Chichen Itza & the Mayan Christmas Pageant (Mexico - Part 2)

Chichen Itza, Mexico

We spent the nights of Christmas Eve and Christmas at a hotel within walking distance of Chichen Itza. Part of a small chain called Villa Archaeologicos, these were once Club Meds but have been bought up, and they’re all right next to Mayan ruins. Our beachfront place in Sian Ka’an (Cesiak) was great, but fairly overpriced considering the shared composting toilet and only brackish water to wash/shower in. Here there is a hint of faded glory, appropriate given the setting next to the ruins of the great Mayan city, I suppose, but overall it is quite nice with a large step up in housing quality and (surprisingly), at only about half the cost. There are small museum-piece-type archaeological finds put behind glass in various places in the courtyard, and there are some HUGE tropical trees that they apparently built the hotel around, which is cool.

When we arrived, I asked if there were any interesting cultural events surrounding Christmas (Feliz Navidad!) in the nearby town. The clerk seemed confused by my question, but did hand me a program for the hotel’s own Christmas celebration to be held on the evening of the 25^th. The program was all in Spanish, and I wasn’t going to plan our day around it, but if we happened to be at the hotel when it was going on, so be it.

Our visit to Chichen Itza was excellent. We got up early and hired a guide, trying to get there near opening to beat the expected crowds. Surprisingly, we did. For the first 2 hours at least, there were hardly any people there, and even the hundreds of vendors that set up merchandise booths were still unpacking their wares when we finished our tour. Our tour, advertised as three hours, didn’t quite make it to two, and by the end our guide was dismissively waving his hands quickly towards several rather impressive structures off in the distance, but didn’t seem interested in actually walking us over there and touring them. No matter. It was Christmas morning, and our guide Diego had apparently been partying with the family until 3am, then got up at 7am to meet us. He guided quite well on a hangover, all things considered, and he didn’t get double-pay or anything resembling overtime from us, so I won’t complain too much. It was still a worthwhile tour. For those who have been before, I’m sorry to disappoint you that you can no longer climb on any of the Mayan ruins, especially the big pyramid. Apparently you could up until 5 our 6 years ago, when the combination of a visitor falling to her death and the elevation of Chichen Itza to one of the new “Seven Wonders of the World! caused the authorities to reconsider previous tourist freedoms. There are other Mayan ruins where you can still climb around on stuff Indiana Jones style, and hopefully I’ll have a report of those later.

Chichen Itza was a major Mayan city from roughly 650-1350 AD, and at various times was a political and/or religious capital of the Mayan civilization that stretched over the entire Yucatan peninsula and down into present day Guatemala, Belize, and El Salvador.  Roughly 20-50,000  people (estimates vary greatly) lived in the Chichen Itza metro area at it’s peak, which sounds small to modern day observers but would have rivaled our exceeded any European city of its day. Like today, the elites lived in walled-off compounds from the 99%, with the stinking masses living outside the ruins we see today, leaving no substantial stone memories of their passing. The ruins you see today were mostly ceremonial and religious, probably equivalent to visiting Washington D.C. in the year 2739 and only seeing the remnants of the National Mall with the Smithsonian and a few crumbling neo-classical monuments left above the swamp waters.  Still, what you can see is rather impressive.

The Mayans were excellent astronomers, so that their buildings acted as calendars, lining up equinoxes, solstices, and various movements of Venus exactly with features of the buildings. On the equinoxes, thousands of tourists throng to see the central pyramid create a shadow that resembles a serpent, which when it touches the ground was supposed to indicate the correct planting/harvesting time. They apparently could predict eclipses up to 32 years in advance. The ability to correctly predict the seasons and thus the right time to plant (there is a rainy/dry season here) would give you great power, apparently enough to create a whole religious system of astronomical observation and regular human sacrifice. The Mayans really were into the sacrifice thing. There was a platform decorated with hundreds of engravings of skulls where heads were removed. There was a ball game (somewhat like soccer or lacrosse) where the players had to pass around a heavy (12 pounds+) hard rubber ball without the use of their hands or feet, eventually getting the ball up through an elevated stone ring (higher than a basketball hoop). Sources differ whether the losing or winning team captain was then sacrificed (our guide said the winner, because it was an honor, and the loser had to do the decapitation, which humiliated him). Alternatively, the top of one of the temples held a special jaguar-inspired statue, which is where the priests placed the still-beating heart of a recent sacrifice, done daily to ensure favorable weather. These sacrifices were not an honor, just you know, daily prayers, so they used slaves.  Then as now, being a slave was just not a very good career path.

