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March 31, 2008
Cobá Ruins
On our last morning in Playa del Carmen, Brent and I woke up early and rented a Jeep Wrangler to take to the Cobá ruins off in the Yucatan Jungle. There are three main ruins sites in the Yucatan, Chichen Itza, Tulúm, and Cobá. Chichen Itza is the one that everybody goes to with that giant Mayan pyramid I'm sure you've all seen someplace or other. Tulúm is the ruins site right on the water known for its beautiful beaches and ocean views. Brent and I chose Cobá for a couple reasons. After Rome this summer, we weren't in the mood for overly touristy reconstructed ruins - Chichen Itza. Having stayed at the beach all vacation, we didn't care about another beautiful beach site - Tulúm. And finally, we had really wanted to go on one of the jungle tours but never made it, so we thought we'd pick Cobá, which is still completely overrun with jungle, so that we could go exploring.
That's the interesting thing about Cobá, that the ruins aren't entirely uncovered yet. It is estimated that there are 6,500 structures in Cobá, but only a few have been excavated. The rest are still buried in the vines and trees that cover the jungle. For those of you who read Stalked In The Jungle and were wondering why on Earth Brent and I were taking random little jungle trails, now you know. The jungle trails are sometimes archaeologist trails and if you follow them deep into the jungle, you'll find big "hills" of vines and vegetation, but if you look closer, you'll see that it's really a small temple or some other structure that just hasn't been uncovered yet. I'm sure we were not the first to discover these things, but it was still pretty cool being all by ourselves out in the middle of the jungle, "discovering" new ruins.
Anyway, as we set out that morning, maybe we should have taken this highway graffiti as a bad omen:
Brent behind the wheel:
We stopped at a gas station to fill the tank up and use the bathrooms. Guys are so lucky they don't have to deal with the same public restroom issues as girls. Apparently, toilet seats and toilet paper are luxury items, not to be found in your average gas station restrooms. Luckily, there was another young American woman in the bathroom who brought her own toilet paper and gave me the rest of her roll:
Also, four foot high bathroom stall doors are not high enough!
When we got to Tulúm we took a right, directly into the jungle. This road leads out to Chichen Itza and Cobá. It's an extremely long road that takes you deep through the jungle and past all sorts of little Mayan villages. Most of the houses we could see along the way were buried deep in the jungle, but some were a little closer to the road, allowing me to get some pictures. Most of them were made entirely of sticks and palm:
Every once in a while we'd pass through a slightly more populated area with roadside shops that must get all their business from tourists passing to and from the ruins:
Brent and I decided we'd stop at some of these shops on our way back. We never did, of course. After being stalked through the jungle by a possibly insane Mayan man carrying a whip, we no longer felt the need to give our patronage to the Mayan shops along the road.
The Mayan Grocery Store:
Once deep in the jungle, we took the road headed for Cobá, a small dirt road that leads even farther into the jungle. We actually had to stop the car at one point because a gecko was running across the street!
Mayan girl on the drive to Cobá:
Templo Monte Carmelo:
A fair pulling into or out of town:
Lake Cobá:
As we entered the ruins, it felt like we were walking right into the jungle:
Ruins:
Trails:
To me, the coolest thing about Cobá is that most of it hasn't been reconstructed. When you look at Chichen Itza, for example, it has been completely reconstructed based on what archaeologists believe it should have looked like. The ruins at Cobá look the same as the day they were discovered... pretty much like a giant pile of rocks. This is actually a giant staircase if you look carefully:
Brent:
Me (I don't know how trees can grow out of stone ruins like this):
As you can see by the rope, people aren't allowed to climb this temple. That's ok though, because there's a bigger one in the jungle that we were allowed to climb:
On these temple staircases, there are smaller staircases leading down into these crevices that seem to go nowhere:
Brent and Me:
A tunnel under a tree:
In that tunnel, we found bats:
I got a couple close-up pictures of the bats that we all thought were sleeping, and it was only when I got home and lightened them up in Photoshop that I realized they were looking at us very angrily!
Look at that face! This picture still creeps me out:
I'd probably make that face too if people started flashing lights at me while I was sleeping:
More ruins:
Another tunnel:
Pink vines hanging from the trees:
By all of the temples/pyramids, the Mayans left stones with pictures explaining what the purpose of the structure was:
If you look carefully at the top, you can probably make out the Mayan man facing towards the right:
Mayan ball courts:
Steps:
I think these might be mangos, but what's all over that cocooned one in the middle?
