Mexican Road Trip: To the Yucatan and Back

[Rick Quinn]

In Campeche, they Dance La Guaranducha!

This was a truly unexpected pleasure: a serendipitous coincidence of good luck and good timing. Campeche, where they dearly love a good festival, was putting one on at that very moment: a “Festival of Dance and Folklore,” according to the sign on the stage. The girls were all dressed in full “Campechana” regalia, with embroidered white blouses, colorful, ankle length flounced skirts, and hair pulled back with ribbons and combs. What we were about to witness was a demonstration of the traditional dances of Campeche, routines and costumes with roots reaching back to 16th century Spain. The rhythms and movements, as well as the music is a blend of African, Spanish, and indigenous Mayan influences; a joyful celebration of Campeche’s multi-cultural heritage.

Dancers in traditional costumes, getting ready to perform for the crowd on a stage set up in Campeche’s main Plaza.

FESTIVAL OF DANCE AND FOLKLORE

An announcer, I’ll call her the Dance Instructor, introduced the troupe of girls and young guys on the stage.

Clearly, the guys were little more than props, because all eyes were on the girls, so colorful, and so elegant, dressed to the nines, and hiding coyly behind their pleated, folding hand fans.

The matron described the dances that would be performed, the best known being “La Guaranducha,” in which the ladies entrance the young men with swirling skirts and twirling scarves.













The dresses worn by the ladies are a traditional style dating back to a bygone era, but each dancer adds personal touches.







The women of Campeche, the “Campechanas,” are famously strong willed, and that attitude, characterized by defiant smiles and the traditional stance, arms akimbo and fists on hips, is clearly displayed in the posture of the dancers. Each of these young women has a wonderfully distinct personality, and each of them brought something unique to their performance.







La Guaranducha is a celebration of life, community, and the joy of existence. Colonial Spanish grandiosity, enlivened by frenetic elements of black Carnaval, tempered by the sly influence of the indigenous Mayans, whose descendants still make up much of the population of the Yucatan. The dance originated in Campeche, and it is still primarily associated with that city, but versions of it are performed in other parts of the Yucatan as well, including in Merida.

There were a number of different groups performing on the stage, and one of the most fun was a children’s choir, two dozen youngsters singing traditional songs:

The kids were dressed in miniature versions of the same costumes worn by the older performers, and they were–dare I say it? Cute as the dickens!

When the performances ended for the evening, we took in the sunset, and the simultaneous moonrise behind Campeche’s baroque cathedral. Construction of the church started in 1540, the year the city was founded, and it wasn’t actually completed for more than 200 years. It’s a beautiful building, and I got some great photographs:

Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción, the Catholic Cathedral of Campeche, built between 1540 and 1760

A beautiful sunset, a beautiful evening, a perfect end to a very fine day in Mexico!

After a terrific dinner at one of the restaurants with tables in the blocked-off street…

…we headed back to our room at the Hotel del Paseo for a much needed rest. We had a basic plan for the next day that involved more Mayan ruins, and more of Campeche–but it was going to be very hard to top this day. It was frankly spectacular, from start to finish!

Next up: Adventures along the Puuc Route
 

[Rick Quinn]

DAY 16: Here a Puuc, there a Puuc, everywhere a Puuc Puuc

On the 16th day of our road trip, we had breakfast at our hotel, the Hotel del Paseo near the historic center of old Campeche; then we gassed up the Jeep and hit the road. We had a lot of miles to cover, and we were eager to get going!

Our goal for the day involved driving a loop through an area known as the Puuc Hills, the only part of the Yucatan Peninsula that isn’t relentlessly flat. In the Mayan era, the Puuc was considered prime real estate, and it contains what is easily the densest concentration of Mayan ruins in all of Central America. The most famous of these is the fabled city of Uxmal, which we’d seen the previous week, but there were dozens of others, and considering how close together they were, this was a unique opportunity to visit as many as four or five small sites in a single day, sort of like a grand finale to our Cook’s tour of Mayan cities in the Yucatan.

The Puuc Hills, with some of the many Mayan sites circled in red.

