Coincidence of Travel in Yucatan
Following John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood
through the Mayan ruins of the Yucatan, Mexico
by
Randy Johnson
Unpublished
Copyright © 1996-2008, Randy R. Johnson, all rights reserved
In the spring of 1981, my friend Jim Bernard and I spent six weeks traveling in Guatemala and southern Mexico. For myself, this was only the beginning of much longer trip deep into Central and South America that was to last one and a half years; but I still had no inkling of any such plans at the time.
During this trip, we planned two special adventures. The first was a ten-day rafting and ruin-hunting expedition from Sayaxche, Guatemala (south of Tikal) down the Passión and Usumacinta Rivers to Tenosique, Mexico -- but that's a different story altogether.
This story is about our small adventure in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, where we rented a VW bus and for two and a half weeks went in search of Mayan ruins. This plan in itself was exciting enough to us, but in addition we took along as our main guide book John L. Stephens' "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan", published in two volumes in 1843 (Harper and Brothers; reprinted by Dover in 1963). It describes his historic journey of discovery throughout the Yucatan in 1841, accompanied by the artist, architect, and antiquarian Frederick Catherwood. A Dr. Samuel Cabot of Boston, a surgeon and ornitholigist, was also present for much of the travels.
Mr. Stephens led us to numerous Mayan sites which were not shown on any of the archeological maps we had found. Although many of the present day towns in the Yucatan were not in existence in Stephens day, they traveled from hacienda to hacienda, and many of these early land holdings retain their names today, so that we were able to follow the trail by asking locals for the names of local farms.
The following is an abbreviated account of our little Yucatan odyssey, during which we visited over 35 Mayan sites, including some well-known tourist sites, several sites of which little remained but mounds of rubble, and also several quite interesting and remote ruins which remained much as Mr. Catherwood had drawn them. I have tried to limit my detailed descriptions to those Mayan sites which are less well known and less accessible to the average tourist in Yucatan.
Ours was more of a personal adventure and treasure hunt (of ruins, not artifacts) than an archeological expedition, as we are amateur Maya aficionados, much of our knowledge coming from the numerous sites we have visited. I've counted almost sixty Mayan sites that I have visited in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. Mr. Stephens, however, describes dozens and dozens more ruined sites which he found on his travels, most of which still lie unnoticed under the Yucatan forests.
In addition to the crude notes and site plans scribbled in my notebooks, I got the idea to describe our little trip in the language of Stephens, and so I began "Coincidence of Travel in Yucatan". This idea ran out of steam fairly soon, and after introductory remarks patterned after Stephens' chapters 1 and 6, I lapse into simple descriptions of the routes and ruins.
Many of my rough notes simply refer to Messrs. Stephens and Catherwood for accurate descriptions of what we found 140 years later. All text in quotations below is taken from Stephens' original text, which still serves to describe many of these sites.
Note: I've recently found a quite interesting biography of Frederick Catherwood ("Frederick Catherwood Archt.", by Victor W. Vonhagen, or 'von Hagen'). It appears that Catherwood was more experienced than Stephens in the study of ancient civilizations, having spent years in Egypt, the Middle East, and Greece. When Stephens first ventured into the Middle East, he used a detailed map drawn by Catherwood on an earlier trip. It was this map that brought the two men together later in England. Catherwood, upon first seeing great works of Mayan art and architecture, immediately recognized that they had no relation to any other Old World cultures, and it was he who first dismissed the previously-held notion that the ruins of ancient American civilizations were the work of Egyptians, Nabateans, or the Lost Tribe of Israel.Pronunciation: While I've usually avoided the effort of inserting accent marks, most of the unfamiliar Mayan place names can be correctly appreciated by placing an accent on the final syllable. (As an American, I refer to the first and second floors of buildings, which Europeans would call the ground floor and first floor, respectively.)
Update: The Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (the INAH) has a web site with brief descriptions of several of the sites mentioned below, and a number of others. This site is entirely in Spanish. A map-link to various Mexican states is found at http://www.inah.gob.mx/ZonasArqueologicas/todas/htme/zoar.html. Within the text below, follow links called "INAH Site Link" to the discriptions of individual sites.
We arrived in Merida via the night bus from Villahermosa, I at half past six in the morning, Mr. Bernard one hour later due to a tremendous difficulty at the bus station in Villahermosa. We were lucky to get tickets at all, although on two separate buses. The nine hours passed quickly and uneventfully. We had divided a six-pack of Tecate beer before departing and this seemed to enable us to sleep through most of the journey.