Jungle:
Brent:
Spanish moss hanging from the trees:
I still don't understand how these trees can grow out of the ruins. Not only does it not make ANY sense for a tree to grow without ground, but the trees in the Yucatan Jungle get almost all of their water from underground rivers, not rain:
I loved this tree:
Taking the easy way out:
Here's one jungle trail we couldn't take, "No Paso":
These weird plants were growing everywhere; on the trees, out of the ground, literally everywhere you turned you'd see one of these:
The main trail through the jungle:
Weird moss growing on one of the trees:
Jungle trail:
Look what we found in the jungle!
There was no one around to tell us what it was, so we had to guess. At first we were thinking it was some weird kind of monkey or raccoon, but then we overheard a tour guide telling his group that there are anteaters in the jungle, so we settled on that.
UPDATE: Blog reader Jenn just informed me that this animal is a coatimundi!
Crossing the path:
So cute:
At the end of this path, we found ourselves at Lake Cobá. It's a good thing we were careful, because apparently there are crocodiles in there!
Vine:
Termite nest:
There were lots of little lizards throughout the jungle. I have pictures of about fifteen of them, but I'll only post a few here:
A strange tree:
There are lots of poisonous trees in Cobá that no one will warn you about! Luckily, before leaving, I read someone's online travel journal about Cobá and knew not to touch the trees. Unfortunately, Brent and I didn't know which trees were poisonous until we looked it up online back at home, so we just made sure not to touch any of them.
More ruins:
Everything looks the same in the jungle, so it's very easy to get lost:
More ball courts (these are actually not the same as the first ones I posted):
A large iguana hiding in the tree:
More trees we were too scared to touch:
Another of those weird plants:
Nohoch Mul, the tallest temple in the northern Yucatan:
It doesn't look nearly as steep from here as it does from the top:
Going up was pretty easy:
At the top of Nohoch Mul:
View from the top:
Other ruins off in the distance:
Pretty red flowers growing at the top of Nohoch Mul:
Looking out at Brent from inside the top of Nohoch Mul:
This photo does not nearly capture how steep and high up this was:
We really were in the middle of the jungle:
I don't know for sure what this stone at the top of the pyramid is for, but from what little I know from the movies, I imagine people's heads were chopped off here and then tossed down the steps:
Brent and Me:
We made it back down to the ground very slowly. I went the whole way on my butt, one step at a time, which I figured was better than on my face, 120 at a time.
With a little more exploration, we found this cool old well:
I don't know what these are, but they were everywhere:
Remember those weird plants I was talking about? It's hard to see because everything is so green, but here's a giant one growing in the jungle:
And another big one in a tree:
An explosion of palm:
A purple plant of some sort:
Lots of vines:
Brent:
It gets very dark, deep in the jungle:
Look what we discovered at the end of one of the dark, narrow jungle trails!
These, by the way, are the poisonous trees:
At the top of those steps:
A cactus growing out of a tree growing out of the ruins:
Little white flowers:
Another lizard:
More of that purple plant:
Striped lizard:
Big lizard of some sort:
Why do jungle trails have to be so enticing?
This one led to a big clearing:
Brent getting sick of all the jungle trails I wanted to explore:
How cool is this tree?
Ants:
Yellow plant:
Look at those big bugs in the middle!
Brent in the jungle:
Twisted tree trunks:
Grupo Macanxoc (we're getting close to our jungle stalker now):
Guide for viewing the above stone:
At this point, we decided to take that one last jungle trail before heading back to the car. This is where we saw the abandoned rickshaw:
And the blanket of palms:
On our hour-long walk into the jungle (which, I agree, was probably a bad idea in and of itself) we saw a lot of cool stuff. A strange hole in the ground:
Another, much deeper, hole in the ground:
Walking deeper into the jungle:
Strange leaves:
A beautiful butterfly:
This is when we noticed the blanket of palms following us and ran out of there as fast as we could to find a crazy Mayan man with a whip waiting for us (he was the one hiding under the palms):
If you want the full story, make sure you read Stalked In The Jungle.
At this point we were too terrified to do anything but run out of the jungle, past all the tourists, and back to the safety of our car. The rest of my pictures were taken out the car window of the Mayan villages we passed on our way out of Cobá:
Some kids playing in the street. Imagine having a bicycle rickshaw rather than a normal bike... that would be so cool!
The bicycle rickshaws were really popular in this area. We saw a lot of people pushing around their kids, groceries, etc. rather than using cars.
There were lots of dogs roaming the streets:
A fruit stand:
Puppies with their mom:
Cute dogs:
And that's all for now! Next up is the cenote that Brent and I went swimming in on the way back from Cobá.
