Coba & Tulum

Monday morning began with meeting our LDS tour guide at 8 am in the lobby. The couple we'd met on our shuttle, who were also LDS, were interested in going with us, so it was just the 4 of us with our tour guide, Alma. It was such a fun day! For those of you who may not know, I studied Art History in college and if I could've done anything else with my life, I would've been an archaeologist. So, taking me on a tour like this was like putting a kid in a candy store! We drove out to Coba first. It was about 45 minutes away or so, from Playa. On the way in to the ruins, there is a restroom, we used. It was a reminder of just how poor they are there. There is a woman who passes out toilet paper and paper towels to you and asks for tips in return. You're also not allowed to flush toilet paper there (kinda gross); they just have a bucket in your stall for that. I know, kinda graphic, but its how it is there.

They have bikes you rent or rickshaws you can hire, to ride in to the ruins. So, we each grabbed a bike and head into the jungle trail. Our first stop was at a ball game court. The Mayans played a game called Pok to Pok (probably misspelled). It was a game where you use your entire body to hit a ball around. On either side, there are steep slanted ledges, with a vertical hoop you try to get the ball in, without using limbs. It was so neat! There are also Steele's on display (large stones with carvings). When you look around, as Alma told us, the terrain there is totally flat, so wherever you see a hill covered it trees, it is most likely a ruin that's been grown over. It just kills me to see so many yet to be unveiled that just sit there! I would love to help open them!

We then rode into the main ruin, which you can still climb. It's the steepest ruin you can still climb in Mexico. It was the temple. There's so much more to tell, that esp. Mormons would find interesting. I'm not doing it justice. She spoke of how all of the native cultures up and down Mesoamerica and even into north and south America have an oral tradition of the "mystery white, bearded god" who descended from heaven. Of course, we as Mormons, know this was Jesus Christ, visiting his people who were "not of this fold," just after his resurrection. She showed us a map of all the various cultures and their "god" who represents this "mystery, white god," and is virtually the same God, Jesus. I'm going to post that map for you. You can see versions of this symbol at the top of the temples there. The one you see represented at Coba and Tulum, is Kukulcan (again, probably misspelled). It's in the slideshow. Kukulcan is represented by a man who is upside down - you can see from the image his loin cloth with the two legs jutting out from either side and his head upside down. This is representing his descent from the sky. It was probably close to 80 degrees that day, and sssooo humid. But, regardless, we didn't go all the way to Mexico for nothing; we climbed to the top of the ruin! I have to say it was a little daunting to look down from the top! I took a shot of that too for the slideshow!

On the way out we stopped by another area they refer to as "The Crossing Place." It was a rock structure almost in the shape of a beehive. This apparently was a place of trade for those traveling the "highways" there which were literally raised up roads with white gravel, called Sac Be's (sock bay, phonetically). We also stopped by another cluster of ruins and Alma told us that through surveys, they have been able to conclude that there are actually 1600 different buried ruins at Coba over a 70 km radius.

Shortly after the tour of Coba, we hopped back into the shuttle van and Alma took us to a local restaurant for lunch. It was muy excellente! I thought it was cool to try out the chicken they bake in banana leaves. All of it was yummy. In one of the last slideshow pictures, you can see the tops of one of the Coba ruins through the trees from the restaurant.

I decided to make two different slideshows; one for each set of ruins. There's so much to show!



Shortly after lunch, it was time to move on to our next destination.....Tulum. Tulum is gorgeous because of the setting. It's right on the ocean.

Once you're inside the city walls, it is less grown over, so you can more easily get a feel for the "city" environment that was there. Alma said that typically only the "higher ups" or "officials" would live within the city walls, and the commoners would live without. There are large structures here, and many smaller fragments that look like maybe 3 rows high of rock, which she explained were foundations of once larger buildings. She also explained that many of the stone structures were ruined by the Spanish when they invaded; they took the stones to build their churches.

Here, there are cool ruins like the "eye of the needle" ( I think it was called), where the sun shines through when it is time for the harvest and when it was time to plant. It's amazing how advanced these people were. Again, Kukulcan is represented at the top of the temple here. What's amazing is Alma's speculation where at the top of this temple, there are 3 openings and above the openings, 3 different frieze's (moldings that protrude, decorations). One of them, on the far left shows the Highest God (Heavenly Father), the middle shows Kukulcan (Jesus Christ), and the third is intentionally empty (The Holy Ghost). I'm telling you, it was absolutely fascinating, and there was a really serene, almost sacred feeling there, that I felt, which made me feel like I'm part of something so huge (the gospel), that goes back so far. It's so amazing to think of all the things that probably happened there.

Again like I said, I am so not doing any of these places, justice. There's so much to tell and Alma was a wealth of information. Everyone in the area of Mexico we were in, seem to make their living off of the tour industry. Alma told us that her parents, who used to live in the U.S. at one time, felt they needed to go back to Mexico (where they originate) to share with the LDS people what they know about their native land. Her parents are converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and have raised all their children to know about the ruins and their native lands, and be LDS tour guides. So, if you ever go out to Mexico, I can hook you up with a very cool tour guide. Alma and her brother Lemuel are in the same area, and there are many other siblings too; Mosiah, Helaman to name a couple others. Alma was a very sweet lady and you could feel what a good person she was, from being around her. She has kids who are in school out here in the States and she has offered when she comes into town in February, to visit our family and do a special Family Home Evening for our extended family. We're really excited about that!



After our tour of Tulum, Alma went back to the shuttle to wait with the driver, while we and our new friends, the Rose's swam on the beach. It was very cool to be swimming on the beach with the Ruins on the hill above, and just taking in all that has happened where you are. Amazing to think we were swimming in an area that was once a major trading post. Also, Alma pointed out to us that there is the second largest reef just off the beach there, second to the Great Barrier Reef, where supposedly there is some of the greatest snorkeling. After playing in the water and cooling off, we went back to the shuttle and went off to our last destination; a cenote. Cenote's are very cool. They're rivers that sometimes run underground, and sometimes in caves. The water is absolutely crystal clear. It has a gorgeous blue tone and you can see all the rocks and fish and water life, swimming around in them. The water at this particular cenote was still cold; I'd say probably a little under 70, but was still tolerable. Not to mention, with the humidit and the heat, it felt good. Michael went up top to cliff dive off a small clearing, into the cenote. It was beautiful. We were done that day by around 4:30 or so.

After Alma dropped us back off at the hotel, we went and got cleaned up. It think that night we were so wiped out we didn't make it to the evening entertainment put on by the Riu. We did, of course, manage to have enough energy to walk the beach and sit on the patio above the sand, and watch the moon reflect off the blue-green water. Fun memories.

Pictures coming