Ek Balam and the jungle fire

Day 3 dawned clear and gorgeous. We weren't sure what to do but we finally agreed that no matter how badly Robert wanted to snorkel, my burned body couldn't handle one more second in the sun unprotected. So we planned a day with lots of sunscreen, two hats, 2 long sleeved shirts, and a wrap to put over my hat!

(No. That's not the Yucatan. It's there to get your attention!)

We decided to drive the rental car to Ek Balam, which was on my bucket list. We knew it could be dicey, and had to hope we could avoid the cartels and taxis on the way. Pepe had told us the police, the taxis, and the cartels were all in cahoots together. He said they were all crooked. Playa del Carmen hadn't paid the cartels their money, so there was a big, ugly shootout. Now the best nightlife was found in Tulum, not PDC. And according to Pepe, we should avoid PDC, Cancun, Tulum at night, and anything where we might run into trouble. So Ek Balam seemed safe. Ho ho ho.

We showered and ate at the hotel, enjoying the staff and the food again. I got to show off what little Mayan I knew, and we joked with the staff and smiled a lot. I had the avacado smoothie bowl with walnuts, chia seeds and some sort of dates. The "sweet" part of the avacado was whipped to a yogurt consistency and swear that dish became my favorite food! I also had the eggs Benedict, which was nowhere near like the American version, but it had the softest "english bread" around, which was just an English muffin they ran through a warm room and smothered in butter. Perfect for me. The eggs were also incredible. The chef also has this habit of slicing the ham really thin and cooking it so it melts in your mouth like good bacon. The sauce was yellow but I have no clue what it was. Robert had a cinnamon roll that looked incredible and an omelette with everything in it, including goat cheese, mushrooms, and that great ham, plus we had the obligatory lattes we love so much.

We then packed up and headed for the Super Aki in Tulum. We stopped there and circled around, trying to find a parking spot. I had read all these reviews about cops having your car towed if you parked wrong, and the resulting circus involving taxis and huge bribes, so we tried to avoid that. But we found a good spot and went in, got our supplies including sunscreen and hats and shirts, and then hit the road. We took 180 towards Valladolid.

The trip was supposed to be 1 and 1/2 hours each way, give or take. We were on the road by ten. Our car is small and zippy and has great air conditioning, so we didn't realize how hot it was getting. We drove for a long time on 180. I swear it was solid jungle, creeping right up onto the highway. It looked a lot like a jungle version of some of the roads in New Hampshire, where you can't see a damn thing for MILES and everything is sort of encroaching on the highway, only more so. An iguana ran into the road at one point and I swore at Robert to miss the goofy critter. There were also jaguar crossing signs.

Periodically, like every 10 miles or so, we would pass a Yucatecan on the road, walking into the jungle or resting in the shade, picking up cans or bicycling with a load of construction materials. It was bizarre, mostly because it was 100 degrees out and there was nothing on the road but "jaguar crossing" signs and garbage. I'm not kidding about the jaguar crossing signs. 3 of them had been hit on the road near Tulum in the last month.

The garbage was insane. It couldn't have blown in. There's just no way for wind to blow through that jungle. Robert says there has to be illegal dumping going on. With the jungle so thick at the edges of the tiny highway, the garbage was solid for 100 kilometers. It was like a line of whipped cream smeared on the plate around the bottom of a cake. It was shocking. I did notice there were ranches here and there, and a pole for electricity parallel to the highway. I asked one of our Alea staff about it the next day. He said the ranches are like family farms. The ranch owner knows the jungle very well on their plot, and trespassers beware. I can't imagine how anything survives out there, ranch or not, especially humans.

We drove and talked and looked at routes and things, and turned west at a crossroads. There was a family sitting in that hot, hot sun with a small sunshade over them, right at the Alto! sign at the crossroads. As soon as we stopped there to turn left towards Valladolid, they swarmed our car. There was a little boy and two little girls. Robert rolled down his window to split up the change we had between those kids. They were selling oranges and some other fruits, but we didn't want to make the rental car all sticky, so Robert told them to keep the oranges. It was a bummer but sweet of him. One girl knocked on my window on my side and nearly scared the bejeezus out of me. I had no change except what I had dumped in the console, so I didn't roll down my window. But we quickly realized these kids were being very vocal and wanted us to buy more, or give them more money at the very least. Robert told them he had no more change, hoping they would move away from the car. But they were actually leaning on it. Then when the other kids started to walk away, one little girl on his side, a slightly older girl, started to whine. She said, "Ohhhh, Gringooooo. Moneeeeeeey." with a totally sad face and I couldn't decide whether to laugh or give her my wallet. She was so cute and so pouty. I burst out laughing, once we were finally out of earshot.

So we drove along highway 295 for a while, periodically being passed by taxis or small cars. Robert knew to stay between 90 and 100 km/hour, to avoid kerfuffles with the police. But locals drove like banshees, flying past us with half a dozen people in the bed of their truck or with little kids with their heads stuck out the sunroofs like weasels on a prairie. I worried about those little kids.