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 01:09 PM | Comments (6)
March 29, 2008
Quinta Avenida At Night
After enjoying Quinta Avenida so much during the day, Brent and I decided to go back to see it at night and it was gorgeous. There were people everywhere and the stores were open until nearly midnight. We walked up and down the street looking in all the little shops and even stopped at a little cart in the middle of the street where an old man was selling homemade ice cream. He had two flavors: coconut and fruit. Brent and I both got a scoop of coconut on a cone and it was fantastic.
Brent and Me before leaving:
Quinta Avenida all lit up at night:
I love this picture, look at the Mariachis on the right:
A lot of the palm trees were strung up with lights or had these little glowing lanterns hanging from them:
This was a store of jellyfish-shaped coconut lanterns that were cute during the day, but unbelievable when lit up at night:
Casa Tequila:
You can actually get completely drunk for free, just walking down the street in Playa del Carmen. There are tequila shops all up and down the street that will give you a free shot just for shopping. What an idea!
All right, so a lot of people think this is completely stupid (especially Brent) but I was really upset that I had the story of getting bitten by a crazy monkey but never did get my picture taken with it, so I found another monkey to get my picture with:
It looks cute, but it was actually really scary! I was trying to face my fear of monkeys, but I think I only made it worse. This monkey didn't bite me, but it also didn't want to get off my shoulder so it laced its fingers and toes through my hair, refusing to get off. The woman who owned him had to literally untangle him from my hair.
Back to Quinta Avenida... here's a pretty white church we passed every day:
When we got back to the hotel that night, we went for a very brief night swim. The pool was lit up at night in all different colors, so it was so beautiful:
Palm tree:
Sorry this picture is so fuzzy:
We hadn't had dinner that night because we had had a late lunch, so after our quick swim, we filled up the hot tub in the room and ordered french fries and champagne:
I miss room service. Champagne and french fries in a hot tub... is there anything better?
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 03:09 PM | Comments (4)
March 28, 2008
Scuba Diving In Cozumel
Early in the morning, Brent, Eric, Suzanne, and I hopped in a cab and raced over to the ferry dock to catch a boat from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel for some scuba diving. I had actually been to Cozumel before with my family, but I didn't remember much of it except that my mom's sandwich she ordered for our first lunch there had a cockroach in it and we left immediately. No, not the restaurant, the island.
We went scuba diving with Scuba Staff Divers, which apparently has a live webcam at their building that we all must have been on at some point. I'm sure that any footage involves me picking my wet suit out of my butt. Our wet suits were just that, wet, when we got them, making them nearly impossible to manage. We still got some cute pictures before our dive, though.
Brent, Me, Suzanne, and Eric:
We had a half hour to wait for our dive, so we wandered around town a little bit looking for an ATM to get cash for the boat ride home. Cozumel was cute, but I'm definitely glad we were staying in Playa del Carmen instead.
Brent and Me:
Brent:
Eric:
A nearly empty street in Cozumel:
Suzanne and Eric:
While having Eric and Suzanne take our picture, this little guy came running over to get in the shot. I have no idea who he is or where he came from, but he'll forever be in our photo albums. I feel like we're giants!
Don't you love Brent's face in that picture?
At this point, we locked all our things in a locker and only took our disposable underwater cameras with us as we were driven out to the part of the island where we would be diving from. The pictures came out terribly. They were all completely gray and red for some reason, had no contrast whatsoever, and were too dark to see pretty much anything. Luckily I have Photoshop and was able to fix them up.
The docks near our dive location (this is the only picture I didn't have to touch-up):
We met our instructor by the water and had a brief scuba lesson before going down. It really wasn't all that confusing, but I was still terrified. The whole idea of breathing underwater just doesn't seem right to me. It took me a while to get down under with everyone else, and finally our instructor took me by the hand and pulled me down, which was actually pretty cool because he showed me a lot of stuff that other people might have missed. For example, he led me down to this tiny cavern in the reef that had a giant blue lobster in it! I've never seen a lobster so big before! Unfortunately, Brent was holding the camera when I saw the lobster and when I gestured for him to come look too, he didn't understand me. Oh well.
Our pictures aren't great, but here's what we got. I think that orange thing is one of those flat fish that skim the sand all day:
Tropical fish everywhere:
Cozumel has one of the best coral reefs in the world and we were so lucky to have gotten to see it. The pictures will never do it any justice, but it was absolutely amazing down there. It's an entirely different world from anything I've ever seen and I already can't wait to get back.
One of the coolest things, to me, was that the tropical fish aren't the least bit afraid of people. They'll come and swim right in your face. I love this picture of Eric with a fish swimming right in front of his camera:
When you look at the pictures, make sure you're not just looking at the foreground, but look in the back too where there are just endless underwater mountains and valleys of reef.
Look at all those fish!
