The walled Maya port, Tulum and Coba, ruins under trees

It is hot today in SD, the girls and I just came back from my aunt's house in L.A, where I rested and had long fun talks with her. Now in "my" reality with no air-conditioning, a house that needs cleaning, a garden asking for water and my last effort to finish the planting that I wanted to do since last week, well I start to feel depressed....not to mention the sewing projects I not finished yet.
Anyways, feeling the mood of the heat I feel like just posting pictures from our Yucatan tour, about Tulum and Coba.

Tulum



Coba




I wish to have a cenote in back yard today. AND if you noticed, the date of the post is from a week ago, but I publish today. A week ago, I just wrote a title, prove of my madness these days.

What is up there? Otoch ma'ax yetel kooh

The Popol Vuh an important book for the Maya people of Central America, describes that the Gods, in search of creating a mankind made several mistakes. Before "us" it was a kind made out of wood, that were destroyed and became monkeys afterwards. As well this council book tells about two hero twins, with two older half brothers, named One Monkey and one Artisan, these brothers were jealous of the youngest brothers, when the twins were old enough they started showing their power, they made climb up One Monkey and One Artisan a tree, and this tree started to rise, higher and higher, the older brothers then were transformed into monkeys.

I'm not a historian, or a Mayan scholar, not even have read it all the Popol Vuh, but I can assume that for this people, the monkeys were important figures, as well as key presence for the health of the rain forest as seed distributors.


In our trip we visited a Spider Monkey Reserve, called Punta Laguna or Otoch ma'ax yetel kooh (House of the monkey and puma in Maya language). This reserve is a big effort of the local community
to preserve their forest. Mostly farmers (campesinos) and chicleros (getting chewing gum from a tree), these people organized themselves in a cooperative to run their eco-tours, and maintain the place, their beautiful habitat as nice as it can be. The guides, Mayan origin people are very friendly and reliable. The women sell their art-crafts in a system where they share the days of the week

They provide guided tours along the forest paths, their facilities are rustic, but very clean, and of course as this village doesn't have total access to electricity or other urban commodities that tourist are used to and in many cases are harmful to the environment, is important the reserve maintain at the minimum bad effects of the so called "civilization" activities.

Visitors can see the spider monkeys just as they live in nature, they are not in any confined place, they are not in a controlled weather facility, they eat, play, sleep and mate free in their home.


We were lucky to spot a group of 12 monkeys with 3 babies, our guide, told us, the babies were born in spring, we spent a long time just looking at them, as they playfully throw at us some fruit from the tree.
We continued our trek, Jose Alfredo, the guide, explained us about the Maya ruins located in this place and about the Chewing gum tree, the way they collected the juice from the tree, he showed us their medicine plants, explained us how to use them. He pointed to us the tiny entrance to a cenote, just a hole on the floor, the altar that takes care of the cenote and the big lake that put the name to the reserve.

Left: Chewing gum tree
Right: Cenote entrance










Supporting this kind of efforts is very important to the communities of people trying to preserve, to the wild animals, as these are one of the few natural refugees to them. Punta Laguna is not just for spider monkeys, on the other side of the lake, there are more wild animals, as the name of the reserve in maya is said, even house of the Puma.

Please, if you are visiting Yucatan or have friends going to this magical place, don't forget Punta Laguna.

Refreshing swim

We were very curious about cenotes. Since we had a fiasco trying to get the cenote close to Chichen Itza, we couldn't miss the opportunities the Riviera Maya offers. The Yucatan peninsula is a flat land composed mostly of porous calcareous rocks, this rocks play a roll as a sponge, so all the water received during the rainy season is collected under the surface. The cenotes are some kind of caves, some are semi-open caves, some caves with just a little hole to the earth surface, others totally exposed, (a dictionary definition says, they are natural sinkholes in limestone filled with water. Geologists tell us that sinkholes begin as underground caverns dug out of the limestone by naturally acidic ground water). Every cenote has water, fresh, beautiful, perfect clear water.

One of the many taxi cab driver I talked to, recommended us one particular cenote, he said - just yesterday I took a family over there, they were delighted by it-. So we took his word and went to this place, located between Akumal and the Tulum ruins.


This particular bird (to the right), caught our attention.







What we saw, just enchanted us. I don't have more words to describe this beautiful ecosystem, in the middle of the Maya rain forest, Cenote Dos Ojos is just awesome. To get into the cenote people need to get down by built stairs, and then the opening of the cave appears to you as a welcome to its wonders.

Around the trees, the different birds chirping and singing, flying around, some getting into the cave and looking for little holes up in the ceiling. Fishes and the most pure water I ever saw.

Every body had a blast, snorkeling, swimming and enjoying the cenote, plus, in Dos Ojos you have two different cenotes just walking distance from one to the other.

Turtle patrol

We said good bye to Merida to go east of the Yucatan peninsula, to the called Riviera Maya. Our destination was the little villa of Akumal (land of turtles in Maya language), a little north of the Tulum ruins.


welcome to Akumal

We rented a nice condo, beach front, with a beautiful view of the Mexican Caribbean. This village mostly hotels and condos is located all along Akumal Bay and Half Moon bay. Even though the amount of accomodations, the extension of the community allows to have a feeling of serenity and tranquility. Also, in this place you can see an interest for care of the environment, they try to make efforts of recycling and separate garbage, even in our condo-unit there was a can for waste and other for recyclables.

