We flew to Cancun for two weeks at The Grand Bliss, part of the Vidanta beach resort in Riviera Maya, which is about 30 minutes south of Cancun on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
The resort buildings are all set in the midst of the jungle. None of the buildings are higher than three stories ... this is the view into the jungle from our third-floor balcony.
All of the buildings on the property are connected by miles of an incredible network of lighted wooden boardwalks . We very much enjoy walking them, listening to the calls of birds and spotting the many iguanas.
Here’s the first (small) one we saw ...
... and here’s an example of the much larger (5-8 feet) ones that are everywhere, including high in the trees!
Half-a-dozen native crocodiles also enjoy this fenced off area. Needless to say, the freshwater ponds on the property are off-limits!
We have access to a very nice beach club, with food and drink service ...
... around the pools ...
... between the beach and the pools ...
... and on the beach, in our own private, thatch-roofed palapa.
For our first offsite excursion, we took a tour to Chichen Itza, the most famous ancient Mayan city complex. It’s about 180 miles from Riviera Maya, so it was a very long, but very rewarding day trip. After driving south along the highly-developed coastal resort/tourist corridor, we turned west into the sparsely populated interior of the Yucatan.
We passed through isolated villages with shops offering local handicrafts ...
... stands selling fruits and vegetables ...
... and generally humble dwellings.
There is very little infrastructure (although almost every home had a satellite dish!). Six million inhabitants of the Yucatan read, write and speak Mayan, either primarily or alongside Spanish ... it is one of 68 language groups among Mexico’s 80 million people.
The Mayan villagers bury their dead above ground, and after the necessary time they move the bones into ossuaries to make room for more burials.
There are no rivers and very few lakes in the Yucatan. Other than wells, the only sources of fresh water are “cenotes,” sinkholes in the soft limestone bedrock that fill with rainwater; there are thousands of them across the Yucatan, many connected by underground streams. Each settlement and many individual farms ae located where they are because of access to a cenote. On the way to Chichen Itza, we visited Cenote Sagrado Suytun (Sacred Suytun).
Before entering the cenote, we were welcomed by a traditional Mayan shaman, who dipped these leafy branches in water and walked around our circle sprinkling us ... followed by an assistant carrying burning incense ... in a ritual of blessing much like a priest sprinkles and incenses the faithful before communion in a traditional Catholic service. Although 90% of the inhabitants of the Yucatan are Catholic, ancient and traditional Mayan religious forms and ceremonies persist alongside Christianity.
Then we descended a long flight of stone steps underground ...
... into the cenote. After stopping to take this photo, we continued down the long flight of stone steps to the carved stone seating terraces you see at the left in the photo. Young Mayans in traditional costumes played traditional music on drums, horns and flutes on the central stone platform (and were happy to pose for photos with visitors).
The sunlight streaming through the sinkhole was augmented by electric floodlights off to the right.
Visitors could swim ... the water was quite clear and there were any number of fish. Life jackets were mandatory (and we saw this enforced), because there is no hospital and no emergency service readily at hand in this remote location.
From the cenote, we went on to Chichen Itza with a great Mayan guide. It's the largest (about 4 square miles) of the archaeological cities of the pre-Colombian Mayan civilization on the Yucatan Peninsula. It thrived from about 600 to 1200 A.D. This is the Temple of Kukulcan, a massive step pyramid. We learned all about how the construction (number of steps, number of blocks used on each level, the orientation to the pat of the sun, etc.) related to astronomical observations, the sun, the seasons and therefore the basic concepts of a calendar. Really interesting! They used to let people climb the 91 steps to the top, but discontinued that when someone fell off and died.
This is the temple that you could see behind and just to the left of the Temple of Kukulcan in the previous photo. This was an actual temple where humans were sacrificed, with a market area stretching away to the right between the columns (and under a roof they supported).
The unrestored back sides of the Temple of Kukulcan.
The largest sports stadium in Mayan civilization, able to hold 30,000 spectators.
Inside, on this large field, two teams used their hips, elbows and other body parts to try to propel a large rubber ball through a stone ring high on the wall. Interestingly, the winners were executed ... apparently, they were happy to go straight to heaven and be honored in the afterlife. And the Mayans wanted to send only their best athletes to the gods!
From Chichen Itza, we moved on to Valladolid, a mid-size city on the way back to Riviera Maya. We enjoyed warm, freshly-made churros with chocolate and caramel sauces from a street vendor.
Musicians, singers and dancers entertained everyone in the main town square.
As always ... the Catholic cathedral on the square.
In any tourist town, the vendors are never far away!
We took another all-day, offsite tour. The first stop was Tulum, the only Mayan city built on the coast. This walled city was one of the last Mayan cities to be built ... around 1200 A.D.
The tallest building in the middle is El Castillo en Tulum (Tulum Castle). Not really a castle, it is believed to have been a private residence.
The cliffside views were beautiful ... but we wonder how the guys in this watchtower felt when Spanish ships showed up on their horizon!
Our tour included beach time at this beautiful spot directly below the Tulum ruins.
After Tulum, we visited Coba, a Mayan city of more than 50,000 inhabitants developed between 600 and 900 A.D. The developed area of Coba comprised more than 30 square miles, and only a small fraction has been reclaimed from the dense jungle.
The "Mayanball" court in Coba. As you can see, it is much smaller than the stadium court in Chichen Itza, and the walls are sloped, not vertical. That would seem much easier! Note clearly the two stone rings that served as the goals for what must have been a very demanding (and deadly) sport!
From the central area near the entrance, we took a 2.5 mile roundtrip in a Mayan-powered bicycle cart like these, on an ancient Mayan boulevard. We were headed to a main pyramid that is the highest known, and can still be climbed.
Along the way, we passed this watchtower ....
... and a number of other structures like this one.
Finally, we reached the big Nohouch Mul pyramid. It has 104 steps, and they are very high, irregular, slippery and steep. A single rope runs up the middle of the steps ... no handrails or guardrails anywhere. Paul went up, mostly on his hands and feet.
Paul's photo from the top. If you look closely enough, you can see Pam where the light comes to a point at the edge of the trees directly in front of the steps ... almost exactly in the center of the photo. She is standing with her arms outstretched like Christ of the Andes, praying that Paul doesn't fall off. It was a really treacherous descent ... like most, Paul went most of the way down on his butt.
It has been a very nice vacation, balanced between golf, beach time and learning a lot about the fascinating Mayan culture.
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