Although the hour was yet early, we readily found accommodation at the Hotel Latino, recommended by Mr. Bernard from a previous trip to these parts. While we were able to divest ourselves of our traveling bags, we had to wait until later in the morning to occupy our appointed quarters and avail ourselves of the much needed bathing facilities.
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On Saturday, the 7th day of March, we arose for our departure from Merida. Early in the morning we collected our Rent-a-Combi -- a VW bus in a reasonable state of repair -- and with the provisions we had previously procured for the journey, we loaded the luggage.
The landlord refused to accept the mere pleasure of our society for house-rent, so we settled our accounts in pesos and took our leave. In all probability he shall never see our likes again.
Our T-shirts, hair, beards, and VW Combi (bus) being entirely different from the trappings of travelers in that country, we attracted all eyes as we drove through the streets searching for the perfect panaderia, which Mr. Bernard said he had located the day before. No better bread or selection of sweets was to be found in all of Merida, he swore, so we spent 45 minutes in the morning traffic jam trying to find it again. Our search was successful and we left Merida with a supply of the finest french bread in all of Yucatan.
It was our intention to head toward the ruins of Mayapan, stopping at Acanceh along the way. Heading out toward the road to Uxmal, we halted to feed the bus and were informed by the little darling at the tourism information office that the road toward Mayapan left from the other side of town.
Now in possession of the latest tourist maps of the Yucatan, we retraced our tracks and recrossed the city of Merida, heading out at last on the road to Chichen-Itza. We turned off on the road designated as leading to Kanacin. At 20 kilometers beyond Kanacin, we arrived at Acanceh.
Having read that Acanceh possessed the finest stucco work in the northern part of the Yucatan, I was disappointed to find the only Mayan remnants to be a single pyramid of several layers, across from the main town square and flanked by a tienda with a Coca-Cola sign and a power pole. The structure was in a reasonable state between dilapidation and reconstruction, but had no recognizable temple on top. Nor was there any stucco work to be seen. There was one small monument, badly eroded, about two thirds of the way up the pyramid, and on the viewer's right. This was all we were able to see at Acanceh. Perhaps we lacked the proper information (Mr. Stephens never having reached this site), or perhaps all the brilliant stucco work had been carried off to other parts. INAH Site Link
We continued straight on from Acanceh, a mistake we would later discover but not regret. This detour took us to large sisal plantations at Eknacan and Nohchakan. Eknacan boasts a large stone archway from the previous century, which looks remarkably similar to Mr. Catherwood's drawing of the archway to the hacienda at Mucuyché, (figure 4 in Volume I. of "Incidents", op cit). From here we wandered somewhat lost through interesting rural areas around the sisal hacienda villages of Cuzama and Homun to Tahmek, a hacienda that appears on Stephens' map, although they apparently did not visit it. After a wondrously aimless morning, we retraced our route to Acanceh, then headed in the proper direction to a better road at Tecoh.
By midday we arrived at the small village the Telchaquillo. Although no modern works or maps indicate anything of interest in this village, Mr. Stephens provides a detailed description of the cenote (well) he observed in the middle of the village, used then as now as a public water source. Cenotes are natural subterranean wells (or sinkholes) in the native limestone surface, found throughout the Yucatan Peninsula; while the entire area is quite arid, a table of fresh water lies everywhere deep below the surface in limestone pockets and caverns. We found Telchaquillo to be very much as Stephens had described, and quite worth the stop:
"At a distance the (village) square seemed level and unbroken... On a nearer approach, we found a great orifice or opening in the rocky surface, like the mouth of a cave. The descent was by irregular steps cut and worn in the rocks. Over head was an immense rocky roof, and at a distance of perhaps five hundred feet from the mouth was a large basin or reservoir of water. Directly over the water the roof was perhaps sixty feet high; and there was an opening above which threw down a strong body of light. The water had no current, and its source was a mystery."
While Stephens found "women, with their water-jars, constantly ascending and descending", Mr. Bernard and I happened upon five men swimming in the pool and a banana tree growing beside it. "The whole formed a wild, picturesque, and romantic scene." Beside the village square, we found a recently refurbished Catholic church, which clearly used a number of carved stones from previous Mayan ruins, placed at random among the stonework of the facade.
