Day 26 – Raising the Cobá

My double room (extra comfort for all my bags on that second bed) in the Royal Islander Resort in Cancun was super comfy. I even managed to sleep in until a whopping 7am. I did not miss those urban chicken 4am wake up calls in Cuba!!!

I had selected the Royal Islander Resort not for its spring break or beer pong party potential, but for the absolute opposite reason – cultural heritage! (This is what you get when you take a nerd to the beach – I am all at sea!) The tour provider, Thomas More, ran daytrips from a dedicated desk at the resort – one was to Cobá, a Mayan ruin featuring the tallest pyramid on the Yucatan. Attendance was virtually mandatory for a Mayan super nerd like me.

The bus wasn’t leaving until 12.30, so a few jobs were in order first. I stuffed a sack of stinkables and headed for the laundry. The Royal Resort was on the Caribbean so I should have expected piracy. Rather than a washing machine and a few quarters, I had to dump the sack on two laundry ladies for a fee to be deducted from my hotel bill at the end of my stay. Come back in an hour. Thanks. Oh well. Time saved I guess.

So breakfast was next. After a week of Cuban spam, guava and thermos coffee of questionable quality, I was expecting big things from a resort buffet. I entered the restaurant which was jam packed with chunky American Boomers chowing down on chunkier waffles. I spied the Iron Chef Egg service point, and ordered an omelette with bacon, cheese, mushrooms and capsicums. I took particularly great pleasure ordering it all in Spanish to show up the Americans who made zero attempt at leaving their own cultural-linguistic snow globe for even a minute. Omelette delicious! Coffee excellent and refilled frequently! Other stuff on the buffet? Fail! I wandered the rows, lifting and slamming shut silver lids of culinary horror scenes. Where were the tortillas??? There were always tortillas!!! Mini burritos? More like mini burrit-no’s!! Chimichangas? More like chimi-chuckers! Like the toilets that flushed properly, this was the fake Mexico for Americans.

I looked at the Americans with their waffles again. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be them. 25 days in Central America and I had come too far. I couldn’t eat their Western or bastardised Mexican food. I went with the least offensive options with scrambled eggs, and tamales. I chatted with the staff in my broken Spanish as much as possible. I could tell that they really appreciated the effort. I really stuck out – single, youngish looking girl eating not waffles and speaking Spanish to them. No wonder my coffee was always full!

My next challenge was to complete a form to get my stolen Cuban ATM funds back!!! I needed a printer and scanner. Funnily enough, I wasn’t packing either of those. The desk staff at the Royal Islander were extremely helpful, using their own email accounts to scan and send the signed document to my account. I submitted the form. Job done!!!

I returned to the laundry where the ladies raised their eyebrows at me as it was later than an hour, handing me a bundle of wet laundry. WTF???? They told me there would be another charge for drying it and did I want this. No. I think I want my entire travelling wardrobe wet, thanks. Funnily enough, I had assumed an expensive laundry service might dry my clothes. How naive. I hurriedly hurled the lot in a dryer and realised that I would have a grand total of five minutes to grab it, ditch it back in the room and make the bus.

I returned to my room to get my kit together for the day. (Shorty – get our stuff!!!) Miraculously, I made the laundry run and the bus on time. Turned out they would have waited anyway because it was just me! Undies are important!!

First stop Playa del Carmen to pick up the other passengers so I settled in for an hour or so of blog writing. Six Americans eventually boarded from various hotels. (Was I seriously the only non-Yank in town??) Two Boomer couples and a younger couple about my age, Corey and Elizabeth. The road trip to Coba took another hour and a half. After more than three weeks on the road, that was basically nothing. I enjoyed the scenery and chewed through vast amounts of 3G blogging until we picked the guide up at a truck stop. She was fairly young but nice, and armed with the mandatory folders to prep the Americans about Mayan culture well before the bus pulled into the car park (or parking lot for my bus mates). I was the only one who had seen a Mayan ruin before or had any knowledge of the culture. I was a bit dumbfounded as to how they could share a continent with the Mayan people and yet be entirely clueless about them at ages of over sixty and yet I could live half a world away and know more from comics, cartoons and kids books before I was 10.

The guide passed around a legal waiver for anybody intending to climb the big pyramid. Whoa! If there was a potential lawsuit involved for falling on my arse, it had to be good!!!

Not that I knew much about Coba other than its giant pyramid, so I was all ears in full nerd mode when we arrived. Sadly, it was not to be a day of learning much about the people and history of the site and its specific place in the mundo Maya from the guide. Much of the information was very general, although there were definite highlights. I confess that some of this blog post is pimped with a little bit of background research.

Like this essential nugget from a pamphlet I picked up. Coba flourished between 300-900 AD, maxing out at 50,000 people. It’s around 80 square km. And I should mention here that the pronunciation is Co-bar!