But our big interest to stay here was about the "Sea turtles". Summer is the season for female sea turtles to come land, make their nests and go, they deposit hundreds of eggs in the deep holes they carefully dig. Personally I was expecting the girls to had the experience of watching a "wild life event" in real time.


click on the logo to learn more about CEA

For the turtle purpose we contacted Centro Ecológico Akumal (Ecological Center a.k.a CEA), they make a tremendous job with the Sea Turtle Program (more than one species go to these beaches for nesting). As a non-profit they welcome volunteers on their projects as well as tourists (like us) to go with them to their every day walks along the beach in search for the turtles. If the tourist group is lucky enough they can witness the hatching of the little turtles, or turtles laying eggs. Of course the CEA people make their work measuring the turtles, collecting data and marking nests and turtles.

Our "turtle adventure" began around 9:30 p.m, after watching a video in the CEA office, about the Sea Turtle program, is important to educate the visitors, the tourists and locals as well. It was a warm night with a beautiful moon (full or almost full, I'm not sure). We walked a lot on the sand behind our young "guide", until we found another volunteer waiting for a Turtle to finish her nest, she was covering it with sand, every body sat around in silence, no pictures with flash are allowed, since it scares and distracts the animals. We waited about 15 minutes in excitement and saw how the volunteers took notes about the event and helped the female find her track back to the sea. It was amazing how they try to reach the waves again strong and with no interruption until they finally get into the ocean. It was wonderful that the moon cooperated with its glare as we could see very clear all the event.

this picture was taken by CEA


click on the picture to learn more about Sea Turtles.

We put in march again, our guide received news on his radio and alert us that another turtle was ahead. We walked and walked until we found her. The moving scene was again there. Bidane started to think about it, and she said, Turtle, eggs, baby turtles, IT IS A CYCLE, THE TURTLE CYCLE. She was very excited to find out, although she cried when she learned that that very moment was the only one the female turtle would be in contact with her eggs, and she won't meet her little ones. The guides explain us the type of tracks the different turtles make on the sand, so if they are not there when the turtles lay the eggs, they can find out the species because of the tracks.

After our turtle patrol night, we found out nests are all over the place, we found one nest just out side our condo, we found others along the nearby beach. One morning Aitana spotted tracks on the sand and after seeing them closely she concluded they were from a turtle that made her nest the night before, with no witness but the moon.

Bidane showing the nest right in front of our condo.

Aitana showing sea turtle tracks.

The land of the Itzaes

Our trip from Merida to Chichen Itza (ancient and ceremonial Maya city), was an adventure with a happy ending. First we planned to spend the morning in Merida's market and travel by early afternoon to Chichen Itza, visit cenote Ik kil and then go to the light and sound show at the archaeological site.

We did the first part, although the heat in Merida that day was awfully humid. We had lunch in a small "cafe restaurant", pretending after to take a taxi to the bus station. -But- taxis in Merida just take 4 people. As we were 5 we had to wait until one nice taxi driver took us there. We embarked in the 3 o'clock bus Merida-Cancun, in its way, our stop was Piste, the closest town to Chichen Itza, we figure it out that our trip to the cenote was canceled because they close at 5, as our traveling time in this second class bus would take 2 hours -they told us-.

The bus was comfortable, with air conditioning and good seats. The route it took was the state "highway" a two lined road, passing along cute and interesting little towns. The normal life in the Maya country, the little churches, rounded houses with straw roofs (techos de palma), back yard animals here and there.


The uses of a second class bus is to stop in every town, so our bus did, taking one hour more that we thought to get our final destination. The summer rain started to fall all over the place and our hopes about getting Chichen Itza dried became small.




Finally we arrived in Piste, took a taxi to the pyramid site... It was closed...the day hours of the site were just finished. The constant rain over us and some sort of uncertainty if the light and show at 8 will run, all because of the rain.

We don't know for sure, -the site worker told me-. We always are ready for the show, but if it is raining (with the normal companion of thunder and lightening), we cancel for safety of everybody. At some point we believed our only picture from Chichen Itza was the shown below.


-Oh, bother-we were frustrated, but decided to wait, in the mean time I arranged with a taxi our way back to Merida, this time on the toll high way and hopefully one hour and a half less time than the bus.

Our waiting worthed it, miraculous the rain stopped, the gate of the ancient place were open and we were in our way to see "El Castillo" the tallest building in Chichen Itza, hidden by the trees, then you see this fabulous pyramid, orange colored as its white stones reflect the light of a clearing evening. Just beautiful.


Every body sits in a designed area for the show, you are not allowed to walk around, the exciment in the crowd is noticeable. The Chichen Itza light and sound show starts, lasts more than 40 minutes and you are delighted with history and the greatness of Chichen Itza, and its people the Maya Itzaes.


For me was a beautiful experience seeing my girls learning about Mayas, Aitana was impressed with what she saw.
The light and sound show re-creates the descending snake Cuculcan, that happens every Spring solstice on one side of the pyramid.


Venus platform and the "sacred cenote".