Only a few kilometers from Telchaquillo, and not far off the rural road linking them, we came to the archeological zone of Mayapan. We paid five pesos for the privilege of entering, and the caretaker assured us that for this fee we were welcome to spend the night. We parked the van under one of the few trees, not far from a singular water spigot, and here we passed the first night of our journey, with our hammocks suspended from the van to the tree.
Maya scholars now tell us that Mayapan was perhaps the last major Mayan capital, replacing Chichen-Itza after its fall from power at the end of the 12th century. It is unclear if Mayapan actually defeated Chichen-Itza, which continued to be inhabited, but Mayapan itself was finally abandoned in the mid-15th century. Illustrating the decline of Post Classic Mayan civilization, Mayapan was an inferior copy of the Toltec-dominated Chichen-Itza architectural style.
We found the main pyramid at Mayapan to be remarkably as Mr. Catherwood had drawn it 140 years earlier. "It is sixty feet high and one hundred feet square at the base... Four grand staircases, each twenty-five feet wide, ascend to an esplanade within six feet of the top... These staircases are all in a ruinous condition; the steps are almost entirely gone, and we climbed up by means of fallen stones... The summit was a plain stone platform, fifteen feet square. It had no structure upon it, nor were there any vestiges of any... far in the distance could be discerned the towers of the church at Tekoh (Tecoh)."
The many sculptured stones described by Mr. Stephens as being strewn about everywhere were not in great evidence, many having been carted off to various museums, but several remain around the site. The peculiar circular building Stephens described is similar to a few others in the Mayan world, which are commonly called "el caracol" (as in Chichen-Itza). Unfortunately, the 'caracol' at Mayapan has fallen in since Mr. Catherwood's fine drawing (fig. 3), and the five-foot thick walls today reach a height of no more than five feet. It is commonly hypothesized that any such circular buildings might have been used as astronomical observatories, and this one (like that at Old Chichen) stands atop a thirty-foot artificial mound.
The Toltec-Chichen influence is apparent in Mayapan in two sets of colonnades (rows of carved stone columns), and one small temple with a colonnaded interior. Mayapan was a walled city, and parts of the perimeter wall remain, some of it covered with still visible rows of carved serpent heads, another Toltec influence. There are three other smaller ruined pyramids, with platforms on top. Smaller mounds of rubble fill the surrounding countryside; Mayapan was once a city of several thousand buildings.
The cenote at Mayapan is seen today as a big round pit in front of the main pyramid. There were sturdy but plain poles against its walls, down which we lowered ourselves underground to reach the several natural passageways which led to the water source farther below. Like Mr. Stephens and Dr. Cabot, we had to crawl much of the way on our hands and knees through mud and bat guano -- and sometimes reduced to sprawling flat on the ground -- but we had the benefit of electric torches, not the wooden kind. After 50 meters of such sweaty and filthy progress we at last came to a steep descent to a pool of clear, deep water some 15 feet below. Myriad bats left this 'room' as we entered. After thoroughly cleansing and refreshing ourselves with the cool fresh water, we turned back again to sully ourselves anew on the hot return trip. INAH Site Link
After a meal cooked over our camping stove in the back of the van, we passed a cool night swinging in our hammocks amidst the ruined city of Mayapan. The next morning, we continued south via Tekit and came to the small village of Mama, which boasts a large old church looking much like an old monastery. On the grounds is an open chapel which is built over the top of a cenote, which has been covered to make a quite large well. From this well, stone-cut channels lead to a large reservoir and several smaller troughs, perhaps wash basins. This appears to be of old colonial design, but certainly the cenote was used by the native inhabitants as well.
Continuing on to Teabo, we passed the Guadalupe and Santa Maria ranchos (haciendas), the latter with an old stone gateway inscribed with "Tipikal 1792". Stephens reported stopping over at this hacienda on his way to Mani. A crude 1557 colonial map of local churches, reproduced by Stephens (as Plate XXV), shows Mani at its center with 'Tipikal' as one of its dependent churches; it also indicates the 'pool' and chapel at Mama.
At Mani we found a quite large colonial church, but no ruins. When Mayapan fell to local rebellions, the last Mayan lord took refuge with loyal followers in Mani. Stephens reports that the last cacique of Mani, Tutul Xiu, allied together with -- and accepted submission to -- the Spaniard Francisco de Montejo (the elder), thereby aiding in subduing many rebellious locals, who represented to Mani the downfall of (what was left of) the Mayan Empire at Mayapan.