Brent:
A school of yellow fish:
Our dive instructor brought us over to a little tunnel in the coral that we could swim through. As I plunged underneath the coral, into the tunnel, at first I was completely terrified. Not only was I still a bit uneasy about the whole "breathing underwater" thing, but I'm also a little claustrophobic. I paused for a second to look around me and saw this huge school of those yellow fish looking right at me, confused. They looked so funny, huddled together, staring at us swimming through their little hiding spot, that I had to laugh, and then I felt better about the whole thing.
More coral and a striped fish:
Eric in front, and our instructor pulling my pasty-white arm down to the bottom to see the giant lobster:
I wish the quality on these pictures were a little better because the water was so unbelievably clear that we could see as if we were on the very surface. Unfortunately, pictures like this make it look like it was dark and murky, which it definitely was not:
Brent:
Suzanne:
Gorgeous coral reef:
Brent:
Brent and Me:
Eric and Suzanne, exploring:
Looking down 30 feet at Eric and Suzanne:
Brent:
Me (where are all those bubbles coming from?):
Well, that was the end of our dive. If I go again, which I hope I do, I'm definitely going to rent a really good underwater digital camera to take better pictures.
On our ferry back to Playa del Carmen, Brent got Doritos as a snack and we were both entertained to find Pokémon pogs in it. Remember pogs?
Getting off the boat:
Back in Playa del Carmen:
I think that about sums up our scuba diving trip. It comes highly recommended to anyone traveling in Mexico.
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 08:30 AM | Comments (6)
Asiana, Mexico
On our third night in Mexico, Eric, Suzanne, Brent and I tried another of the resort's restaurants, Asiana:
Again, being all-inclusive, we had an enormous meal of salads, appetizers, entrées, sushi, and lots of wine. The food was amazing, as expected. Eating delicious pan-Asian food in Mexico reminded Brent and me of the best Chinese food we ever ate, which was at a little Chinese restaurant in Rome, Italy. I guess that's ok, since the best Italian food I've ever eaten was right here in New York City.
After dinner we went to the lobby bar for some more drinks.
Suzanne and Eric:
Brent and Me:
This is a terrible picture, but I loved how some buildings were lit up blue and purple and wanted to get a picture in front of it really badly:
I think I've already posted a couple of nearly this exact picture, but I loved how long this corridor was with all the pillars. I thought this one was especially interesting with all the lights leading the way:
I told Brent that I really badly wanted a picture of us on the hammock, but all he wanted to do was order fries and eat them in the hot tub, then go for a late-night swim in the pool so we compromised; he got to order his fries, and while waiting for them to arrive, I got to have my photo-shoot.
Another blurry picture (I was trying not to use flash because the lighting was so pretty outside, but I guess sitting on a hammock without moving is almost impossible to do:
Brent was already getting into his swimsuit and I look completely deranged here, but at least I got my hammock shot:
And just because Brent couldn't wait two minutes to put his swimsuit on so that I could get a good shot of us in our nice clothes, I decided to make Brent take the dorkiest picture ever with me. Without me realizing it, he made this beautiful face for our adorable "looking through the swan heart" picture. I guess this was to be expected:
We ended up getting to sleep relatively early that night because we had a big day of scuba diving in Cozumel ahead of us! That's coming up next.
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 08:12 AM | Comments (2)
March 26, 2008
Another Day in Playa del Carmen
Brent and I started another morning in town on Quinta Avenida because the previous morning out ended with me getting bitten by a crazed monkey and insisting that we go back to our room. We hadn't gotten to see everything, so we figured we'd take another morning walk to the end of Quinta Avenida and back, this time with no animal attacks!
Brent on Quinta Avenida:
Me:
Thatched roof McDonalds:
Hotel Cabanas Bananas:
The beautiful ceiling inside our resort:
Brent:
Brent and Eric relaxing on the beach:
Such beautiful water:
I loved our resort:
Brent with his tri-color "Mayan" cocktail:
My mojito:
Brent and Me:
Pelicans:
After baking in the sun for a while, Brent, Eric, and I went over to the beach volleyball area of the pool:
Brent:
Ray came over too and we tried to get other people to join in a game with us, but there were no takers. Our four person volleyball game ended pretty quickly, unfortunately.
By this point it was late afternoon and we all went back to the rooms to shower and change for dinner.
More resort pictures from the walk back:
When we got to our room, here's what we found:
How cute is this?
I wouldn't let Brent touch it for hours, I loved it so much. Anyway, this ended up being our last real beach day, but there's still scuba diving, the Cobá ruins, and cave swimming coming up soon!
