There is some law somewhere that says that if you go to the Yucatan, you have to visit the beach. We rented a cabaña on the beach in Tulum for one night. Seen above was our backyard. Below, the little place we stayed -- all glass and terracotta and palm roof. Beds had mosquito netting, and the bathroom had a carved out tree trunk for a bathtub. It was very rustic, and the power cut out from 11:00pm until 6:00am.
Our plan was to visit the ruins at Tulum that morning at 8:00 when they opened the gates, but at 8:30 when we arrived, everything was still all closed up with no indication of when they might bother to open. So since there is no true pyramid there, and since Raul and I had visited these ruins long ago on our honeymoon, we skipped them and went straight to Coba.
Raul didn't really want to go to Coba originally, but I didn't want to miss it, and with time on our hands, we popped in. A lone rain cloud threatened to cool everything down, but it was just passing through. Such a tease!
The sacrifice we made to the weather gods was not acceptable.
When we thought we had seen everything, we came to a large group of bikes for rent and bicycle taxis to hire. The taxi drivers all tried to get our business to take us to the Grand Pyramid, warning us that it was 2 km away and we would surely die if we tried to walk it ourselves. So off we went in that direction -- on foot. 1km in, we came to a fork in the road. We chose the right-hand path which seemed wider, and found ourselves surrounded by jungle noises, lovely vistas, banyan trees, and all alone. Finally we arrived to a display of Mayan stele, but no pyramid.
By this time, the girls were tired and wanted to give up, but I was angry that we picked the wrong path (and could have asked any number of people, but failed to), so I marched ahead, took the other route, telling my family to wait for me at the split. By this time, there were a zillion other tourists, all zipping by me on their rented bikes or hired taxis. I kept wondering to myself if there really was a grand pyramid, if maybe there was some sort of scam going on since I had already seen a fairly large pyramid when we first arrived at Coba. But as I turned a bend, suddenly, there was the biggest pyramid in all of the Yucatan. 12 stories tall -- 130 feet. Even though I knew my family was waiting for me, I couldn't arrive there and not climb it. Up I went, wondering again why the tiny little Maya people would build such tall steps. About halfway up, I turned to see how much progress I had made, and climbing up about 12 steps down from me, I see a fellow in an orange shirt and white fedora, just like Raul. It was Raul! He and the girls felt bad that I was going it alone and would still have 2km to walk back, so they hired some taxis and came to pick me up and take me back when I was done. So sweet!
So, normally, we live in Mexico City, at 8000 feet above sea level. Before we left, I had gotten on the elliptical to get some exercise, and gave up after about 20 minutes, feeling incredibly out of shape. Then here in the Yucatan, I would run up these pyramids. It's amazing what you can do when you're getting enough oxygen. It was a huge ego boost.
No comments:
Post a Comment