We knew we were getting close to Valladolid when we started seeing stucco huts by the road that were not abandoned, some with wares in the front area. There were wicker hanging chairs that were huge and had many different shapes, from round to triangular, and gorgeous mosaic tiles, plates, and animals. We weren't positive where to go, but somehow we found the next turn to go north to Ek Balam. It was fairly close to Valladolid and I started getting excited.

Ek Balam is a Yucatec-Maya archaeological site and is literally titled Zona Archeologica Ek Balam on all the signs. It was the seat of the king who actually ruled over Chichen Itza in the 8th century, and houses the tomb of said king, called Ukit Kan Leʼk Tok'. Ek stands for either Black or Bright star, no one knows for sure. And Balam stands for either Jaguar, which was the assumption for many years, or witz monster which is the current thinking. I like Star Jaguar, so that's what I'll think of it as.

When we got to the site, there was a fire in the jungle. You can see it in my pictures. I don't imagine jungle fires burn real well with all that humidity. The fire had jumped the road we were coming in on, and no one seemed to care. Then again, when was the last time you heard about a raging jungle fire in the Yucatan? Plus, who the hell would respond to fight a fire? They can't even get out there to finish excavating the damn site!

We pulled in and found a parking spot, but we were approached right away by a young guy telling us "Buenos tardes. ¿Yo hablo espanol?" And telling us we needed to pay him for parking. One of the scams I'd read about was locals charging for the parking when it should be free. Refuse them at your peril, I had read, because they can have you towed and it becomes a police, taxi, cartel nightmare that ends with you paying a huge bribe slash fine. I told Robert to pay the kid, which is what everyone says is the smart thing to do. But Robert pointed to the free parking sign and ignored the guy, saying he was going to go look at a vendor's booth before we went to the site entrance. We played cat and mouse for like 5 minutes, with me telling him to just pay the kid and him refusing. The people in the car next to us said they paid 20 pesos, so Robert grudgingly gave him 50. He turned to me after and said I was a terrific negotiator. I gave him a raspberry.

We packed water bottles in the bag I'd brought and set out for the site entrance. It was hot. Africa's got nothing on the Yucatan. The humidity got to me pretty quickly but Robert looked unfazed the whole hike. We didn't know there was a fee but when we got to the ticket building we paid it and got our tickets. We declined a guide only because we couldn't afford it without finding an ATM, which wasn't likely. So we started out on the first sacbe' road on our own.

The path winds through a cluster of vendors. We stopped and paid two costumed actors dressed as Mayans to let us take pictures of them with Robert. Their costumes were gorgeous but it was strange to me because the true Mayan descendants we had talked to were like 4 feet tall and these two actors were Robert's size. It dawned on me it might be because their heritage was inclusive, not exclusive.

The first glimpse we got of the ruins was mellow. You could see a tall building in the distance and several small buildings including one to the right and one to the left. There were two teenage girls posing for photos in a giant X shape in an archway and lots of people milling around the medium sized building in the middle. We chose to turn and follow the edge of the walkway to the right. There were huge "soul" trees and spiked trees in the area as well as dozens of birds. Some of the birds were black, some were reddish quail types in groups, and some were vivid lemon yellow. They sang beautiful, soft bird calls that warbled over the hot, humid air like something from a dream. We hiked up the stairs to the right, peeked in doorways, looked out into the jungle beyond the right hand building. Than went back down the stairs and wandered a bit.

We stepped inside small rooms at the base of the central building and walked hand in hand through the ball court area that was covered in grass. The Ball Court was a huge deal in Mayan society. The game was used to decide political maneuvers and determine wars. Victors were honored with beheading! We started walking North again, heading the same way we'd been heading when we first walked up to the site, and suddenly realized there was a huge building on the other side of some tall trees. You could see glimpses of an enormous set of stairs through the trees. My heart skipped a beat, but it might have been from the debilitating heat.

When we got past the trees, we were greeted to an amazing sight. The largest temple I've personally ever seen stood in front of us. The main temple has ten open doorways on each side of the stairway, in a line at the base of the building. There are four plateaus with ornate plaster or stucco carvings, mostly intact. The stairway was massive. There was a large group of tourists of all colors, shapes, and sizes gathered at the edge of the trees, obviously taking in the scope of the temple. There were people taking pictures with huge lenses and couples struggling to take photos of one another with the temple in the background, without being photo-bombed. There were a couple dozen human beings at different places on the stairs, some sitting and resting, some holding the stairs above them whether they were on the way up or down, either way. I walked right over and started climbing.

Halfway up I was pouring sweat off my body as though someone had a water jug upside down above my head. My face felt like it was on fire. I wasn't wheezing, but good gawd it was hot. We stopped halfway up so we could look at the first plateau. We eyeballed the golden yellow statues and carvings and noted the rooms. We started up the stairs again and I swear it felt like I would tumble backwards if I tried to look up, so it felt like it took way too long to get up those stairs. I passed parents and children, teenagers and old people. There was no way to get into the highest platform at the top without wriggling up a skinny little section to the right, stepping on 1 foot long wooden rounds pressed into the tiny walkway space, with no handholds in sight. It occurred to me how surprising it was that there weren't more deaths reported up there. Two young burly guys pushed passed me as I stopped to consider that walkway.