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 09:56 AM | Comments (2)
March 25, 2008
Maria Marie
Just a quick second post of the day, all six of us in Mexico went to one of the resort's restaurants called Maria Marie. It was a Mexican-French fusion restaurant and it was amazing. I had Azteca soup which was like a tortilla soup with avocado and lots of melted cheese followed by the beef fillet, both of which were fantastic. Of course there was lots of champagne going around, too.
This is a terrible picture because I didn't use flash, but here's Ray and Brent at Maria Marie (look at the beautiful murals on the walls in the background):
Suzanne and Eric:
Brent and Me:
Me, Taylor, and Suzanne:
Yum! I'm getting hungry just thinking about it!
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 03:16 PM | Comments (2)
Quinta Avenida
In Playa del Carmen, the main street is called Quinta Avenida, or 5th Avenue. Quinta Avenida is lined with little shops selling handmade goods, restaurants, bars, and not one but two Starbucks (of course). At night, the street really comes alive with lights on all the trees, people everywhere, and lots of drunken laughter coming out of the many local bars. It actually reminded me a lot of Disney World, but with less children and more drunk people. During the day, however, Quinta Avenida is much quieter, probably because it's 90 degrees, even in the winter.
All over the street were little kids playing with small, hard balls of some sort. I did my best to figure out the "rules" of the game they were playing, and it seems that one kid stands up against a wall while the other kicks a ball as hard as he can, trying to hit the first kid, and if he misses, he loses, if he gets it... well, I never saw that happen, but I imagine teeth are lost and noses broken:
Starbucks:
Brent:
A typical store on Quinta Avenida:
"Call Center"
Thorny palm tree:
Chan Chijnal Uinik, the Mayan god who, apparently, created the moon's sexual organs with its hoof. Was anyone else unaware that the moon had sexual organs?
Many of the restaurants had thatched roofs like this one:
Look at that cool staircase:
This woman and her son were collecting cans in their bicycle rickshaw:
Fountain:
This restaurant used trees as candle-holders and after years of use, the trees were practically covered in wax:
Decorated tree:
Quinta Avenida:
So many things to look at:
I really wish I had gotten a llama doll:
Brent:
A banana tree:
The Blue Parrot, one of the bars our friends went to:
Shalom, a Buddhist-goods store in Mexico...?
Looking down one of the side-streets to the Caribbean:
Back at the resort, walking to our room:
More Mexico coming up next!
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 01:27 PM | Comments (2)
La Playa
I'm supposed to be working on a paper right now so this is just going to be a really quick entry of some beach pictures from our first morning in Playa del Carmen.
Lying in the sun:
A snorkeler who felt the need to swim directly in front of us at the beach:
Brent and Eric:
Look at that beautiful turquoise water!
Brent and Me (we completely accidentally wore matching blue, seersucker bathing suits):
Brent going for a swim in the Caribbean:
The beach:
This last picture is my favorite of the day. There were water aerobics classes at the pool and the leader of the class was the weirdest, most energetic person I've seen in a long time, made even more entertaining by his little, tiny Speedo:
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 12:27 AM | Comments (7)
March 22, 2008
First Night In Playa
On our first night in Playa del Carmen, the six of us decided to go to the resort's tapas restaurant for dinner. We ordered at least three rounds of tapas for the table and a couple bottles of champagne (I don't think I can ever travel non-all-inclusive again). After that, we decided we were all still hungry so we headed over to Spice, a buffet-style restaurant, where we had second dinner (fourth, really, if you count the three rounds of tapas separately) and a lot of wine all around. After Spice, we went to the hotel lobby bar where we claimed a bed all our own and drank more wine until what we thought were the wee hours of the morning (turns out it was only about 11:30pm when we all passed out).
Brent and Me before leaving:
At one point, we thought we had lost Eric and Brent, but it turned out they were stuck up at the bar, seemingly entranced by the Aztec show:
Taylor and Me:
Suzanne, Taylor, and Ray:
Brent relaxing in bed:
All of us (I look amazingly awkward in this picture):
Brent (with what looks like a terrible drink), Ray, and Taylor:
Ray and Taylor:
Brent:
Eric and Suzanne:
Brent and Me:
It was a great start to an amazing vacation!
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 01:11 PM | Comments (4)
March 20, 2008
A Re-Introduction To Mexico
After telling Brent's and my harrowing tale of being stalked through the jungle by a Mayan man with a whip, I thought I should start over, from the very beginning, to prove that we did, in fact, have an amazing time in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
The first day had gotten off to a bad start, though. The travel agency that Brent and I used for our trip had booked both of us under my last name, meaning that Brent could not get on our flight. He had to pay over $800 to buy the only remaining ticket, in first class, just to get to Mexico with me! As the plane soared through the choppy air down the coast to Atlanta (where we had a stopover), I had the wonderful experience of getting to look up the aisle at Brent, sitting in first class, enjoying snacks, drinks, and constant service.