From Mani we continued to Ticul and on south via Oxkutzcab to visit the famous Grutas (Caves) of Loltun. This large and ancient cavern is quite well known and we joined one of the regular tours which are given to visitors for a fee. It is a splendid sight, certainly not to be missed while in the area, but I will forgo any detailed description, as the caves are readily accessible to tourists. Stephens made no recognizable mention of these caves, and apparently did not visit them.
We stopped in Tekax, which was fortuitously outfitted with not only a fine market and shops, but a beer agency as well (warm Montejo beer being the usual speciality of the day). Here we replenished our vital supplies before heading out for Chacmultun. Chacmultun was not mentioned by Stephens, and while it appeared on our National Geographic map, the only mention we had ever seen of it anywhere was a brief mention in Morley ("The Ancient Maya"), where it simply appears in a list of sites known to have wall paintings. So here was an adventure!
We asked around in Tekax, but no one had heard of Chacmultun. Fortunately, there was only one road heading west from the vicinity south of Tekax, so we took it. This was the road to Kancab, but we stopped in the first village we came to, Canek, to ask directions. In fact, Canek is the 'gateway' to Chacmultun, and someone quickly found the caretaker of the ruins, Don Arturo Cacche Tzul, who led us on a short walk through the forest into the site.
There were several sign posts around the site and it was well tended, with short grass all around. Three good sized temple complexes occupy the large site, called respectively Xetpol, Kauapak, and Chacmultun. Each of the three complexes has a similar structure. First is a flat-roofed single story building with six to eight entry doors. Each door leads to a small room, each with a second doorway to a second small room directly behind. None of these rooms, however, connect laterally. At either end of this row of double rooms, a larger room protrudes forward into the courtyard, accessed by doorways on the wall facing away from the courtyard. Much of the interior stone was pink, and many of the doorways were curving arches of carved stone, albeit capped with the standard Mayan corbeling stone, not a true arch.
The roof of this edifice defines the next higher level of the complex, which extends back in a broad level platform containing three sunken pits or 'chultuns'. The chultun is commonly found in Yucatan, although seldom as part of a larger structure. It has a narrow circular opening beneath which the pit widens into a large basin several yards deep. It is presumed that these were either food storage bins or water catchment basins, or perhaps were used for both purposes, and their position on this large flat platform reinforces that supposition.
From the back of the platform a large pyramidal mound rises high above the base of the structure. At Chacmultun, these pyramids today appear fairly smooth and are covered with grass. At the Xetpol complex, another row of four stone rooms are built near the base of the pyramid, at the rear of the lower platform, but with doorways facing into the rising mound and away from the plaza.
In one of the rooms of the lower edifice at the complex called Chacmultun we found some quite beautiful wall paintings. On the back wall of this room were two rows of paintings depicting court ceremonies, including figures in large headdresses and a man with a bow and arrow (a weapon reputedly introduced by the Mexicas and not present in Classic Maya depictions). The figures are small, about one foot high, but show an amazingly fine artistry (for a Post Classic site), comparable I believe to those at Bonampak. While these paintings were discernible to the patient viewer, they were too faded to appear well in photographs. INAH Site Link
Altogether, Chacmultun was quite a good find, considering that we had no idea what to expect. In the weeks to come, we sought out numerous such 'unknown' sites, sometimes finding precious little of remaining interest, and just as often failing to reach the site at all. But Chacmultun encouraged us to keep up the hunt, and we did succeed in finding several other very interesting ruins, about which we had previously heard virtually nothing.
Don Arturo had told us about two other sites in the vicinity of Tekax, so we turned back to try and find them. At kilometer marker 65 on the Tekax road toward Peto we stopped at the village of Ticum and located Royce Ceron, a guide to the ruins at Chunconab. He led us about two kilometers up into the hills to the site, which is similar to Chacmultun, but smaller and in a somewhat worse state of repair.
Again there were several large artificial mounds, with rows of rooms sporting pink stones and curving arches. Many of the buildings had their capstones removed and the rooms had collapsed and filled in. But there was one more-or-less intact row of rooms, this one with a large Chaac mask built in to the face of the structure. Attached the side of this structure is a large room that is curved on the outside but square on the inside, reminiscent of a place Stephens called Saccacal.