Many of the Mayan buildings at Chichen Itza have very cool acoustical design. Some of it was likely to project the priests’ voices over the courtyard, but today it means that if you clap your hands at the base of the main pyramid, it echoes and reverberates in a way to produce a sound like a high-pitched gunshot, or, as our guide said, like the call of a quetzal bird. Choose your reference point. In the royal ball court, the echoes bounced off concave walls to make a clap echo up to seven times in staccato succession – a very cool effect, until the tour bus groups all tried to do this together, and they couldn’t get their timing right, leaving a lame muddled cacophony of “Gee, why are we clapping again?”

THE Chichen Itza pyramid, called El Castillo.  Note the serpent heads at the bottom right.

The largest ball court found in any Mayan ruins.  You can see the loop the players had to throw the ball through high on the walls further back in the picture.

An example of the carvings in the temple walls - this shows a beheaded winner (or loser?).

Another building was covered with images of skulls - all the winners (losers?) of the ball games.

The observatory.

Note to my sister and brother: Many of the vendors were selling whistles that produced the rather startling sound of a jaguar growling when you blew into it. They liked to play a cute little bird whistle for a while, then switch to the jaguar, just to make sure they had your attention. They had our attention. Much as I hated the whistles, I couldn’t ignore them. They’re awful. Apparently we’re hard wired to notice things such as jaguars growling in the jungle. Puts you on edge, to say the least, but I suppose if Great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Grog hadn’t been paying attention to those things, I wouldn’t be hear writing this today. At any rate, all the kids loved the whistles. I consider getting one for Joe J and John V, who would have loved them. But you wouldn’t have. And you would have never forgiven me, and likely would have reciprocated with something awful in the future. In fact, I should be keeping a list of all the wonderful/awful presents that I haven’t bought as gifts over the years as the non-custodial uncle. It really does show a great deal of restraint, believe it or not.

The Mayans were (are!) short. The women were about 4 feet tall, and the men about 5 feet. There are still quite a few Mayans in the area (and Mayan is spoken as the first language in many homes). Shannon had the unusual feeling of towering over people here – not so common for her!

We were pretty worn out by lunch time, so headed back to our hotel for a mellow Christmas afternoon. As I sipped my margarita by the pool, I watched workmen spend many hours wrestling with the props and sound and light system for the upcoming Christmas pageant. Weird and distinctly not It’s a Wonderful Life props. There was an 8 foot tall piece the size of a commercial refrigerator that looked like a model of DNA. There was a shopping basket that had been converted to have a human-sized birdcage like structure around it, with a car battery attached for some lighting effects. There were many other objects I can’t really even begin to describe. It seemed like these had been used year after year for this event only, getting a few updates every year. What was this pageant going to be?

The show was supposed to go up at 6pm, but no one was here. About 6:20, we wanted to take a dip in the pool, but by that time a man in some semblance of traditional Mayan garb called several loud notes on his horn, and lit the incense, and started the show. Shannon and I watched from behind the “stage” for a while, wanting to get in the chilly pool but not wanting to disturb the performance. As the show got going, more people stopped to stare. There were about a dozen people in total watching, including the restaurant waitstaff. It was mostly a ballet, of sorts. There was drumming. There were synthesizers. It was very heavy. I think the title of the show translated into something like “The Dwarf Legend of Ushmal” which doesn’t mean a whole lot to me either. There was a man in a full body spandex suit, doing some slow interpretive moves. The ending involved a fire twirler. I kept wanting to leave to go to dinner, but was compelled to stay. It was awful and weird and mesmerizing. I have no idea what it was about or why it was in any way a Christmas story. I’m not convinced that if I spoke Spanish or Mayan that I would have understood a whole lot more. I have included a video and photos to try to help explain.

The Dwarf Legend of Uxmal in front of the hotel swimming pool.

VIDEO COMING SOON!

After this first act, there was supposed to be an act of more traditional Mexican folk dancing. There were several ladies dressed up in pretty white with flowers dresses. Shannon wanted to see this, but we waited twenty minutes and it seemed the organization was lacking. Were they going to take the whole stage down before the next act? (No. Most of it was still up this morning.) We left for an uninspiring dinner in town. When we got back, a live classical music trio was supposed to be playing as the third act, but the whole place was deserted. Apparently the Dwarf Legend of Ushmal was too much for anyone to top.

It's chilly this morning – had to put on my long sleeve (with shorts) as I sit by the pool. Tee hee. In an hour or so there will be sun in the courtyard and it will be plenty warm. Green parrots are squawking as they fly overhead.