Eventually, we landed safely in Cancún where my bag got "randomly" searched. Blonde American girls always get it the worst! I'm joking, of course.
We got on the hotel shuttle and arrived safely at our resort, The Royal Playa del Carmen. As we stepped in the large entrance to the resort, we were completely blown away by how beautiful it was:
The hotel lobby (pictured above) is completely open through this passageway, leading to the pool, the beach, and the Caribbean!
We were brought, with all our luggage, to our beautiful room filled with decorated pillars, marble floors throughout the room, a large hot tub, and a balcony with our very own hammock!
This is an all-inclusive resort and, trust me, we took advantage. Here's our own bar with all sorts of liquor on tap:
We only used the bar once, though, because whenever we wanted drinks we called room service (also included) and had bottles brought right up to our room.
"Don't touch anything, Brent! I haven't taken all my pictures yet!" I put him through a lot.
TV, DVD player, and a fully-stocked mini-bar in the cabinet below:
Our hammock:
We immediately got into swimsuits and headed down to the beach to meet up with Eric, Suzanne, Taylor, and Ray (the other two couples we were traveling with). We walked past the pool which had seagulls swooping down every few seconds to get their feet wet and then fly off. Luckily this didn't last too long and they moved on.
The pool:
So pretty:
The beach was gorgeous with the clearest, turquoise-blue water you've ever seen:
Ray, Brent, and Eric:
Eric and Suzanne:
Sunset over the Caribbean:
Brent and Me:
Suzanne and Eric:
After a few drinks down by the water, we got cleaned up for our first dinner out together. Seeing as the resort is all-inclusive, we had about six or seven courses of dinner, washed down with a few bottles of champagne and wine. All that will be coming up next!
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 11:09 PM | Comments (4)
Stalked In The Jungle
The only way to start this story is at the end.
"No one will believe us. We can never tell this story because no one will believe us." That's what Brent and I kept repeating to one another, sitting side by side in our rented Jeep Wrangler on the drive back from Cobá, where we had been exploring the ancient Mayan ruins, nestled in the heart of the Yucatan Jungle.
About an hour earlier, we had been wandering the Cobá ruins, surrounded by tourists from all over the world. There were no guide maps, no trail markers, just long dirt paths leading through the jungle with little yellow bicycle rickshaws racing past every couple minutes, carrying people who were willing to pay the $9 not to walk. Brent and I were venturing through Cobá on foot, trying to have a real adventure... and we did.
Off the main trail are narrow, unmarked archaeologist trails leading straight out into the jungle. Cobá is estimated to have 6,500 different structures, with only a few having been uncovered from the jungle that swallowed them up, so it is still called an "archeology site" and is not just a tourist destination. Brent and I followed a number of the archaeologist trails to see what they would lead to. They led to a lake, a large clearing, some smaller and completely deserted ruins, and sometimes they just led straight into the jungle and stopped. It was hard to tell when the trail ended and the jungle began because these "trails" were merely paths where enough people had walked to trample some of the vegetation. Brent and I followed many of these until we were entirely wrapped up in jungle vegetation and had to turn back.
We got to the end of a completely deserted tourist trail, wondering why it was, well, completely deserted. An American couple was walking towards us from the end of the trail and told us to turn back, we were heading for a dead end. "Don't waste your time, it's nothing but jungle trails leading off into nothing," the man said. If only he hadn't made it sound so enticing! Brent and I were up for adventure and the idea of a deserted jungle trail sounded fantastic. We could only imagine what kinds of jungle creatures we might encounter. Earlier, on another jungle trail, we had encountered an iguana and an anteater and we were eager to see more.
As we reached the entrance to the the jungle trail, we saw an abandoned, yellow rickshaw:
Near it were five or six empty water bottles, a navy blue t-shirt, and a black garbage bag. I turned back to Brent and jokingly said, "I bet some homeless guy lives here!" Going to college in Hartford, we've met a number of homeless people, always accompanied by garbage bags filled with empty bottles and shopping carts, so seeing the rickshaw, the empty bottles, and the garbage bag made me laugh, thinking of how absurd it would be to find a homeless man collecting bottles in the middle of the jungle. That's when I noticed the palms.
