Cancun & Tulum

Facing an enormous backlog but never liking to fully abandon anything (ever like a guy who takes 12 years to finish a second bathroom), please bear with me while I bring my travels up to speed. Descriptions will be terse, as I'm short on time and I realize many are probably only looking at the pictures anyway.

I was in Cancun for one night. I won't dwell on this most American of places in Mexico, as it pretty much lives up to all of the well known cliches it is known for (yes, I was even offered to take a shot of some neon green beverage directly from the cleavage of a hefty American co-ed, a total stranger). The drive to Plaza 21 showed us some of the enormous sprawling anyomous 2nd world city that supports the hotels isolated to the sliver of sand bar along the coast. The view above is from one of the few publicly accessible portions, which illustrate the great discrepancy of resort culture here on the Mayan Riviera or anywhere: the most beautiful beaches pair off with some of the cheapest urbanism imaginable.

Further south is the village of Tulum, whose beaches, nearly as nice as Cancun's but without the looming 30 story hotels and unquestioned acceptance of US $$s has made it the spot on the Riviera for hippies and wannabes the world over. Above is the low-impact cabana we stayed in. It's nice to sleep with the sound of the waves only a few dozen feet away, although the early morning spray has no trouble finding its way through the cracks in the wall and the mosquito nets onto your face. Besides that and the food, I cannot really complain about Tulum, as it's a great cheap alternative to the resorts further north, and I met only amazing and very nice people there.

Tulum, of course, is named for the Mayan ruins located there. Unlike most Mayan ruins, this citadel was still occupied when the Spaniards started to venutre out from their Carribean outposts and explore the mainland coast. Also unique is the fact that this site is surrounded by a protective wall like a medieval European or Chinese town (most Mesoamerican sites had no perimeter walls) and that it is backed up against the coast instead of tucked deep in the jungle. This later fact, that there is a beach within the archealogical zone itself, makes Tulum a place to satisfy history buffs and sun worshippers alike.

The portals there particularly struck me. Take this one in the city wall, utilizing the typical Mayan corbbled arch. It is particularly telling of the height of Mayans and the fact that they had no pack animals. And some of the entrances to the ceremonial structures have an uncanny resemblance to the preachers door in the wedding scene in Beetlejuice.

Well, so much for short entries.

Izamal & Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza, a Mayan complex in the Yucatan dating from more or less the time of Robin Hood and the days of the Cursades, is now the picture postcard site of the Mayan world. The complex is, from my now not so limited experience of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican sites, the most throughly excavated and accessible of all the Mayan sites. It's proximity to Cancun (about 2 hours away) ensure that it is daily thronged by flip-flop slapping tourists of every origin. It's a double edged sword: here you have the most clear image of anywhere what the ceremonial precinct of a Mayan city may have actually looked like (that is, lacking much of the charm and romance of the overgrown jungle sites mentioned before), but no longer populated with priests and kings but with unending rows of hawkers and gawkers. The sheer numbers and international prominence also unfortunately mean that the authorities here actually make the effort to keep you off the steps promoting some semblance of safety lacking in the less known, less accessible sites.

And now to some pictures and comments....
The great pyramid of Kukulcan (a diety of roughly the status of Jupiter in Mediterranean mythology; please forgive me those actually educated in the religions of Mesoamerica, as I know the comparison is crude one by a gringo guerro).As described earlier, Chichen Itza reached it's zenith much later than other prominent Mayan sites like Palenque, Tikal, or Uxmal. It dates from the late classic period, and was probably the most important site from that epoch. By that time, Mayan architecture was showing a great deal of influence from the Toltecs (from central Mexico, around my current home in Mexico City). The talud-tablero and the bombastic supersize character of sites like Teotihuacan is a little evident, although I still feel Chichen Itza reveals the Mayans capacity for surface finesse and spatial manipulation lacking in other parts of Mexico.

And again I see a little Futurism in these very old ruins.

The Mayans mastery of astronomy is well known, of course, as it's influence on their architecture. One of the great spectacles of this marriage of architecture and solar phenomena is in the bi-annual appearance (at the equinoxes) of the body of the snake slithering down the steps of the pyramid to connect with his stone head, shown above. Of course, in June, there is only hit and miss sunshine, and we arrived on particularly wet, cloudy afternoon.

Some more piles of stone to awe and wonder about...

The ball court, the largest I've seen anywhere in Mexico, where they probably did play some life or death games (after watching a few soccer games in cantinas here in Mexico, I don't see that much has changed in the seriousness of sports in this culture, new or old).
A whole different world of columnar orders developed here. I was very intrigued by the alternating round and rectangular columns near the palace of a thousand columns. And each column is etched with heiroglyphs telling a living history.
The stones remain but most of the city, the vulgar city, is always long lost to the jungle. These excavation shelters on the grounds of the sacred precinct are a little telling of where the people probably lived, and what surrounded the pyramids for kilometers in every direction. One can also get a glimpse of the geology of the Yucatan and it's poor agricultural prospects. Thank goodness for the hordes of tourists....
Physically close but a world away in atmosphere from Chichen Itza is the colonial town of Izamal. It is a yellow city; that is, everything here is painted yellow, an urbanistic strategy that while a little paternalistic does wonders for imagibility. It's not a big tourist draw; we had the city pretty much all to ourselves excluding the scant local population. The center is defined by two plazas doglegged around a third, elevated plaza which is the semi-private courtyard of a still active monastery.
The elevation is subtle but still affords a commanding presence in the city. The explanation for this height difference is that the monastery was built on top of a pyramid, a typical move in the effort to assert Christianity's dominance over the fiercely independent Yucatan Mayans (who continued to war with the government in Mexico city until even as recently as the 1930s). There are other, more recently excavated pyramids in the city center close to the church as well. A ubiquitous reminder of the extensiveness of this lost civilization.
The other very characteristic thing about Izamal besides it's sunny hue are the arcades: they are everywhere...on the vulgar plazas...
And the religious.
A courtyard in the monastery haunted by monks and living apparitions alike.

The grand ramp and a sub-Asian well out of context...

And the courtyard plaza...note that the inner and outer row of columns making up the arcade/breezeway are NOT aligned, an architectural idosyncracy I have rarely, if ever seen. It breaks the spatial continuity of the 3 plazas and heightens the enclosure of the sacred space.
A staircase to a hidden chapel.And from the chapel one can see another, more modern typical roof application in the Yucatan: the zigzag, sort of crenallated concrete kind perfect for shedding the 20 inches or so of rain that fall here every year.