Children of the Stars – Cozumel, Mexico – [11/17/2018]

Anyone who knows me knows that it takes a lot to get me up and running before 7am; but there are two things that will always manage it. One, is a Disney park – of which there isn’t one in Mexico – and one is a chance at seeing an archeological site.

And there are plenty of those in Mexico.

So it was that I was up at 6:45 to grab breakfast and hit the road on a rather long trip. Including a very rough ferry ride over to the island where the site is. Honestly, the ferry ride was the only difficult part of the trip – apparently no one mentioned to the designers of said ferry that it’s best to use a catamaran style when you’re plowing through waves like that – let’s just say a lot of people got sea-sick!

But…once we got to where we were going. It was beyond worth it.

Originally I had tried to get the slot that would take me to Chitzen Itza – but that tour had completely filled up, so there was no slot free for a crew escort. But I did get my second choice – and it turns out, my second choice, should have been my first.

The ruins at Coba are some of the oldest Mayan ruins in existence. They are actually older than Chitzen Itza. The site is so vast that only a tiny percentage of it has even been uncovered, and seeing it all would take days. I was grateful for the fact that the tour did not require us to walk the miles of trails between the buildings that are open to the public – instead we were whisked along in tuk-tuk like trike-cabs, which definitely made things a lot easier. Had we more time, I would have loved to have just wandered…though I probably would have gotten myself terribly lost. This place, it’s not…it’s not ours. Places like this belong to the ages, and to the jungle, we just seem to be lucky enough once in a while to catch a glimpse of what was once here.

There are so many theories as to why the ancient Mayans vanished, though the one I think most likely is that they ran out of water. A precious and precarious balance with nature’s resources got tipped too far and they were forced to just abandon everything; it’s something we could learn from, because we are now teetering on the very edge of that same balance. But we really know so little about them. As I sat listening to the guide speak on the history of the place, I found myself listening more to the trees; their whispers have long replaced the long ago whispers of the shamans who once walked the plaza where we were sitting. Shamans that were male and female, and had to master 6 different sciences to even get close to that position. I could have just sat there, and listened to those trees, for hours, just to see what they might have to say…

There are two ballcourts open to the public on the site; for years I’ve always been taught that the Mesoamerican ballgame was a ceremony that preceded human sacrifice. But according to our guide, that was a particularly gruesome myth set in place by the Spanish to justify their own slaughter of the Mayan civilization. I’m very curious as to which side of this history is true, and find that I’ll probably be doing more digging on it. This is the second time I’ve walked through a ballcourt, and I got the same feeling I did the last time – an odd combination of peace and resignation. Whatever happened here, it was serious, and it was important.

But the highlight of the whole site is the pyramid. Huge and towering, and one of the only ones remaining that you can still climb. A feat that probably won’t be possible for many more seasons, as it is likely going to follow in the path of the other sites and be closed down for climbing in order to preserve the building itself. Thousands of years of people climbing these steep uneven stairs, eventually lead to degradation. The price of keeping the site safe, is that we will soon only be able to admire it from behind a rope. At the moment though, I was able to clamber up those thousands-year old stones all the way to the top. And the few from the top, is …breath-taking. There are no mountains in the Yucatan, and so when you’re standing at the top of the pyramid looking out, and you see anything that looks like a mountain – it isn’t , it’s another temple, another pyramid, or another whole Mayan city that is still buried beneath acres and acres of jungle. In some cases not even reachable.

If there’s anything that can make you feel very very small.

Going up was easy.

Going back down?

Going back down was very very scary. You see, climbing up you aren’t really aware of high up you’re going. But climbing back down, you can see nothing but how high up you are. And because the steps are uneven, you can’t really be certain where your footing is going. Thousands of years of footfalls have worn the stones shiney and slippery. So unless you want to take a huge risk, you clear your pride and do the smart thing – sit down, and slide carefully down step by step just like you were a toddler sliding down carpeted stairs at home.

Having made it safely to the bottom I took one step onto the flat ground and nearly felt my knees go out from under me. That much climbing, and your limbs kind of do turn to jelly. I remember feeling the same way when I climbed up and down Jacob’s Ladder on St Helena years ago.

But it was so utterly worth it.

I find myself completely fascinated by how much the ancient Mayans could have told us. They were so massively advanced. I mean here was a civilization that had mastered advanced astronomy, could carve granite and basalt supposedly without advanced tools. They knew so much that we didn’t, or perhaps they were just far more open to what they could know than we are. They called themselves the children of the stars…and I think perhaps we may be the fools to not accept what they meant by that. Could all of this really honestly have been possible without outside help?

If we just open our ears, and our eyes…there is so so much we have yet to learn.