Secrets of Ancient Civilization Revealed to Those Who Visit Yucatan
 Mark I. Pinsky - Orlando Sentinel
| | Mel Gibson and members of the cast of 'Apocalypto'. |
COBA, Mexico - This winter, Yucatan's mysterious Maya will be invading theaters near you, courtesy of Mel Gibson's epic "Apocalypto."
In all likelihood, the release will inspire many Americans to return the favor, visiting sites such as this ruined city in Mexico, as well as others in Guatemala and Honduras. And for the hurricane-battered Yucatan peninsula, between the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, a movie-motivated influx couldn't come at a better time.
In contrast with his billion-dollar, box-office bonanza, "The Passion of the Christ," controversial director Gibson's new film is about Central America's pagan Indians who built a massive pyramid I'm about to climb. Just as Gibson is wrapping up filming across the Gulf in the jungles of Veracruz, Mexico, I am staggering up the endless stone steps of El Castillo, which the Maya call Nohoch Muul.
Naturally, it being high noon on a sweltering summer day, and me being a 59-year-old American in dubious physical condition, I have decided I will once again climb northern Yucatan's tallest pyramid. Near the top, the effort begins to feel like a stress test I might not pass.
Making it to the top, and flopping red-faced onto a stone platform to rest, I thank my lucky stars for all those recent treadmill walks at the Winter Park YMCA, wondering at the same time how long it might take for a medevac helicopter to get to me. I vow this will be my last such climb - unless or until the tourism authority installs an escalator.
The way development is going in Yucatan, that might not be so far-fetched.
This visit to Coba, whose name means "water stirred by wind," is my third in 20 years of annual trips to Yucatan. And it is part of an eco-tourism excursion called "Mayan Encounter" that lives up to its name. After a two-hour visit to the partially reconstructed site, our family and another from Canada pile into a van and head for a nearby Maya village.
Next comes the nature part. Normally, my first law of the wilderness is: Stay out of it. But sometimes Dad has to set an example.
First there is a kayak ride around the rim of a quiet lake. This is followed by a hike along a muddy path through the jungle - teeming with tropical birds - for a refreshing dip in a cool, limestone cavern called a cenote. Later, despite my fear of heights and aversion to thrill-seeking, I rappel down the side of a collapsed cenote, or sinkhole.
Then, for the first time - and with eyes scrunched shut - I ride a zip line, back across the huge sinkhole.
These and other activities provide income for villagers who have been trained by our guides, a company called AllTourNative Off Track Adventures, whose slogan is "Preserve the Mayan Heritage." At each event, one of the Maya villagers, trained and supplied by the company, takes digital photos of each of us. They offer these for sale after the women of the village serve us a late lunch of chicken cooked in a local seasoning called achiote, rice, beans, corn tortillas and vegetable soup.
I can understand Gibson's choice of the ancient Maya as a subject for his $50 million film, currently set for a Dec. 8 release by Disney's Touchstone Pictures. This was a pre-Columbian civilization, a complex society that managed to build monumental stone cities, develop a sophisticated astronomical calendar, imagine the mathematical concept of zero and build an extensive network of paved footpaths. They did all of this without metal, beasts of burden, the wheel or the keystone arch. And then, inexplicably, they abandoned their cities and moved to jungle villages such as this one to live on subsistence farming.
Gibson's film, in which characters speak Yucatec Mayan, is set at the time of this collapse, probably because of war and famine, around the year 1000. The movie could do for this century's travelers what American adventurer John Lloyd Stephens, and his artist, Englishman Frederic Catherwood, did in their best-selling 19th-century books.
For those who wish to imagine themselves in "Apocalypto," Coba offers the opportunity to see restored and reconstructed ruins, as they were around the time Gibson's film is set, as well as partially covered remains still in the wild, as Stephens and Catherwood found them in the 1840s.
If, after seeing "Apocalypto," you plan to visit the Maya ruins, another author suggests you make your plans soon, before the next apocalypse. Journalist Daniel Pinchbeck, in his new book, "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl," suggests that, according to the Maya cosmology, world upheaval might be on the horizon.
I'm equally interested in the modern Maya. This year, at the beach and at night, I am further immersing myself in the contemporary world of the Maya by reading a gripping modern mystery set here, "The Cocom Codex," about efforts by a nefarious art collector to make off with a sacred manuscript. It's written by an old Yucatan hand, Nelson Reed, author of a classic history, "The Caste War of Yucatan," which tells the story of a bloody, 19th-century rebellion of Maya peasants against their feudal masters, the Mexican Creoles.
The establishment of glitzy resort mecca Cancun three decades ago has drastically changed the face of Yucatan - not always for the benefit of the Maya.
In "The Cocom Codex," a rebellious young Maya lambastes a character based in part on Reed:
"This was our land, Yucal Peten," the Indian says, "Land of the Pheasant and the Deer, Land of the Rocks and Trees. Now we are marginalized, unimportant. Mexico City money builds a new city, Cancun, to entertain gringos, make a fortune, and what does the Maya get? You wrote that book on the Caste War. You know what we suffered. That was history, but they still oppress us. You want the truth, come and see how we live."
A rebel at the book's beginning, the young man becomes a crusading politician by the end.
"He had always felt pride in what his ancestors had done," Reed writes. "The great men who had built the stone cities, written these books, studied the stars in the sky, the natural medicines in the forest. They were his people."
The Mayan Encounter's day trip is low-impact "eco-tourism lite." But it provides an opportunity to experience all of these aspects of Yucatan - the history and the mystery, the nature and the adventure. And, in the process, maybe make life a little better for the Maya.
IF YOU GO:
AllTourNative Off Track Adventures, with offices in Cancun and Playa del Carmen, offers a number of day trips for small groups, including "Mayan Encounter," "Jungle Crossing" and "Mayan Zip Line," as well as overnight camping trips, sea kayaking and tours of the Sian Ka'an nature biosphere.
Day trips are in the $110-per-person range, depending on the exchange rate, with a 10 percent discount for booking online (alltournative.com). Phone: 011 52 984 87 32036.
Mark I. Pinsky: mpinsky@orlandosentinel.com |
Vallarta Weddings
Travel & Outdoors | November 2006 
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