The Biggest Mayan Pyramid Discovered

What does it feel like to lay eyes on one of the largest Mayan pyramids ever built? You can't see the top. This past weekend, we bit the bullet and went to Calakmul (kah-lahk-MOOL), a major Mayan center that is now in an ecological preserve on the border of Guatemala. Getting there was more than half of the battle. We first had to take a second class bus, bobbing and weaving our way to Hopelchen, a small pueblo about two and a half hours south of Merida. This was the last stop for gas so to speak... where we were going was OUT of the realm of civilization. Hopelchen is the last chance for anything... including money. We hopped on a bus straight from there and headed south for Xpujil (Ish-poo-HEEL) and ended up getting of two and a half hours later in a tiny town called Zoh Laguna (Soh Lah-GOON-ah). Now by tiny, I mean maybe 30 houses. And a public library that has a total of about 50 books. There we stayed in some very shady cabañas until morning...

There is no way to get around in the south of Mexico... no buses, no collectivos, no combis, no nothing. We hired a taxi triver for the day for 1000 pesos to take us wherever we needed to go until 5:00 pm. He came and picked us up that morning at 7:00 and we were on our way to one of the biggest and most important sites ever excavated. To get there is two hours more. We had to pay a hundred some more pesos to get into the ecological reserve, and pretty soon we were making out way through the jungle, spotting the occasional turkey (which are super colorful there... more like peacocks or parrots!) When we finally arrived... guess what? It was another one kilometer walk to the ruins on a jungle path.

After a rough total of 9 hours of travel time, we were standing there in the centro of Calakmul. This ancient city shows well the ongoing attempt by the jungle to trump stone architecture. There are trees growing right out the middle of the temple steps. The buildings themselves are all huge... many are at least the size of Chichen Itza's world wonder, El Castillo (though perhaps not as elegant). They are all very close in proximity... it really does feel like an ancient downtown area!

Calakmul is Mayan for 'Two Mounds.' This name was given to this site by a botanist who first spotted the city while flying over it. Believe it or not, Calakmul's existance was known in the 1930's but remained untouched until 1982. The excavation of the site still continues today... it is probably only about 15% excavated... even the grand pyramids. This city reached its height around 500-700 A.D. It was as powerful capital in its heyday, affecting other giant centers like Tikal (Guatemala), Palenque and Copan. There are all sorts of legends... many of which include a Mayan princess of Calakmul who was forced into a marriage of alliance with the king of Tikal, a city not far to the south. Because research on this city is so recent, there is not much known about the history, and many enlightening artifacts, sculptures, buildings and stelas are still being excavated.

As in its name, Calakmul has two major pyramids. They are the two biggest pyramids ever found in Mexico. The base of the second larges is 5 acres... and you can't see the top from the bottom step. There are said to have been several incarnations of this temple... which I believe simply because it is so huge. Excavation of this temple still continues. Workers were pushing around their wheelbarrows and going in and out of the door in the middle of the pyramid's giant steps. Rumor has it that there is a fabulos frieze inside of the temple that has in-tact stucco work to rival any other work ever found. Just my luck... that wasn't open to the public! When we got to where we thought was the top, we looked up... and there were MORE stairs... a temple on top of a temple! I don't know how high up we were... but from where we stood, we could see the temple of Tikal across the border of Guatemala. Guatemala's border is about 65 kilometers away, and Tikal is at least another 60 after that! The wind up there was amazing!

Just behind THAT pyramid is the larger one (if you can believe that!) This pyramid is much more typical (as opposed to a temple on top of a temple), and the steps are much narrower and steeper. A tumble down that one and you are a goner for sure!

I guess if I could use one word to describe Calakmul, it would just be 'GIANT.' You feel like a little ant there. We had a limited time to explore the site, unfortunately, because there were many others that we wanted to see. Calakmul sits right in the region known as the Rio Bec Region, which has 45 known ruins (there are probably more undiscovered!). All of these ruins are a mixture of Peten and Puuc architecture style (Peten being more stern-feeling, and Puuc being very geometric and ornate). We ended up making it to four ruins in all that day... a personal record for me... the most I have seen in a day is three!

We went to Chichanná (Chich-ah-NAH), Becán (bay-KAHN), and Balamkú (Bah-lahm-KOO). I felt like a little spider monkey, crawling all over ruins, trying to scale walls and sneak up onto closed-off levels of old buildings... but it was fun (and I am still alive, which is definitely a plus for me!) Each of these sights held something of interest...

Balamkú: This only has one main temple, similar in style to Ek Balam, which is just north or Chichen Itza. On the left side, one can enter the temple and see inside an incredible facade that was once the outside of the building. The stucco shows the earth monster, as well as portrayals of the undersorld and the main Mayan god, Itzamná (Eats-ahm-NAH).

Chicanná: The first temple is a three story building that is done in Puuc style with the rain god Chaac adorning all corners. You can climb all over this little building, which made it fun, hopping through mysterious doorways and such. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a way to get to the very top floor... well, I should say: it would be easy to get UP there, but getting down would have been impossible. One slip of the foot, and you would fall 30 feet to the rocks below... so that put the kabosh on that! There were two other buildings at Chichanná. One looked like a palace where a Mayan princess (aka ME) might live. The other was a long building that still had red, blue, and yellow paint on it. In the center was an image of Itzamná, whose wide, toothy mouth was the entryway to the building. We had some camera fun there, pretending that we were getting eaten by a Mayan god for a blood sacrafice... 'cause we're mature like that.

Becán: This site was huge, with buildings easily as large as those of Uxmal! The buildings were Peten-style... and very large. This was the last site we saw, so by the time we climbed the largest pyramid there... we were tuckered out. The cool thing here was that it has a super-long tunnel that once served as a road (who knows WHY they needed a tunnel instead of an open road??) Anyway, there are small niches in the tunnel where the Mayans used to leave sacrificial offerings to the gods of the underworld. This site also had a ball court (though the rings can't be found, so they suspect they were wooden, as was done in many Peten cities), and a large frieze showing some sort of somehting that I couldn´t make out. The problem with Becán was that there were SOO many people there (What?!) and the glass in front of the stucco was almost opaque, you could hardly see it! It was a cool site, though, for sure!

Having run out of money with no banks in site, we returned to our little hotel of cabañas. I stopped by a little quick-mart and bought a tomato, a red onion and an avocado and made my own guacamole for dinner (I think that and the chips cost me about 20 pesos). We were all so tired from traveling from site to site and climbing things that we all passed out almost right away...

Getting home was equally as ridiculous as getting there... if not more so. There was only ONE bus leaving to go back toward civilization, and that was at 4 in the morning! We talked to the owner of the hotel (who was SUCH a sweetheart!) and he took us out to the bus stop at 3:30 and waited for us. The stars are easily the most beautiful I have ever seen... even more so than in the Grand Canyon. The closest city is Chetumal... an entire STATE away! The bus was filthy at best... and we ended up getting back into Merida around 9:30, which was pretty good timing! I had hardly slept... so I went to mass in the Cathedral in the centro... and then went home and slept.

It was a crazy weekend, and a perfect way to punctuate my trips to Mayan ruins. Perhaps not though... there may be time for more, I guess we will have to see! We are busy making plans to go to Calcetok, the much sought-after caves that have been so illusive for so very long!