Like many Mayan sites, Coba is clustered in groups of buildings. The guide led us on foot to the first group, the very originally named Coba group. (Apologies here but the iPhone will not let me get the accent on the a anymore for some reason. It’s driving me crazy.) The first building was a temple called the church. This was not a Mayan name. Somebody in the 20th century thought they once saw that prolific Virgin of Guadeloupe – tell you what – for a virgin she sure gets around – there in a rock and the crowds predictably flocked there looking for miracles. No mention of toast Jesus though. Apparently there were also secret tunnels for the ruler to pop in and out around the back. We walked through a short access tunnel – through to not really anywhere – with the familiar warning to duck which I ignored since I am definitely perfect Mayan height.

Next stop ball court number one which elicited a long description of the ball court game and ritual. It was not just pre-Colombian soccer. Nobody really knows how it was played – archaeologists, cultural historians and anthropologists all have varying theories, there are regional variations and different ways of playing – eg goal through a hoop on the wall, goal by hitting a plaque on the ground, no goals at all. The consensus is that it was a mix of ritual and gameplay because the ballcourts were the entrance to the underworld – not exactly where the players’ underground passageways go in an AFI stadium. Two teams played with a rubber ball. One of the women in my group asked the stupidest question I have heard in recent memory, “Was the ball made of stone?” Seems entirely likely that men would launch a solid stone ball through the air to each other using no hands without breaking every bone in their bodies!!!!

Unlike the other ruins, Coba doesn’t have a central plaza. It sprawls broadly over a large site with pyramids, stelae and other features located in those clusters and the odd random spot. It’s a long way to walk so the tour included a free bike. Cool!

Predictably, the Americans paid extra to take the other option – sit in a two seater carriage on the back of a bike with and a suffering Mexican pedalling their breakfast waffle-ladened bulk around. It just seemed so imperialistic and wrong.

I loved my bike!!! I pedalled on what I like to think were the ancient sacbes (white roads) connecting the main sites. (Coba was apparently known for its many original sacbes I would later learn but the guide didn’t tell us that piece of info.) I pedalled hard when the group saw a wild turkey in the bushes!!! The hardest part was negotiating my own personal space between those Yank chariots coming and going, and dodging a few potholes. Every time we stopped to see something, I dumped my bike at a tree and then picked it back up again later.

We stopped at a large stelae (stone tablet) with an engraving of one of the rulers which was badly faded from exposure. The Americans laughed their heads off when I said it looked like the ruler was carrying an AK47.

The next stop was another ball court but this one was different. Whereas the first one was a bit more standard with a hoop on the side, this one featured two stone skulls on the ground.

These were meant to signify the entrance to the underworld. A huge panel of glyphs on the wall caught my eye. I love glyphs! They could literally be a Mayan takeout menu and I would think they were beautiful.

The panel was apparently a reproduction to show where the text sat in situ, so the guide led us over to a nearby hut containing the original stone glyph tablet. She said that it was thought to be the tablet stating that the end of the world was nigh in 2012 which had sparked off a bunch of astrological crazies and great coffee mug production about the end of the universe. For the Mayans, they only ever meant for it to be like the end of a particular phase – not the apocalypse. (I later heard that this was not the message on the tablet at all, so am not sure what to believe!)

We (I) then cycled up to the big boy, Nohoch Mul, the giant pyramid. It is a miracle that INAH is still letting tourists climb it. Possibly it’s because it’s Coba’s big draw. Coba lacks the intricate carvings, huge plazas or perfectly chiselled buildings of Chichen Itza or Palenque. It’s not a famous site. It’s far away from everything. The buildings are crumbling like vintage cheddar. But tell the people they can climb the tallest pyramid in Central America! Oh boy!!! They’re on it!

The pyramid is 42 metres high with 120 steps. The highest pyramid on the Yucatan Peninsula. According to my pamphlet (shame), the next biggest is my favourite, the Sorcerer’s Pyramid at Uxmal. The most efficient climbing strategy is the zig zag, contrary to what most of these people are doing.

I wanted more information about the temple, the people and why this was so big but it was not to be. Clearly the point was to climb, not really to learn. I felt for the guide. Day in, day out, she must be so used to dealing with people who thought the Mayans hip and shouldered stone balls that she had no idea how to deal with somebody like me who was at an intermediate level of knowledge and wanted to know more. She did tell us that the temple at the top, or what was left of it, was dedicated to a bee god. Oh well. I would climb.

Despite the long catalogue of holiday beer, rum and carbs, I climbed that sucker no problems. Just kept going. Sure I sweated a little bit and I had to be constantly vigilant with the uneven footing but my feet fit the steps and I wasn’t a fat lard so it was relatively easy. No waffles, no worries. Huevos all the way. I reached the top and the view was amazing. See picture of me looking smug at the top.

My new friends, Corey and Elizabeth, joined me soon after. Poor Elizabeth was afraid of heights so full credit to her for getting the guts up to climb but – more impressively- make the difficult descent. The small crowning temple at the top didn’t have anything in it. It was all about hanging out up there for a little bit, surveying the canopy of the jungle and just making out the tops of the other temples in the distance. I was actually quite chill, despite the heat and a sudden call for us to get the hell off the pyramid because the park was closing soon.

Descent was slow and not graceful. There was a woman with a kid who couldn’t have been more than three. WTF??? Poor Elizabeth struggled down with the promise of multiple wines with dinner. I was the last one of the group. Not because I was scared but because, as usual, I just didn’t want to leave. Thanks to Corey for snapping and airdropping this classic pic to me later.

