The driver of the van turned up and said something in Spanish to me which make me feel a bit like it was my fault I got left behind. With a few gestures and communication via calculator (not EGGS or BOOBS), I understood that I should get on this empty boat and return on another one at 12.15. Ok. As I donned my life jacket, the boat containing my group turned up. They had remembered me and turned around!

Possibly feeling bad about this group betrayal, a young Mexican guy started talking to me in English! His name was Manuel. He was from Mexico City but lived in Paris with his girlfriend. He was travelling independently through the Yucatan and the only other person on the boat alone. After we disembarked, he suggested we explore. I could tell we were going to get on. So, as the guide took the main group in the direction of the Gran Plaza, we headed in the opposite direction for the Petit Plaza. And what an adventure that decision turned out to be!

Unfortunately my context of the sites is limited without any commentary and the English information panels only said boring stuff like ‘this structure had three rooms made of stucco and paste’. Did an engineering student with a major in narcolepsy write them? I want to know what the building was used for!!! Temple, observatory, training centre, admin, house. Who lived or worked here. Explain the decoration. Is anything special about it. Any mythology or cosmology? What about influence from other areas here?? I want to know about people, not rocks!

So we found the petit plaza pretty quick and easy. It was a steeper climb than some of the more senior members of our retinue might have managed without a small crane. But easy for two eager explorers!

The howler monkeys were going off. FYI – howler monkeys sound like dinosaurs. Jurassic Park sampled their cacophony for the T-Rex or velociraptor sounds. Serious. We could only hear them but it was either a West Side Story turf war or an orgy. we explored around a bit and then followed a roughly hewn jungle path for 10 minutes until we came to a crossroads. To the plaza or to something called an Edificio? Gran plaza was too vanilla. And so commenced a 15 minute trek through rough terrain like this vertical wall below.

We honestly had no idea when this Edificio would manifest, how far the path would go or whether we had enough time to get to the Edificio with enough time to explore and still return back to the Gran Plaza. I was still burned from the boat betrayal. I had no wish to sit on the dock of the bay watching the tide roll away like Otis Reading again.

But then a crumbling structure loomed into view ..

I clambered up. Manuel climbed a matching one (his and her Edificios?). We snapped photos of each other across a wide gulf spanning the two high rise buildings. Technically speaking, these were Edificio 39 and 40. I later learnt these structures were for observing the cosmos. We climbed right to the top of Edificio 40. Naughty? Possibly. Thrilling? Definitely!!!! That’s the photo at the top. So awesome!!! Honestly, trailing off into the jungle with no idea of what’s ahead was so exciting! Although, I was conscious of potentially missing out on moneyshots in the Gran Plaza. So we gunned it back down the green, rocky, overgrown slope. Trees beckoned as tempting handholds but I worried about grabbing furry tarantulas. I did grab a vine at one point though!

We eventually made it back to the main thoroughfare via the verso side of a hill. Manuel and I explored the contextless temples surrounding the plaza which featured amazingly well preserved carvings such as this.

The plaza itself was nothing special as far as Mayan ruins go. No epic temples or stelae. Yaxchilan is all about the jungle setting. I climbed something else I shouldn’t have. The tour guide then yelled, ‘Yo! (Insert Spanish here!)’ No Google translate needed. In trouble again .. Decided to bring up the rear for more pictures … Might as well dig myself a deeper hole with the group.

We hopped back on the boat for our lunch. No habla Espanol grilled chicken for me. This came with chips, coleslaw and frijoles (beans). Everything comes with beans. Bonus mystery dessert. And bonus dessert two when another couple decided to pay for free ice cream for all! I even forgave her for telling me off for moving my jumper off the floor earlier.

Now for Bonampak! My dream! It was another hour or so drive from Yaxchilan in the van. This time, I told Manuel we were going straight for the murals while the others faffed about with the guide. Bonampak is small site. See below. That’s it. Murals in the building on the right and the view are it!

I charged up the stairs as if my personal trainer was cracking the whip. INAH, Mexico’s equivalent of National Heritage, takes the murals so seriously that all visitors must sign in prior to viewing.

They didn’t disappoint. It was a visual and photographic feast. I stood hogging each doorway for ages, going back and forth between them. Manuel and I had them all to ourselves and he moved on after 5 minutes. I must have gawped for a good 20 minutes at least.

Three rooms of murals. The first with bright blues, the second more damaged and the third with more orange hues. All featuring processions, war, human sacrifice, religion. Men and women in ceremonial clothing, magnificent headdresses, jaguar pelts, fantastic adornments. The classic sloping Maya forehead is clearly visible, evidence of the practice of head binding.

Truly, it was the most awesome thing I have seen this trip. These murals have been preserved like this – no filters – since 790AD. So unique. No other Mayan site has this impact of colour but also such a rich depiction of real people doing such powerful stuff. (Can you tell I am writing this in a moving airport line!?!) Again, it’s the combination of beauty with intensity. I can’t look away.

With eyeballs and soul full, we headed back to our jungle cabanas for the night. Me, Manuel and a Spanish couple ate a dinner of cheese tortillas and salad and hung out in this river. Swimming was the theory but it was too cold for me. I kinda wore my bikini and sat on a bench in the river drinking beer from the shop until I froze.

Then bedtime in the jungle cabanas where I slept fantastically well!!!

Stay tuned for my next post on the Locandan jungle trek. However, in real time, I am headed to Cuba where internet access is meant to be el crappo so it may be 10 days or more between blog posts. So hasta luego!