From the sea, Costa Maya, or the Mayan coast, is a dazzle of color. First a chain of coral reefs appear: Pink and white polyps with brilliantly striped fish swimming between them. Then, behind this massive natural barrier, the water, at first Blue, turns turquoise and emerald in turn, before hitting miles and miles of powdery white sand that line the coast. All along are villages: small clusters of open palm huts, coconut palms leaning out towards the sea at strange angles, and names that sound exotic; Punta Rio Indio, Puerto bravo, Excayal and finally Puerto Costa Maya, the port of Costa Maya.
But thats where this ‘picture- postcard’ effect ends. At the pier, a Mayan warrior look-alike, wearing an elaborate feathered headdress and little else, urges American tourists to pose with him for a photograph. ‘Ladies, ladies, come take a photograph with me, only ten dollars.’
‘No, that’s a lot.’
‘Okay, I got what you need, only three dollars for a massage’
“Mucho Americano’s spoiling Mexico,” said my taxi driver, on the way out of the port,” real Mexico in chetumal and chaccoben. Thirty dollars per personas”
It is fifty minutes and 73 kilometers from Puerto Costa Maya to the Mayan ruins in Chacchoben. We were traveling in a bus, deep into the Mexican jungle. On the way, Jesus, our tour guide, kept up a commentary on the history and geography of the region. We were traveling west,he said, towards the border with Belize through the newly carved state of Quintana Roo. ‘Quintana Roo is only 3 years old; it is in the peninsula of The Yucatan, the ‘horn’ of Mexico. The jungle is thick and filled with many wonders’ and then pointing out of the window, he continued ‘Here you will find every kind of wood, like mahogany and, rosewood. This is also home to many kinds of reptiles and some of the most dangerous snakes in the world.’ If this was not enough to thrill or kill you, there were also Puma, Ocelot and Jaguar that made occasional friendly appearances on the highway. Every now and then, I looked out of the window to see a small clearing, a few shacks made of tin, and a Mexican in a brightly colored poncho and a straw sombrero, urging his mule along the highway.
About an hour later we were in chaccoben.
Chacchoben is a Mayan ruin in the middle of the jungle. You do not see the ruins until you actually get to them. The entrance is mossed over and the path inside , covered in jungle. Standing at the entrance I wondered how the Mayans got there, what they did, and how they built those temples over a thousand years ago. But if you wonder too long , you could lose touch( as I did) with your group. Jesus our tour guide had warned us of this as we got out of the bus, and suggested that if this should happen, we should wait for a signal from him on his Mayan conch shell. (the Mayans used it to summon people to their ceremonies.) A moment later I heard a long blast.- the Mayan foghorn still worked very efficiently- and I was back with the group, listening to his explanation.
“This here is corn, red corn, Chacchoben means place of the red corn. This is the mescal plant’ he said, pointing to a few cactus- like shrubs at his feet. The Mayans used it as cure for common ailments like headaches. I was tempted to ask about its hallucinatory effects, but by then we had moved to the next wonder in the Mayan garden. Do you know what this is?” he asked, crushing a few leaves off a tree nearby, and handing it to us for a smell test. ‘Old spice, ‘shouted someone from the back It was true. “Yes it is the leaf of the clove, from which old spice is made, and this —— It was clear from his explanation that the Mayans were primarily a farming community. They cultivated corn, and flattened them into tortillas, grew cacao and made chocolate, and cultivated cotton and wove them into ponchos. Some also traded: in salt, cochineal, indigo, animal pelts, tropical bird feathers and jade and obsidian. For their success in farming they needed the sun and the rain, and to appease these forces they built the temple complex, at the base of which, we were now standing.
From here the steps went up steeply to a grassy courtyard, the Gran basamento, at the top. In the center of this courtyard was a series of temples, built to worship the sun and the rain. The main temple, temple 1, was set somewhat further back – It rose from the courtyard, pyramidal, in a dizzying series of stone steps. Most of it was mossed over, but with a little imagination I could still visualize the history of the place. Picture a page out of “Tintin and the Prisoners of the sun” and you will know what I am talking about.
A high Maya, initially a king, and later a priest, dressed in elaborate feathered headgear, jaguar skin and jade, sat at the top, enveloped in clouds of smoke from copal incense, acting as a broker between his people and God. Meanwhile other priests and nobles, mumbled incantations, performed sacrifices and prepared for secret ceremonies to the sun. The rest of the Mayans dressed in colorful tunics and boosted by extra doses of mescal, and an intoxicating drink called Balche, danced in the plazas below.
Together they built Chacchoben around 700 AD.
I was awoken from this reverie, by another blast on Jesus’ conch. It was time to go, time to head back to the port at Costa Maya. It was in the bus on the way back and later at Mahahual on the coast that I got to see and feel the’ real Mexico’ the taxi driver had talked about earlier. I was thirsty and looked for a store- none. No sign of any highway convenience store or even a gas station. Mexico is a developing country they say, but i got the feeling, in Quintana roo state, that development had stopped with the Mayans
Back in the bus, Jesus was still telling us about the region, but his focus had changed. Mexico was poor he said, and tips formed a considerable part of the national income. Many Mexicans in fact survived on them. He himself had a family to support; and he was planning for a degree in English language teaching. ‘I can do this only with the gratuities I get from you’, he added, preparing us for his jackpot.
One would think that such poverty would make a people hard-working, but in Mexico, they are greatly relaxed. The bus stopped at Mahahual, a village near the port, for an hour of shopping. I was hungry and went to “Jaronchos restaurante,” a shack on the waterfront, for a meal. After a few feeble attempts in Spanish to explain that I was vegetarian (no pescado, no pollo, no carne, solo vegetariano) I decided on ensalada de frutas ( fruit salad) and almost immediately regretted the choice. Upon taking my order, the waiter disappeared, shopping for the ingredients. He came back, half an hour later, with a broad smile on his face, and disappeared again, for another twenty minutes to make the salad. I tried explaining that I had to leave quickly, but it didnt seem to matter to him .In Mexico there is no hurry, everything can wait. While you wait you can savor the other ingredients of a Mexican meal- there is plenty of tequila “Drink teguila – be tranquila ‘, and there is “pancho” with his guitar, moving from table to table, singing “Besame mucho.”
“If you liked this tour from Costa Maya, please recommend it to your friends, if not my name is Pancho. This is the third bad joke of the day,” said Jesus, at the end of the bus ride. As I got off the bus I looked at his and the driver’s faces, closely. Both had high cheekbones, and elongated jaws, giving them a sculpted look. In the center was a large nose between slightly slanting eyes. As I kept looking, the lines I had read earlier on the Mayans came back to me:‘His head had been fashionably elongated by being pressed between boards when he was a few days old—– and his nose was built up with putty to give it an admired beak shape ———Descendants of the Maya still form a large part of the population of the region.——. ‘
It wasn’t a bad joke, it was true. Both Jesus and the driver were Mayan behind their Spanish names, and the tour from Costa Maya was a good way to start this Mayan adventure.