I got to the top and tried to catch my breath. Have I mentioned it was 100 degrees and we were in full sun? The Yucatan is closer to the equator than Oregon so the sunshine is more direct and brutal. I fanned myself with the two sides of the white wrap that was draped over my hat and considered the view. I tried to commit the view to memory. I know from studying that the bumps in the jungle canopy in the distance are as-yet un-excavated temples. I know the jungle beyond where we were standing is home to Jaguars and pit vipers. I know there are undiscovered cenotes in that jungle, sinkholes filled with miraculously clear water filtered by thousands of years of earth processing. Can you imagine what the ancient Mayans thought of the cenotes in this inhospitable jungle?

I considered throwing myself back down the steep stairway to avoid the unrelenting heat.

We finally walked back down the temple stairs, holding onto the stairs above us and walking sideways. My thighs were burning halfway down so we checked out the plateau on the left. (Right, from the down-orientation.) The tomb of the king was on that side. The mouth of the jaguar was on that side. The best carvings and statues were on that side. I listened as a couple of women told their kids to come see the part of the temple that had been used as "el bano". The carved figures were mesmerizing.

We hiked the rest of the way down and walked to the last side building towards the beginning. There were sacbe' roads leading into the jungle and we walked them a little ways, coming across a huge striped iguana, and turned back when we realized there was an entire family walking reverently down the road the same way we were walking. It felt like we had less right to be there. Robert said "it's a service road, that's all" and turned back. Service road. In the jungle. He cracks me up.

I finally realized I was still pouring sweat and was starting to lose vision. My eyes were seeing black tunnels and it came and went. I was convinced I couldn't go another step, but I just looked at Robert and told him I needed to get back to the car. We went back to the car. We sat in the air conditioning for a while and the nausea and black vision went away. Robert said I looked really overheated for a long time, but that my cheeks were back to being normal color finally. So. We bought a deep blue blanket with the Mayan calendar on it at the vendor near the car and then headed out, back to Valladolid. The fire had jumped the road again.

When we got Valladolid, we decided to park and wander the city park near the Spanish Iglesia de San Servacio, which was built in 1545. We parked a block away and wandered the central square. Unfortunately, the cathedral was closed up and obviously not available for any viewing. But the park was beautiful. The birds were singing like crazy, as though we were in a zoo. There were also these crazy chairs that consisted of two chairs facing each other but sort of side by side, like an S if you looked down on them from above. There were tourists there, to be sure. But many of the people were these tiny, beautiful, brown Mayans with pristine white linen clothes and perfectly coiffed hair. It was wonderful to shyly watch them go about their business and to smile at them with their babies and their grandmothers and their every day lives. One woman with several heavy bags stopped on the street to rest in the shade, restlessly shifting the bags in her hands. She felt the heat like I felt it.

(Photo by Matteo Colombo)

We bought some souvenirs and had a couple cold bottles of Coke, then went back to the car and headed home to Tulum. We made one stop on the way at a fruit stand. I bought a cucumber, two tomatoes, two green lime-looking oranges and something that looked like a pear-mango cross that I ate while standing at the vendor.

When we got back to Tulum, we went back to the hotel and quickly threw on our bathing suits. I put on a shirt and wrap to cover all my sunburn and we asked the hotel staff if we could take kayaks out. They got them in the water at the waterline and off we went. It was about 6pm. We kayaked the ocean from the beach to the breakwater where the reef starts. It was about a mile each way. The ocean kayaks are wider, and thank gawd. They were more stable in the wild water with the afternoon wind. But oh, that kayak back towards the beach was incredible with the setting of the sun. What a vacation.

We quickly showered and changed and told the staff we were heading to town for dinner, in case they were in the habit of holding the restaurant open for MIA guests. We then drove to Tulum and found parking on a side street. We walked around amidst the crazy, vibrant night life for a while. Eventually we made our way to the Municipal building and found two basketball teams playing each other on a tennis court in the middle of a carnival. Locals were everywhere.

We wandered deeper and ended up on a side street at a hole in the wall eatery called Fabuloso. We ordered tacos and sopes and tamarindo sodas and ate the food slathered with whatever that firewater sauce was in the cup on the table. Robert cried, it was so hot. Dinner cost 110 pesos which is around $5. He tipped the waitress another hundred and she stared at him like he had two heads. We both assured her and she took the money. She was so sweet.

We found an ice cream shop two doors down and got little cups of local ice cream. We wandered while we ate them. On the main strip, we bought a couple more souvenirs, including skulls for the boys and a t-shirt for Robert. We bought a supposedly Cuban cigar for me, and we oogled lots of local handcrafted jewelry that was truly amazing. We talked to some locals and turned down a few silly offers for exorbitant wares.

We decided we were beat and went back to our car and drove home. Robert sat with me on the pretty, long hotel dock on the Caribbean behind our hotel while I smoked my cigar, then we went back to our room and hit the hay. It was the world's most perfect day, second only to yesterday.