I hadn't seen it at first because it was so beautifully camouflaged in the jungle, but there was a blanket of palm fronds lying on the ground on the other side of the path from the rickshaw. "Do you think they're trying to hid something under there?" I asked Brent, gesturing to the mound of palms. Brent, being a guy, didn't answer. A lot of the time I think he just lets me talk and tunes me out. I snapped a photo of the palm blanket, hoping to examine it more carefully later to determine if it was man-made or just an unusual pattern of fallen palm fronds from a nearby tree:
Brent and I walked into the jungle, along that narrow path, hoping to find something fantastic at the end. No one was anywhere in sight and we hadn't seen any other tourists (other than the American couple) anywhere within about a mile of the opening to that jungle path. Even the over-eager rickshaw drivers seemed to be keeping away, instead flocking to the other ruin sites in the dozens.
We followed the path, carefully watching where we stepped, having heard that many of the trees and plants in the jungle are poisonous. We were about to turn back when I saw a beautiful yellow butterfly that I desperately wanted a picture of. It seemed to be flying away, following the path exactly as it wound in never-ending s-curves through the jungle. Finally, about three miles into the jungle, Brent and I stopped, just about ready to give up. Something thorny had gotten into my shoe and Brent was on his knees trying to help me delicately pick it off my heel when I heard a rustling in the jungle.
I was facing the direction we had just come from and I saw it, coming right at us. It was the blanket of palm, moving quickly along the path, curving towards us, about 40 feet away. "Oh my God, it's here!" I whispered to Brent, who looked up and jumped immediately to his feet. I couldn't call it a he or a she or a they because from where I was standing, all it was was a mass of palm, crawling across the path. "What do we do?" I was nearly crying already, hyperventilating, my heart pounding in my chest.
"I don't know!" was Brent's panicked response. I reached into my purse, grabbed my iPhone, and started frantically dialing home. In my panic, I imagined telling my parents what was happening and them sending the National Guard into the jungle by helicopter to rescue us within the next two minutes. "You won't get service in the jungle!" Brent exclaimed, still in a whisper. He was right, my call failed immediately. Brent was thinking more practically and picked up a large, sharp rock and got a good grip on it. The palms stopped, having noticed us, and quickly shuffled in the opposite direction, running away now that we had caught it following us.
All that was going through my mind at that moment was that a jungle monster was stalking us and how do you fight a jungle monster? I said we should run, keep going down the trail to get as far away as possible, but Brent pointed out that we didn't know where we were and we were already about an hour's walk into the jungle so continuing deeper in would be a terrible idea. I knew he was right and all we could do was try to quickly head back towards the entrance to the trail, the very direction the palm blanket was racing towards.
We stared at each other for a few seconds, reconsidering our options, and then began to run. We were running back towards the entrance to the trail, towards civilization. I was tempted to start screaming for help, but knew no one could possibly hear me three or four miles away, where all the rest of the people were.
Brent and I whispered back and forth to each other, "What was that thing?" "Did it follow us?" "Was it behind us all along?" "What do we do?" "What was it?" None of our questions had answers. As we sprinted down the trail, we caught another glimpse of the shuffling palms, making its way around a corner about 60 feet ahead of us. This is when I decided to turn my camera's video-mode on to capture what was happening. I wasn't even thinking of needing proof for our story, I was thinking that whoever found my camera, abandoned in the jungle, might piece together what was going on and find Brent and me, dead or alive.
I was running as fast as I could, camera hanging around my neck, recording everything. I tried to use Brent's name as much as possible so that someone might be able to identify us when they found the camera. "Brent, do you have that rock still? Brent, what should we do? Brent, it was that palm thing we saw at the beginning of the trail and it followed us!" If "Two young travelers, Brent and Lauren, lost in the Yucatan Peninsula" was soon going to be broadcast all over the news when we didn't make it home the next day, I thought someone would put two and two together and maybe find us.
We were in a strange pattern of sprinting, then tiptoeing, then sprinting again down this jungle trail. We were simultaneously very eager to be out of the jungle, and completely terrified that this thing would be lurking right around the bend, hidden perfectly in the trees on the side of the trail, ready to leap forth and snatch us.
We were out of breath and dripping sweat when we reached the beginning of the trail again. We froze in our tracks when we heard the rustling once more and saw the palms moving up ahead, right where they had been when we first entered the trail. Had we imagined the whole thing? Were we hallucinating? The rustling stopped and we saw a man standing at the mouth of the trail, holding a long, black, leather whip. The whip was coiled around in this man's hand, poised and ready to be released if we made one wrong move.