Nearby was what appeared to be a large natural limestone trough, which was dry, but must have formed a pond during part of the year. A single large chultun with two circular openings had been sunken below this trough near its center.
Chacchob is another 'site' that appears on maps, but had inspired no other information that we were able to find. It is not to be confused with Chacchoben, on the Caribbean coast. North of Tekax a gravel road takes off northeast, supposedly leading to Teabo. We followed this poor road 17 kilometers to the small village of Xaya. We asked directions but no one could tell us anything about ruins. We only had Don Arturo's directions.
Three kilometers north of town the van started making loud noises, so we turned back to Xaya. Luckily it turned out to be a shock absorber that had lost a bolt and we quickly found one to replace it. Upon checking our maps, we decided to take the left fork of the road that left Xaya, instead of the worse road we had tried before. A few kilometers up the road darkness descended and we slept there in the van beside the road in dense forest.
I have some long, muddled notes about all the trails we walked the next morning. In short, we wandered around from trail to trail and across farms of corn and achiote (annatto plant) all morning and into the afternoon, asking whatever local Indians we met along the way, until we finally made our way to the rancho of San Diego. Here someone showed us the path to the nearby ruins of Chacchob. The ruin was pretty disappointing, consisting of an abandoned Spanish well and several foundations built with stones originally carved by the Mayas. At this point however, we were happy to have found anything at all and anxious to close out this adventure and get on with the next, after a rare cold beer back in Tekax.
Back to Oxkutzcab, we took the new turnoff to Labna, passing the Loltun Caves again. This recently constructed road now conveniently connects the three Puuc sites of Labna, Sayil, and Xlapakh, leading to the main highway near Kabah. Labna (INAH Site Link) is a very lovely site and we had it mostly to ourselves that day. The rooms were filled with swallows and we saw a number of beautiful mot-mots in the trees. We climbed to the roof comb of the Mirador pyramid for splendid views and slowly perused the other fine buildings, comparing notes with Stephens and Catherwood as they led us to find several fine carvings. There are no fewer than four drawing of Labna in "Incidents" and Stephens describes "new feelings of astonishment" upon approaching these ruins. Stephens reported two of the three doorways to the Mirador temple remained intact, but this number had been reduced to one by the time of our visit.
As the ruins closed for the evening, we asked the caretaker about Keuic, but she knew nothing. The friend she was talking with, however, not only knew of the ruins, but knew how to find them. He confided that it was a bit difficult to find, but "well worth the effort". And so our course was set for the next day as we settled into our 'camp' in the small parking area at Labna.
After Labna, Mr. Stephens devotes most of a chapter to Keuic (or Kewick), and Mr. Catherwood shows us four fine drawings of the site, so we were quite anxious to find this site which is not well known and certainly seldom visited (but 'well worth the effort'). In fact it was not at all easy to find, and virtually unmarked.
"The next morning we resumed our journey in search of ruined cities. Our next point of destination was the rancho of Kewick, three leagues distant."
We retraced the road back toward Loltun and turned south on the road to Xul, then turned right onto a rough gravel road to Yaxhachen. Here we got directions to continue (7.3 kilometers) to the village of Xobenhaltun where we turned again to the right. At 9.4 kilometers along this rough track, we almost passed up a crude wooden sign nailed among the trees beside the road, with the faintly hand-painted message "Kiwik Y trita". We turned in through an open gate, but after half a kilometer the track was too rough for the van and we had to get out and walk. For three kilometers we walked through thick forest sprinkled with little fields of achiote, and finally came to Rancho Keuic, which consisted of three ramshackle and dilapidating wooden houses, a well, and a corral made of stones stacked five feet high.
After we called out, a woman approached us from one of the houses, but could tell us nothing about ruins. Then she called to an old man, who directed us to a tenuous path to the right, beside the corral. One kilometer down this path we came to a clearing in the forest with paths leading off in several directions. In fact we were in the center of the old Keuic, and all paths led to wonderful Mayan ruins!
To the left we came to the main temple buildings, which Stephens tended to call the 'casa real'. Six buildings remained mostly intact and could be recognized from Catherwood's drawings. Inside were doorways of pink stone with the rounded false arches. The temple in his Plate X, with many pink columns carved into the facade, had fallen in on one side, likely because Stephens had removed the intricately carved capstone to that room -- replete with glyphic inscriptions (fig 5, vol II).