THE RUTA PUUC

The official Puuc Route, beginning in Uxmal

The route that Mike and I followed, beginning in Campeche

My guide book described an itinerary called the Ruta Puuc (the Puuc Route), a 25 mile stretch of MX 261 that begins in Uxmal, and travels south through low, forested hills, stopping at (in addition to Uxmal) the Mayan cities of Kabah, Sayil, Xlapak, and Labna. It was here among the Puuc hills that Mayan art and architecture achieved its ultimate expression, which is why the Ruta Puuc is included with Uxmal in its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. MX 261 extends all the way to Merida in the north, and to Campeche in the south, running smack through the middle of the Puuc region. Since we were starting from Campeche, and since we’d already been to Uxmal, our plan was to follow MX 261 north until we reached the area where the other four sites were located (all within 11 miles of one another). After touring the ruins, we’d simply turn around and head back to Campeche.

MX 261

Mexico has a national system of modern, well maintained toll roads that make short work of the miles between major cities. MX 261, running east from Campeche, was most definitely NOT one of those! The hazards ranged from deep, dangerous potholes to animals in the road, to strolling pedestrians and children at play, oblivious to the traffic whizzing past. Every few hundred meters we ran over another Tope, the speed bumps installed to curb velocity through towns and other populated areas. We had to stay ultra-alert to avoid hitting one of them at highway speed, and blowing a tire (or worse).

Scenes along the road, MX 261, East of Campeche

Just as we reached our halfway point, I spotted what looked like a ruin, right alongside the road.





There was nothing in my guide book about a Mayan site in this location, so we were quite curious to check it out.

Next up: Tacob/Tohcok

[Rick Quinn]

TOHCOK

The first thing we saw was a road sign identifying the site as “Tacob.” I used my phone to do a search on that name, and Google hacked up a page full of links to Mexican restaurants, starting with “Taco Bell.”



I scrolled down pretty far, but saw no reference to Mayan ruins. I tried Google Maps, pinched up to the maximum magnification, and found what appeared to be the right spot, labeled not as “Tacob,” but as “Tohcok”?

Satellite view of Tohcok, identified as Tacob on road signs

We parked the Jeep on the north side of the highway, then walked across the road to the site. The ruins were surrounded by a rustic fence, but there was a sign beside the gate that said “Open,” in English, no less, so we strolled on through.



We were met by the caretaker, who welcomed us enthusiastically, introducing himself as Pepe.







I asked Pepe about the name of the ruin, and he proceded to tell me, with obvious pride, that the place had at least five names, including “Taco.”

“Taco?” I repeated. “Like the food?”

“Oh, yes,” said Pepe, smiling broadly. “But we never use that name.” He went on to explain that “Tohcok” is the name favored by the archaeologists and the map makers, and it translates from the Mayan as the “Place of the Flint Knife.”

“So, the sign on the road is a mistake?”

“Yes, the sign is wrong,” Pepe admitted with a shrug. “But what’s important is that you stopped! We don’t get that many visitors, so, para ustedes, the sign did its job.”

Pepe launched into a well practiced spiel about the history of the site, which was founded around 300 AD, and reached its zenith, along with the rest of the region, during the Late Classic era, around 900 AD. Pepe talked at great length about the Mayan religion, and the human sacrifices that took place on the raised platform in the middle of Tohcok’s plaza. Just like the warriors killed in battle, the sacrificial victims didn’t die in the usual sense; they moved on to a higher plane of existence. He showed me a carving of a corn flower, with the head of a warrior embedded sideways, awaiting his rebirth into the next level of the Mayan cosmos.

The head of a warrior killed in battle, sideways in a corn flower

Several views of the primary structures in Tohcok, a small site surrounded by cow pastures.

Tohcok was first reported by archaeologists in the 1930’s, but it wasn’t excavated until much more recently, and it’s only been open to the public for the last few years. The buildings were constructed in the Puuc architectural style: thin, square cut stone slabs embedded in a concrete core, forming a smooth veneer. There are also elements of the Chenes style, characterized by carved stone motifs on lower walls.

As you walk in, there’s a structure known as the Palace on your left. It’s a two story building, with a central staircase leading to the ruined second floor; there are pillars on the ground floor, and a Mayan arch. Straight ahead from the entrance is a second building, the Acropolis. A ceremonial platform extends into the plaza from that building’s foundation. The base of the platform features elaborate Chenes style carvings of corn plants, and, at the corners, there are nicely carved representations of Chac, the big-nosed rain god. They’ve documented as many as forty more structures associated with Tohcock that remain unexcavated, appearing as little more than overgrown mounds in the cow pastures on either side of the highway.