Brent went ahead of me, still holding a large rock in his right hand (caught on video from my camera, which I then paused to get still shots):
The man was average-height with a dirty, unbuttoned white shirt, black pants, and a bag of some sort, looped across his chest. He grinned, menacingly, baring four or five gold teeth. He said something to us that I didn't recognize as Spanish and can only imagine was Mayan, given that there are dozens of Mayan villages near Cobá (despite how friendly he looks in these pictures, he was actually terrifying):
Brent and I didn't know what to do, so we smiled, nervously, and nodded along, quickly passing the Mayan man, who held on tightly to his whip and stared at us:
I turned my camera back towards him, standing next to his palm camouflage, as Brent and I walked briskly away:
We turned back before the next bend to see the Mayan standing there, staring at us. We broke out into a full sprint and ran the rest of the mile or so it took us to get back to the main trail. Right as we stumbled onto the trail, the American couple we had seen earlier was driving past in a rickshaw and waved at us. We saw them again as we were leaving Cobá. "Did you go down that trail? We turned back because we got attacked. You know, by all those geckos," the man said.
"Geckos?" Brent asked, making a face that puzzled the other American couple, who walked away confused and perhaps a little offended. At least we made it out alive.
I don't know if you believe me, you probably don't, but I do swear that I told this story exactly how it happened, no embellishments and no exaggerations. Brent and I both agreed that we have never been so afraid before in our entire lives. In the time we were running through the trees, straight towards our faceless stalker who had followed us for an hour, three miles into the jungle, hunting us with a whip, we both actually thought we were going to die. People throw around phrases like, "I was scared to death," and "I thought I was going to die!" too much because unless you have ever been in a situation like ours, you really don't have any idea.
I'm sure most of you think I have an overactive imagination, that I'm ripping off some horror movie I've seen, that it was completely safe and a huge misunderstanding that I've somehow blown up in my mind, but you weren't there, stranded, hopeless in the jungle, being stalked by a man with a whip, hiding under a blanket of palm fronds.
If you ever choose to travel to Cobá, stick to the main trails. Trust me.
-Lauren
UPDATE:
My mom just noticed that in the last picture, where the Mayan man is turning around to watch us walk away, you can see three stripes of something red on his cheek, probably wiped off from his fingers (which are also red in the pictures). Blood maybe? I bet he was off in the jungle killing things, like unsuspecting tourists. Brent and I wonder if when we noticed him and he lost his element of surprise (which he did a really good job of maintaining for an hour!), he backed off, especially after seeing Brent grab a sharp rock, ready to attack if necessary.
Posted by lauren at 12:09 AM | Comments (6)
March 16, 2008
Scuba Diving
I admit that I've been really lazy about posting pictures and I absolutely intend to post some soon, but until then I thought I'd give you a quick update on what we've been up to.
We've spent a lot of time at the beach, the pool, and in town shopping so today we decided to try something different. Eric, Suzanne, Brent and I took a boat to Cozumel (an island off the coast of Playa del Carmen) where we went scuba diving! We went with Scuba Staff Divers and saw a beautiful coral reef, lots of tropical fish, and a giant blue lobster (see our dive HERE)! It was amazing and I absolutely recommend scuba diving if you ever have the opportunity.
We brought an underwater camera with us which we'll be getting developed ASAP and I'll be posting those pictures once we're back.
Right now, we're off to town again to rent a car tomorrow to drive to Cobá, some Mayan ruins in the middle of the Yucatan Jungle. We're planning on using the car the rest of the day to visit some cool Mayan villages in the jungle and the Yul Ha Cenote pictured HERE for some cave swimming.
Other than that, I've been recovering from my monkey bite which hurts A LOT and I'm hoping I didn't get some sort of disgusting monkey disease (I'm thinking monkeypox).
I hope you're all having a great weekend!
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 08:31 PM | Comments (3)
March 14, 2008
Monkey Bite
A monkey just attacked me!
A woman in the street in Playa del Carmen had a monkey on a leash that she was letting people hold and take pictures with and so many people were ahead of me playing with it and it was just cute and friendly, but then when it climbed on my arm, it freaked out, screamed, and bit me really hard!
Now, of course, I'm terrified that I'm going to get some horrible disease.
I went to the hotel doctor who put me on antibiotics and gave me a tetanus shot... I hope that's enough.
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at 06:51 PM | Comments (5)
Playa Del Carmen
So I'm going to have to take a brief break from posting about Paris because I want to start uploading my Playa del Carmen pictures! Brent and I are currently on Spring Break in Playa del Carmen with Eric and Suzanne and their friends from school Taylor and Ray. Playa del Carmen is so beautiful and we're having an amazing time.
Yesterday, we arrived at the Cancún Airport and took the hotel shuttle to Playa del Carmen, about 50 minutes south of Cancún. We arrived at our resort, the Royal Playa del Carmen. It's an all-inclusive resort so all our food, activities, drinks, and even tips are included. I'm pretty sure the hotel is losing money on the six of us, though, because we are really taking advantage of the all-inclusiveness.
Yesterday we all got together for drinks on the beach and then met up at a tapas restaurant (one of the se