Coba & the Ha-Ha-Ha's.

D.19.13 
22kms
My next day got hijacked by musty clothes at the laundry. I was pissed. I wanted to get moving, but I was forced to take most of my day to relax. The all-inclusive resort had taken a toll on my system. Slept, ate, walked, rode around Tulum in the rain. Expensive tacos and shops turned me off. The highway stop feeling of town and the palpable pace of change in the area were not inviting so I rested in the hostel, and mapped my new tangent. The rainclouds cleared out by 4, so I hurried to the bike shop and made a deal with the man there to return the bike from Coba. Normally, he would hold onto a persons passport as a  promise to return deposit on the rusty red beach bike. He decided to trust me and told me who and where to take it to before getting on my bus to Valladolid, where other rusty red bikes were waiting for me. I busted out of town, down a different wild highway's shoulder like a maniac accidentally freed. I don't know how many mindless hours of pedaling got me to Macario Gomez where I crashed for the night.

 

D.20.13
28kilometros.
A few more more hours slow riding to Coba that began on the dark highway at 5am. Checked my bag in at one of the hostels along the road in, ate some more substantial food than the nuts and bread I'd brought with me, got water, and pushed these wobbly legs onwards.

Some kind of map nonsense.

Sitting on top of the great mound at Coba. Handstands against the altar on top to move the blood in my legs otherways. First one up here this morning.

 
































 
Feeling my adventure in my heart... beginning.

 


































 

If I remember right, this round cornered one was a women's temple, or moon temple. More ghosts.

I liked the roundy one a lot.

 

































What a day. 
Earlybirding the ruins to be the only one pushing my bike around the loop. Wandering alone around the crazy leftovers. I got no real feeling of depth, spiritual presence, or awe, but that's probably a residual deadening of my senses from the Ativan I'd taken the day before.The buildings were solid, beautiful in an eaten-by-the-jungle kind of way, and I got a charge from just that stoke to be leaving just as the tour buses rolled in, unloading their hordes of slow moving burnt skinned tourists. Passed out of the complex of paths and ancient stones as they filed in. Pushed alongside the Coba lakeshore and into the puebla. 
I heard there were cenotes a short ride away. Bumpy streets through Mayan villages, then over a hill, and back into the jungle, whee! The road had potholes- deep, mean, and many. But I got my groove and swerve back on and the smell- that tangy, dank, wet smell- began to emerge as I took deep breaths and pushed onwards. Citrus bright, and dark water sitting. Lizards jumped aside, and butterflies ganged up to show me the way. The road turned one long straight corridor into a step. It started to feel too far, but then I saw the cenote sign. Stretching my legs, I paid him for all three. He said I should start with the furthest, and pointed me on down the road some more.

 Two kms down the worst driveway ever, with the previous days of riding sitting on my buttbones so it was a little hectic and I'm thinking it had better not be a letdown. A shower is mandatory, then you enter a stone well. A wooden spiral staircase just going straight down, through this six or seven foot perfect circle hole in the ground. At three spins down, I couldn't see the natural light anymore from above. By six spins, I was wondering if my legs would carry me back out again. A few more spins and it emptied me into a corridor. A short, stoney corridor with a few steps before the cavern opens up above like a bumpy cupola inside the vaulted cathedral above, with crystal blue water below. And black frilly catfish the size of my hands hangin out all around the steps of stone and 'crete.
Swim in a little circle but I'm scared. It's deep and dark and the lighting isn't all there but it's so quiet, so deadeningly quiet, and peaceful and all mine and I float on my back for a sacred moment. Enjoying this peace before pedal. 
Climb back out, pedal the drive with salt-licking butterflies for an entourage. Back to the road, back to the other side, down a less long- but long, and less bumpy- but bumpy driveway to the next one. I shower, do the routine, and climb back down into the earth. This opening is bigger than the first. No one is inside this cavern that is bigger and has even darker corners. There are two giant pillars of stalagmite/tite that help hold up the ceiling and make me feel secure, but the water is cloudy for some reason and I'm put off by that and spooked by the quiet and emptiness and size and just don't want to swim in this one. So I marvel at the ceilings and the shapes, then bust over to the next and its the well-sized opening again. 

The 2nd cenote entrance

cloudy water

 




















Sit for a minute and have a smoke with the security guard, trying to practice my, "Hello, my name is, what is your name?", in Mayan. Great big smiles and lots of help. He teaches me butterflies. In Spanish it's pupillo, in Mayan, it is queechay.
Then descend. This narrow spiral staircase descends through the ceiling like a pillar, through the air. There is no stone wall surrounding this one. It's wild. First thing I see as I come below the earth is a jumping off board, from the top of the stairs. Ooohwee, this one's for me! Then another as the stairs wind tightly down down down. So much blue and more dogfish. And cool, fresh water. I swim. I float. I make the big, and bigger leap, and shout and hear my echo come back twice before I hit the water. Then I happily pedal the whole way back to town and eat more overpriced food. This coast is wildly expensive. After lunch I find the guy at the taxi stand who will return the bike and tip him. Then go wait for the next bus to come, watching lizards eat ants that are eating garbage. The lizards run away on their back legs waving their arms out like their yelling "aaahh!!" when I spook them and that entertains me for a whole hour, laughing out loud to myself every time. 

Start to stress about the time. I wait for two and a half hours and all I can think is how I want smokes and wine right now to celebrate this day. The taxi guys are trying to tell me there isn't a bus coming, they want my fare. Start to panic, what if there really isn't another bus? The guy at the food stop gave me the information for the Playa Del Carmen bus south, not north! Maybe I should have ridden onward, but my legs... my legs my legs. Maybe I should hoof it to the highway and hitchhike? Ugh, my legs are exploded. My whole patient, standing in the sunset, "I don't mind waiting, I'm hip about time", feeling is blown. Just when I start to really lose my cool, a bus rolls up that says Valladolid and I'm on my way.

From the ceiling- is stalagtites.

From below, stalagmites.

It is yelling at me, "I dare you, Emma!"

 

This pic isn't mine! I didn't get one of the crazy stairs.