The guide gathered us all up. Where was my bike??? Some bastard had stolen it!!! No matter. Of course, I had left nothing in it. After the theft of my ATM card, I trusted nothing and nobody. I chose to continue the domino effect by stealing somebody else’s bike as the group left without me for the next building. I quickly nicked a blue treadly, chucking my bag in the basket. The perfect necessary and retaliatory crime!!!

We stopped at our final building before they kicked us out of Coba. This building was different in that it was round like a beehive rather than a pyramid with steps. I later learnt that round buildings were associated with magical dwarves so I wonder if that was the case here. My pamphlet tells me it was called Xaibe.

I also noticed my original bike against a tree and spotted the thief, a French girl. (For the uninitiated, it’s always the French who seem to always rip me off.) On one hand, it was interesting that I was not the only non-American. I considered reporting her for a stint in some local Bastille equivalent but my usual fear of confrontation and general couldn’t-be stuffed-ness let her get away with it. I had my inferior bike with the crappy kickstand. We were all leaving soon. I would deal with it. We pedalled – or sat – our collective butts off back to the bike kiosk before heading back to the gate.

But the day was not over. It was a Coba sunset tour and the sun had not yet set. Corey and Elizabeth headed off for zip lining while the Boomers and I went with some other randoms to a local home for a cultural lesson in living and working Quintana Roo cultural style today. (Note – Quintana Roo is the state in Mexico where Coba and Cancun are located. )

Firstly, we stood outside the gates to the compound where two boys and a girl engaged in a cultural performance of a mythological story of the Mayan hero twins. It kind of just looked like two kids fighting. They really did slap each other! It was a bit awkward and I think everybody was glad to move inside to watch women make tortillas. I was even more glad to eat them. God, I was starving.

The elderly gent of the compound was Antonio, who kept bees! Yucateco bees have no stinger and check out how weird their hive looks! That bit on the right looks like a skull for sure!

After the hive inspection, we made a beeline to a room where we attempted to make Mayan ceramic pots. This was never going to go well. I hate making stuff. My hands are useless lumps of clay trying to mould useless of lumps of clay. Mentally, I checked out the minute I walked in the door. We made tiny, shallow little dishes fit for stubbing out nasty smokes. For comedy effect, I scratched a face on mine and abandoned it mercilessly without a second thought like Macauley Caulkin in Home Alone. I was already protecting valuable treasures and refused to waste a t-shirt wrapping this crime against the arts. I did buy a cool pottery head that somebody with actual talent had made.

We returned to the front gates of the ruins as the restaurant was right next to it. There was a simple buffet of delicious Yucateco pork with the bitter orange achiote (despite us being not in that state but happy to eat!!!), chicken, rice, tortillas, salad and and free red wine of questionable quality that I did drink. I did wonder about this vino tinto. Mexico is not known for wine. Most decent red hails from Argentina. Red sangria is known as the repository of nasty red to get tourists trashed. Why was the beer not free? Corona was cheap and nasty enough to give away. Anyway, I inhaled my free red.

The buffet was accompanied by entertainment. Local kids and a few adults dressed in traditional Maya costume with body paint and re-enacted their take on the ball court ritual. This helped me understand how the ceremony and game could have been played centuries ago. The stage was a reproduction ball court with a net so nobody got hit the face. Children played drums and it was great to see girls involved in the ritual lighting the incense in pots, singing songs and dancing. The traditional image of the ball game is two sets of guys going hard at it with losers – or the winners – headed for the sacrificial altar. In this demonstration, the game was broken up by song and dance then resumed with attempts to land the ball through the goal. Then the community leaders would step in, sing and wave the incense pots around. Ritual was so closely intertwined with the gameplay – the girls were just as involved with the singing as the men trying to sink the ball through the tiny goal up a slope without their hands. Was this the historical reality or was this just to involve all the kids? That I cannot say and I doubt anybody can with any certainty. Women were priestesses back in the day. It’s possible they were hanging around the ballcourts performing rituals to open access to the underworld. It’s also possible that they were excluded in some places and that male priests performed these roles. The performance must have run for 45 minutes to an hour. I really enjoyed it for opening up my eyes to possibilities.

I managed to score a picture with the kids afterwards. Of course, I tipped them. It’s so important that these kids keep their cultural traditions going. Not that they ‘keep them alive’ because they are not on death’s door after thousands of years and that’s a patronising attitude, but there are so many distractions, options and other things for kids to be doing. I wanted to do what I could to keep these kids active in their culture.

After all that, it was time to sit back in the bus and chill in the long, dark ride back to Playa del Carmen to drop off the Americans and then back to the Royal Islander for me. It was pretty late by the time I got back. Midnight maybe? But I got a second wind, hitting the resort mini mart for an ice cream sandwich that I scoffed poolside on a lounge chair in the dark like a true introvert. Aussies – it was no Maxibon …

Tune in for the next exciting instalment when I wear my lovely fresh laundered clothes, visit Cancun’s Mayan museum and scam free scotch out of executives attending a railroad conference.