A Mexican Christmas tree - made out of palm leaves.

We really liked these three-wheeled bikes.  We saw people and goods being transported on them.

Cheating Winter (Mexico - Part 1)

Ah, cheating winter. It feels good. There hasn’t been that much winter either in Massachusetts, Colorado, or Michigan yet this year (at least while we were in any of those places), so it’s not like we're fleeing from the frozen depths of February, but it was plenty gray and gloomy when we left Detroit on the shortest day of the year. Four hours and a few thousand gallons of jet fuel later, we touched down in Cancun, Mexico.

The Cancun airport is nice and modern, bathrooms clean, and Hertz rent-a-car was no problems. Folks were friendly and generally helpful So far so good.

First stop: fuel and food. We were so hungry that we couldn’t handle spending time finding local food, so (sadly) ended up at McDonald’s. It’s always interesting seeing the local spin on America’s export – in this case, they gave little packets of spicy jalepeno death as well as standard ketchup.  Good times.

The gas station attendant tried to hustle me – I paid 400 pesos (cash) for 390 pesos worth of gas. I was going to give him a decidedly unearned 10 peso (about $1) tip. Instead he tried to scam me, hiding one of my 200 peso notes and replacing it with a 20 peso note. He tried to demand the “rest” of the bill. Too bad for him I had just been to the ATM and knew that I only had 200s, and there was no way I had given him a 20. I just shook my head and walked away, and he didn’t push it. I should have reported him, but I didn’t know how, didn’t have any proof, and didn’t feel like spending the first several hours of my vacation dealing with police bureaucracy. No matter – locals trying to hustle gringo for an extra buck should be expected, and they weren’t going to harsh my vacation mood.

We set out down the nicely-maintained highway towards Playa del Carmen and Tulum, our destination for the evening. Two uneventful hours later, we arrived in the town of Tulum just after dark. It was loud and traffic-heavy, but there was a music festival going on and there seemed to be quite a few nice tourist shops/restaurants, without it being overwhelming or terribly Gringo-ized. We found a dive shop to purchase a mask and snorkel, which we had foolishly forgotten back in Massachusetts. It was only another 10 miles or so to our bed for the night, but it took longer than expected.

First we had an easy cruise to the hotel zone along the beach (our first beach sighting!), which ended at the border of Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, a Mexican National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site (yet another for our list). We paid our 150 pesos for 3 days admission and thought we were almost there.  Only 2.5 miles left, but what a 2.5 miles!

The dirt road had more potholes than road (our pictures just don't do it justice). Whenever I took the econo-rental car out of first gear it was a mistake. Too fast! I found myself  weaving left, right, back center, back right, trying to find a path through the craters.   Thankfully our cheap Chevy has been trustworthy thus far (hopefully it will get us down the path once more). Recent rains left some of the potholes full of rain, making them much more difficult to judge depth and likelihood of suspension-crushing peril.  

Finally, we arrived at CESiak – the Centro Ecologico Sian Ka’an, (www.cesiak.org) an eco-lodge and education center that runs tours and hosts scientific researchers. The reserve itself is the largest preserve on the Mexican Caribbean, and has lots of wildlife in the jungles, lagoons, dunes, and coast. There are 336 bird species found here, more than in all of Europe, for instance.

Our Cesiak lodging was a cabana perched on stilts above the primary dune of this peninsula (ecologically speaking, it would be better sited further from the ocean).  There is a wooden platform with thatched roof, and then a frame canvas tent is built inside, providing protection from mosquitoes, rain (mostly), and most importantly, wind. Oh man is it windy here. Inside we had a proper queen sized bed and two candle lanterns with proper hurricane lamp covers (I didn’t know that the shape of the glass had a function, but Shannon informed me of this. They work – it was so windy, even with most of the windows zipped shut that I worked thorough 6 matches trying to light them, but they stayed faithfully burning for hours after that.) There is no power or plumbing in the cabana, but there is 24 hour power (solar and wind powered, all off the grid) in the office, and composting toilets a short spider-filled walk away. (Did you know: if you hold a flashlight near your eyes and shine it toward the ground in the dark, you will often see little sparkling jewels all through the woods. These “jewels” are usually the eyes of spiders, shining back at you. Shannon does not like this at all.) Our bed had been decorated with a swan made out of our beach towels – it felt like a pretty damn classy tent!

The swan towel that welcomed us to our tent/cabin.