Tohcok: Site Map

Like most of the Mayan cities in the Puuc region, Tohcok was subordinate to the lords of Uxmal, and in later years, to the League of Mayapan. What that meant, in practical terms, was an obligation to supply materials and labor for monumental construction, and to provide a quota of young men to serve as warriors in ongoing military campaigns. In exchange, they got the support and protection of those larger kingdoms. From the 30,000 foot level, the arrangement wasn’t all that different from the way things work today.

We thanked Pepe for the tour, and slipped him a few hundred Pesos as a propina (a tip). In Mexico, tipping is expected pretty much any time someone provides you with a service, and rightly so, considering the extremely low wages. Even at that, I can’t think of any other situation on our entire trip where the gratuity was more well deserved.

We drove another hour north on MX 261, passing through several small towns, including the village of Bolonchen. This was rural Campeche at its most remote, and I, for one, was loving it!





We had a decision to make at this point. Three of the four sites on our list were immediately adjacent to one another, while the fourth, Kabah, was a bit further away, off by itelf on the road that went north toward Uxmal. Kabah was the one I most wanted to see, but it was also the biggest, and I was afraid that if we went there first, we’d linger too long and run out of time. It was a two hour drive back to Campeche, and we definitely didn’t want to be on that road after dark. That meant we’d have to head back no later than 4:30, and it was already almost 1:00. It made sense to knock off the other three first, going for quantity over quality, moving as quickly as possible. Afterwards, we’d know exactly how much time we’d have left for Kabah. With that plan in mind, I turned right at the road junction, and headed for Sayil.

Next up: Sayil

[Mark Sedenquist]

We were met by the caretaker, who welcomed us enthusiastically, introducing himself as Pepe.

Very cool that you met the caretaker. This is one of the most interesting posts of the report thus far.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Clearly, the guys were little more than props, because all eyes were on the girls, so colorful, and so elegant, dressed to the nines, and hiding coyly behind their pleated, folding hand fans.

The matron described the dances that would be performed, the best known being “La Guaranducha,” in which the ladies entrance the young men with swirling skirts and twirling scarves.

Great photos of these young performers!

Mark

[Rick Quinn]

Very cool that you met the caretaker.

Pepe was a cool guy. Mike kept his GoPro camera running through most of his impassioned lecture, and that's probably the most interesting segment of film from the whole trip. (Most cohesive, anyway.)

Rick

[Rick Quinn]

Great photos of these young performers!

Thanks! I love this set of images, especially that top one. The expressions on their faces, and the colors! That dance festival was a spectacular opportunity. All I had to do was point the camera; the gals did all the work!

[Rick Quinn]

SAYIL

Leafcutter Ants

In the Yucatec Maya language, Sayil means “Place of the Leafcutter Ants,” and it’s easy to see why. For such tiny insects, they are a massive presence in this rain forest. Their nests house as many as two million ants in colonies that extend as much as 50 feet underground.



Each worker harvests a snippet of leaf matter, cut with their razor sharp mandibles, and then they get in line, carrying their prize into the nest, where it is used to grow a fungus that is the colony’s primary food source. This activity enriches and aerates the soil, greatly assisting in organic decomposition, a necessary function for maintaining the health of this complex ecosystem.

Most of these photos were actually taken at Labna. Same ants, slightly different neighborhood.

Sayil had a relatively brief history, in the overall scheme of things. It reached its peak around 900 AD, which is when most of the monumental construction took place, and as little as 100 years later, around 1000 AD, the city was abandoned, most likely due to an extended draught that led to widespread famine. At the peak, there were as many as 10,000 people in the area, and without adequate rainfall, it was impossible to grow enough food to sustain them all.

We paid our admission fee in the small building by the entrance, then we followed a path through dense forest to an open area.



My first view of the Grand Palace of Sayil was so unexpected, it stopped me in my tracks, and I found myself standing there, mouth agape, neglecting to breathe. “Oh, wow!” I said at last. It was definitely one of those moments.











