Mexican Ruins and Ruined Mexicans

(Updated) Alternatitle: Arresting Views and Viewing Arrests

We'll start with the second subject of today's brilliantly conceived blog topic line. Friday afternoon, after the conclusion of our first week of classes and with possible storms messing with our beach time this weekend, Emily and I went down to the shore for a dip and the ocean and some relaxing on the sand. The dip in the ocean was uneventful (though very nice--the water here is lovely, and the sand is mostly soft, with a few big rocks thrown in to keep you guessing). The fun started when we got back to our shady spot under some palm trees, just in time to see the local police arresting a Mexican man who had apparently been trying to steal some stuff out of someone's bag that was lying around on the beach. The two tourist girls who owned the bag must have come back in time to catch him in the act, and the police came onto the scene. If there was any doubt about the man's guilt, they got rid of it when they pulled one of the girls' watches out of the guy's bag. Our stuff, thankfully, was safely stashed amidst the group of locals under the palm trees who weer all tsk-tsking about how this kind of thing (theft) is bad for tourism and so bad for the city.

On a much more positive note, Emily and I went with two of our schoolmates yesterday to the Mayan ruins at Cobá. The city of Cobá was one of the largest of the Mayan empire, and served as a crossroads between other Mayan cities and even other nearby civilizations. The site spans several kilometers in every direction, with roads extending from Cobá to cities at least a 100km away, and the city is thought to have been the home to about 40,000 Mayans. It doesn't get as much press as places like Chichén Itzá or Uxmal because it hasn't been as well excavated, and maybe also because given its size, it's not as tourist-friendly. Still, it's an interesting site.

The four of us took the bus down to the Cobá bus stop, from which you have to walk about another kilometer to get to the ruins. Along the way, we passed by a large lake and got a peek at a couple of iguanas and two crocodiles lazing in the water. There's actually a small, rickety-looking pier built out into the lake for tourists to walk down and get close-up croc shots, but according to the man who so swiftly ran from across the street to inform us, we had to pay to use the pier. It wasn't worth it, so we kept walking.

At the ruins, we passed on the option to have a guided tour, as well as the option to rent a bike, and we set off walking along the path through the site. Cobá is nestled in a jungle, and the path is well-shaded by trees. There are several small paths that branch off from the main one, but our guidebooks all warned that those paths were unclear and there wasn't anything to see worth the risk of getting lost in the jungle for the rest of your (now likely brief) life. We stuck to the path and headed straight towards the high point (quite literally) of the ruins. About 1.5km down the path (sorry for speaking in metric, but such is life down here), we came to El Castillo, among the tallest pyramids in the Yucatan, if not the tallest. It's also one of the few you are still allowed to climb to the top of--I just learned that you can no longer climb up the pyramid at Chichén, as I did when I was there in 2002. So, Emily and Francesca (an Italian friend from school) set out for the top, leaving our German friend, Nancy, down on the ground on account of her fear of heights. The climb amounts to about 12 stories, and the view at the top is a lovely one high above the top of the jungle. We also had a beautiful view of the storm clouds--the effect of Gustav--creeping in and invading our beautiful blue day.

After a little bit on the top of the pyramid, we made our way carefully back down (it's much harder down than it is up) and spent some more time walking through the site. Most of the rest fo Cobá are smaller stone structures and a number of stelae that were apparently engraved with meaningful pictures and symbols but which now look like little more than big rocks prominently displayed. Several of the stelae have pictures displayed next to them to help the unknowledgeable viewer (i.e., us) figure out what was once depicted on them. But even with the visual aid, there's not much to behold. We also came across a couple of ball courts, which are present in just about every Mayan ruin, and which were the sites of ancient games played for political and sometimes religious purposes, often followed by the sacrifice of the losers or, on occasion, the winners (not much to play for in that case, is there?).

Finally, after a few hours of walking through the jungle, we decided to wrap it up and head out to lunch. As we left the park, the rain started in earnest, so we made our way back down to the bus stop, where there was also a reasonably cheap restaurant that promised to get us lunch within the 30 minutes we had until our bus arrived. On the way to the restaurant, we all got pretty well soaked by the storm, but nobody got hit by lightning, so we had that going for us. After a rushed lunch, we got on the bus and headed back home, well satisfied with our first of what promises to be many adventures through ancient Mexican history.

Pictures to come in the next few days. In the meantime, check out the link to the Wikipedia page to see previews, given that the pictures posted there are unsurprisingly similar to the pictures we took ourselves.