Even with the ocean-facing screen window mostly zipped shut, our little tent rocked and rolled in the wind all night. Occasionally, the wind would shift and the tent wall would slam into the headboard of our bed and shake us awake. Shannon eventually resorted to earplugs over the din, but I rather liked the roar of the wind and crashing surf. The real estate is hard to beat. We wouldn’t enjoy the color of the turquiose water until the next morning, but I did enjoy the dark dark sky, probably the darkest I’ve ever seen at sea level.  (Science note: There is much more humidity here than in the mountains or desert, obscuring the stars somewhat, but the removal from civilization was pretty good here. Cesiak has also kept outdoor lights to a minimum. This is mostly because of their power restrictions from being off-grid, but also aids with sea turtle conservation. When baby sea turtles hatch, they orient to the sea by finding the brightest thing around and flippering like mad across the sand to this. Naturally, the crashing surf is brighter than the forest on land. Unfortunately, human outdoor lights screw them up, leading many baby turtles to head the wrong way when they hatch. Also, for reasons I don’t fully understand, bright shore lights discourage female turtles from both coming ashore to nest or from actually laying eggs if they do come ashore).

The spray off the waves was driven into the tent a little, even through the screen, so that it was a bit damp in the tent by morning. No matter. It’s gorgeous, and it’s almost all to our selves. There are only probably 30 people staying here, plus a similar number coming for day tours. The fine sand beaches are ours to play on.

Our first day we didn’t go anywhere. We got up and had a tasty breakfast at the Cesiak restaurant, then played in the surf for a few hours. It was much too rough to use that snorkel we’d bought, but the waves were fun to jump in. Once in a while I successfully body surfed. The water is so warm (82 F or 27C, roughly, based on a satellite image I found). It is much warmer than the Red Sea was last winter (my life is so hard…). The dry air in Egypt combined with slightly cooler water meant that after snorkeling in Egypt (with a thin wet suit) I was shivering uncontrollably. Here, I could play for hours and still feel comfortable. Awesome.

The view outside our tent.

On a whim, I spent an hour or so before sunset picking up trash. I don’t think any of it was local – it had all spent many weeks or years riding the tides. Plastic never dies it seems, it just washes ashore somewhere. Mostly I picked up plastic bottle caps and bits of bottles. I wish that in the hour I fully cleaned up my little piece of paradise, but alas, the task was greater than I. Oh well. Just trying to leave things a little bit better.  Maybe I’ll try to do something good for every place we visit, to ease my travel/carbon guilt just a smidge.

Today we had a busier day. We got up early (by vacation standards) to head into Tulum to visit the Mayan ruins before the tour buses arrived. We didn’t quite beat the crowd, but it was still a great visit. It is a beautiful site, right on the coast. The town of Tulum was occupied later than the bigger/fancier places like Chichen Itza, and had Mayan inhabitants much later, even after Spanish contact. We didn’t bother taking the time or spending the money for a guide, so mostly we just wandered around and looked at 700 year old temples and oohed/aahed at the views.

See the face in the corner?

The beautiful Caribbean Sea and part of the Tulum ruins behind us.

After that we headed back down the bumpy road (take-out taco + speed bumps = lunch disaster) to Cesiak for an afternoon kayak tour in the lagoon. We spent 3 hours paddling, sometimes in very still water next to the mangroves and other times battling some stiff chop in the heavy wind in the open water. It was great for birding, but we didn’t see the expected crocodiles (I think I’m OK with that…felt a little exposed in the kayak for that kind of wildlife encounter). We paddled out to a few islets made entirely of mangroves that are used as bird nesting grounds.

An osprey nest in a mangrove.  You can see two osprey on the left.

Each islet had different birds. Birds seen: cormorants (2-3 kinds), rosy spoonbill (look kind of like flamingoes), great blue heron, egret, vireo, pelican, frigate bird, and probably more that I forgot. There were a few puffer fish by the dock, and Shannon spotted a small sting ray in the silty water. The late afternoon warm light was lovely on the mangroves, water, and birds. “Sian Ka’an” is transliterated Mayan for “Where the sky is born” and our trip on the lagoon had indeed had some great sky views. Our guide, Fernando, learned Mayan as his first language, Spanish in school, and now also guides in English, French, and Italian - talented guy.

We finished off our day by splashing in the surf again once we got back to camp, and then inhaled some tasty chicken fajitas. I tried a few dabs of habanero salsa, which was a mistake. The burn lasted quite a while. I think Shannon has already passed out cold.  

Tomorrow we’ll leave the coast and head to Chichen Itza. It will be our second consecutive pyramid for Christmas (last year we were in Cairo). It’s good to be us. 

The beach at Cesiak.  It's good to be us.