The Grand Palace, or North Palace, is a three tiered structure that’s a whopping 250 feet long, with a 32 foot wide staircase up the front side that leads to the upper floors. Multiple doorways are separated by columns, leading to an interior that boasted 90 rooms. The Palace is a Puuc masterpiece. An engraving titled “Zayi,” by the famed illustrator Frederick Catherwood, appeared in the book Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, published in 1841 by his partner, the travel writer John Lloyd Stephens. Stephens and Catherwood were the first to document many major Mayan cities, including Sayil/Zayi. Their work was an important factor in bringing the Maya to the attention of the world outside Central America.

The Palace of “Zayi,” as illustrated by Frederick Catherwood in 1841

A 19th century photograph of the initial excavation

The building as it appears today

There was a sacbe, a raised causeway, leading south from the Palace. We followed traces of that path for 300 yards or so, to the second most famous structure at Sayil, an absolute mess of a temple known as the Mirador, the Watchtower.

The Mirador, the ruins of a Puuc style Pyramidal Temple at Sayil

The most salient feature of this pyramidal temple is the Puuc style roof comb, a well-preserved ornamental structure that runs the full width of the building and rises some 20 feet above the roof. Projecting stones–tenons–were there to support large plaster sculptures. The whole business would have been painted in bright colors, predominantly red.

As for the pyramid, what little is left of it has collapsed, reduced to a grass covered mound of rock and soil that has buried most of the rest of the temple. A single interior room has been excavated and exposed, with open doorways on either side. The pyramid was originally constructed atop a small natural hill, so the temple, especially the roof comb, would have been visible from a distance. Was it an actual watchtower, like a sentry post? Or was it more of a boundary marker for the Palace compound? That whole area would have been considered exclusive, restricted to the elite.

Near the Mirador is a a third structure, very much in ruins, and largely unexcavated. This one is known as the Temple of the Heiroglyphic Jams, a reference to one of the partially buried doorways that is surrounded by a band of glyphs. The temple is overgrown by tropical vegetation, and it’s very easy to imagine what the whole place, including the Grand Palace, must have looked like to the first explorers who came across these ruins. Lost cities in the jungle, rising from the mists of time. Such is the mystique of the ancient Maya.

The Temple of the Heiroglyphic Jams

Sayil is surrounded by rain forest, closing in on all sides.

Yum Keep: God of Fertility

Mike and I had fallen into a routine of sorts during our visits to these archaeological parks. I’d always make a beeline to the big stuff, the iconic views, the perspectives likely to make the most impressive photographs. Mike, on the other hand, liked to move at a calmer, more deliberate pace, soaking it all in. I have a degree in anthropology, and I studied the Maya in school, so my perspective on all this stuff was quite different from his. We would often split up, each of us doing our own thing, and then we’d regroup. I never really worried about us losing track of each other, but at Sayil, this approach turned into a problem. After the Mirador, I went on ahead while Mike took some close-ups of flowers, or fungus, or some such thing. I came to a fork in the path, and took a right, walking as far as a group of stelae, standing stones. Then I got distracted, taking photos of a bizarre sculpture of a Mayan couple locked in an embrace, with the man sporting an enormous phallus (see photo, above). A few minutes later, I was ready to leave Sayil. We’d seen the best of it, and we had three more sites to visit, so we needed to get a move on. I looked around for Mike, but didn’t see him anywhere, so I shouted his name. No answer. I followed the path back to the Mirador, shouting as I walked along. Nothing. Back to the Grand Palace, where I shouted even louder, many times, before walking all the way to the building where we bought our tickets. I asked if anyone had seen my friend, but they had not. Not since we came in together. I tried calling his cell phone, but there was no signal in that place.

Back into the ruins I trudged, shouting myself hoarse, and getting a bit worried. I walked completely around the Grand Palace, hollering my head off, but no Michael. Back to the Mirador, same deal. At that point, I hadn’t seen Michael in at least an hour, and I was ready to call in an actual search party, imagining the poor guy passed out on the trail, or worse! I came to that fork in the path, and I spotted a small sign I hadn’t noticed before. It read “South Group,” with a pointing arrow. I started down that path, calling for Michael as I walked along, but after a few minutes of that, I stopped. I was sweating buckets, and I was frustrated as hell, so I took a deep breath and yelled as loud as I could, put everything I had into it, and this time, Mike not only answered, he appeared, strolling up the South Group path, casual as you please. I won’t transcribe what I shouted at that point. Let’s just say it wasn’t very nice.

Satellite map, showing relative location of the South Group

It seems Mike had followed the signs to the South Group, a cluster of ruins that was a good two kilometers away from everything else. (See satellite map, above). He hadn’t realized it would be that far, so he simply kept going (and going, and going). It took him almost half an hour to reach the end, and another half hour to get back. He’d been expecting me to follow him, surprised that I hadn’t, though, by his own admission, the structures in the South Group weren’t anything special, not really worth the hike. I pointed at my watch. It was almost 3:00, leaving us just ninety minutes to visit three more sets of ruins? Quite simply, that wasn’t going to be possible.

I was furious, but there was no sense in taking it out on Mike. I had to blame myself, for not being more emphatic about our time constraints, and for not keeping closer tabs on him. Michael doesn’t wear a watch. That’s not the way he rolls.

Without belaboring the point, we beat feet back to the parking area, jumped in the Jeep, and headed off down the road to our next stop. Even though we were running low on time, I was determined to make the most of what we had left.

According to our map, Xlapak, the smallest of the Puuc Route sites, was just 3 miles up the road from Sayil, and Labna was two miles further. I wanted to stop at Xlapak first, so I kept an eye on my odometer. We passed Mile 3, and then Mile 4, but there were no signs of any kind, and I started to wonder if we’d missed it somehow.


The road was very narrow here, with no shoulder, like a country lane. I kept driving, and after another mile or so, I finally came to a sign: “ZA Labna,” (for Zona Arqueologica). We turned down an even narrower road, finally arriving at a tiny parking lot.

The road between Sayil, Xlapak, and Labna.

Next up: Labna

[Rick Quinn]

LABNA

Apparently, we’d driven right past Xlapak, but I figured we could look for it again on our drive back out. We bought our tickets for Labna, and I could see from the site map that the park was relatively compact.

Labna: Satellite View

Labna: Site Map

There was a palace near the entrance, connected by a sacbe to a cluster of monuments, including a pyramid and an arch. One of Frederick Catherwood’s best known engravings featured that very structure, the “Labna Arch,” and I was curious to see how the real thing compared to the 19th century art work.

The Labna Arch, a drawing by Frederick Catherwood published in 1841

Labna, which means “Old House” in the Yucatec Maya language, has been joined to Sayil, and, by extension, to Uxmal, through most of its history. Like Sayil, it’s a Late Classic site that flourished from 600 AD to 900 AD, and the architectural syle of it’s monumental structures is pure Puuc. The population declined around 1000 AD, but the city wasn’t totally abandoned until around 1200 AD, 200 years later than Sayil. Like Sayil, the first published reports of the ancient city were from Stephens and Catherwood, back in the 1840’s. Also like Sayil, it is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that incorporates Uxmal and the Puuc Route.

The Labna Palace, longest building in the Puuc region

Walking in, the first thing we saw was the huge building they call the Palace, a two story structure with a wing added to each end, bringing the total length to almost 400 feet, the longest such building in the Puuc region.


The lower walls feature square cut stones set into a concrete core, forming a smooth veneer…


…while the upper walls feature a cornice comprised of cut stone carved into rows of columns, alternating with carved geometric shapes, assembled into mosaic panels.


Included are several depictions of Chac, the big-nosed god of Rain.

These are all classic elements of Puuc Architecture.



Leading due south from the Palace was a sacbe, a raised causeway bordered by low stone walls on either side. I told Mike to stick close as I followed that path to the ceremonial plaza, where we got our first look at the Labna Arch:

















Like the Grand Palace of Sayil, the Labna Arch was a stunner, every bit as impressive as the famous engraving by Frederick Catherwood. The walls that once stood on either side of the arch are depicted in his drawing, but in the 175 years that have passed since his visit, they’ve fallen, leaving the arch standing alone. It’s what’s known as a corbeled arch, as opposed to a true load-bearing arch. The Maya never quite figured out the concept of a keystone, a wedge-shaped stone carved to fit at the top of an arch, where it’s locked in place by the equal weight of both sides. Even without the keystone, arches like this one were quite solidly constructed, and it’s not uncommon to see them still intact, after the rest of the wall or building to which they were once attached has long since crumbled to the ground. The Labna Arch was not a gateway into the city. Rather, it was a passage between two distinct segments of the ceremonial complex.

On the other side of the arch there was a ruined pyramid, crowned by a cube-shaped temple with a prominent roof comb. It’s called the Mirador, just like the Watchtower at Sayil, and the pyramid part of the structure is in similarly poor condition. To put it crudely, what’s left of it is little more than a pile of rocks. The stucco facing that once covered the sides is gone, leaving nothing but the stacked stones at the core. Like the Mirador at Sayil, the roof comb would have supported plaster sculptures or bas reliefs, painted in bright colors, and visible from a distance.

The Mirador, a ruined pyramidal temple similar to the Mirador at Sayil

Labna was small enough that we really didn’t need a lot of time to see it. The major structures, the Palace, and especially the Arch, were unique, and they were some of the finest examples of Puuc Architecture to be found anywhere. The same could most certainly be said of the Grand Palace at Sayil. These small cities are like the Mayan version of suburbs, satellites of the big town, in this case, Uxmal. All of these communities in the Puuc region were allied, politically, culturally, economically, and socially. The Puuc was the cradle of the Golden Age of the Maya. Labna and Sayil were among the brightest jewels in the crown of a realm that never quite coalesced into an empire.












Scenes in and around the ruins of Labna.

It was almost 4:00 PM when we left Labna. We were facing a two hour drive back to Campeche, and sunset happens at 6:30. The math was pretty simple: we had to be on the road and headed for the barn in just 30 minutes, or we’d be driving MX 261 in the dark. Kabah was obviously out of the question, but we might be able run in to Xlapak, snap a couple of photos, and run back out, just so we could say we’d been there. Of course, that was assuming that we could FIND Xlapak. On the drive from Sayil to Labna, we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the place.




This time, we spotted an unmarked side road, close to where the ruin was supposed to be, so we turned down it.


After about 100 yards, we spotted a sign that said Xlapak


and just beyond that, a tiny parking lot...

Next up: Xlapak

[Rick Quinn]

XLAPAK

By then it was 4:10, and according to the man in the ticket shack, Xlapak closes at 4:30, rather than the usual 5:00 PM. Since we only had 20 minutes, he let us go in for free, but we had to swear on our mother’s graves that we would hustle back out by closing time. (The guy told us that he had a hot date waiting for him in Santa Elena, and he didn’t want to be late!) I’m not going to say we ran, but we definitely hustled, following the caretaker’s brief instructions: down the path from the entrance, and straight ahead when we came to the fork. A five minute walk, at the most, to Xlapak’s version of a Palace.

Xlapak-Maps and Signs

The Palace, Xlapak’s only structure of any size, is a tiny thing when compared to the Palaces at Sayil and Labna. The building is so top heavy with Puuc style bric-a-brac, it’s a surprise that it hasn’t collapsed under its own weight. Each corner features stylized depictions of Chac, the god of rain, stacked three high, and at the front and rear of the building there are super-sized Chacs, large square mosaics, comprised of individually carved stones, assembled like pieces of a puzzle, and cemented in place.

Several views of the Palace at Xlapak, on the Puuc Route

We walked a little further to a second structure, this one an unreconstructed pile of rubble:



...and that was pretty much it for our visit to Xlapak. The caretaker locked the gates behind us as we left; I shook his hand, and thanked him for the favor of letting us dash in at the last minute.

WHAT WE MISSED:

The Mayan City of KABAH

Probably my biggest regret on our whole amazing road trip. We passed within five miles of Kabah, but we didn’t budget enough time to so much as stick our noses in the door. Kabah is the second largest Mayan city on the Ruta Puuc (after Uxmal), and it features many one-of-a-kind monuments. If we’d stuck to a schedule, we probably could have fit it in, but what the heck–we still had plenty of fun! (That said, if I ever revisit the Ruta Puuc, I’ll make a point of stopping at Kabah FIRST!)







We still had a two hour drive ahead of us, and we couldn't afford to waste a single minute!

Next up: A fast run back to Campeche