We spent several hours around the ruins at Keuic, and were quite pleased with ourselves for having found it. The surrounding forest provided lots of shade, and we read and reread Stephens' descriptions, locating as many of the buildings he described as possible. There were a large number of ruined buildings and artificial mounds all around in the forest, and this had clearly been a site of some size.
Having made our discovery of the day -- indeed of the trip -- we stopped on the way back at Xul to visit the old church. Stephens tells a good story of stopping over here at a time when they had run out of cash on hand. They were taken in by the Spanish priest, one "Don Jose Guliermo Roderigues" who had left Spain thirty years before, and had been appointed the Cura of Xul only ten years previously, which would have been in 1831. Both his church and home had taken advantage of the cut stones available at the nearby Mayan ruin of Nohcacab, and Stephens remarked that "over the principal altar (of the main church) were sixteen columns from the ruins at the rancho of Nohcacab".
(There appear to be at least two locations called 'Nohcacab' on Stephens' map -- the group of unimpressive mounds of rubble we saw at Rancho Nohcacab south of Xul, looted, no doubt by Don Jose; and a second, larger village somewhere between Ticul and Uxmal.)
Since the town of Xul was on our way, it was easy to investigate the present church, but we were pleasantly surprised to find over the main door a carved inscription reading:
'Se Construyo esta Yglesia siendo Cura Proprio
Don Jose Germ. Rodrigues y Su Director el VIC. ECCD __DJ
Ma. Solis. Ano de 1832.'
And there inside, above the main alter, stood the sixteen pink columns of Mayan carved stone!
Returning again to Labna, we continued on the new road via Sabacche, to Sayil. Between Labna and Sabacche, just south off the road we caught a glimpse of a two story Mayan structure about 100 yards off in the trees. This is the restored ruin of Kanah Cruz. We had to park and walk down a path to the ruin. There is clearly much new stone in this restoration, and hopefully it is somewhat accurate. The second floor consists of four rooms, two accessed through the front doorway, and two others facing out perpendicularly.
At Rancho Sabacche, we saw no immediate sign of ruins and the gate to this private property was locked. Stephens reported staying here, and also visiting its local Mayan ruins.
Somewhere along this road, we came to a turnoff to the north which led immediately to a pair of quite large pyramidal mounds which appeared to merge into each other near their bases. We climbed both and found them made of quarried, but unadorned stone. These were clearly Mayan ruins, but there was no indication of their identity.
The ruin of Xlapakh, between Labna and Sayil consists of a single main building, with large Chaac masks on all of its corners. There is another huge Chaac mask covering the front of this building, with a wide open mouth showing jagged teeth. There is a huge roof comb, making the building appear quite top heavy. Two minor buildings were nearby. Stephens reports that 'xlapakh' means "old walls" in the local Mayan dialect, and was often used to refer to any of the ruins.
At the large, beautiful, and easily visited site at Sayil, we once again were treated to a tour of the grounds by Messrs. Stephens and Catherwood (who call it Zayi). We saw no trace remaining of the 'four story' building Catherwood drew here. INAH Site Link
Kabah is another large and well visited site on the main road south of Uxmal. In addition to admiring the interesting architecture and carvings, we located the natural sinkhole in the courtyard where Stephens' horse fell in and practically disappeared, and identified the doorways in the Grand Terrace where they removed the carved lintel. We did not, however, see any trace of the painted 'red hand' referred to by Stephens. INAH Site Link.
We spent the night at our favorite camping spot just outside the ruins of Uxmal (INAH Site Link), where we had already spent a couple of days prior to this expedition.
Mulchic is not mentioned by Stephens, but it appears just south of Uxmal on our map. The caretakers at Uxmal, however, insisted that there was no such ruin near Uxmal. Driving south, we determined that there was only one dirt road heading west (1.5 k north of the paved road marked as leading to Santa Elena), and we only had to follow this very rough road 1.4 kilometers before arriving at a restored Mayan site, which must be Mulchic.
This site consists of one small but neat plaza. Two low buildings face each other on opposite sides of the plaza, and a stepped pyramid about six stories high faces a third side. The fourth side of the plaza is now only rubble. One of the buildings has a tall roof comb, and consists of a single large, empty room. A modern glass tile skylight has been installed where the corbel stones would normally be in the center of the roof, and this allows light to enter. It also made a nice home for hornets and I got stung twice visiting this room.
In attempting to find the rancho and ruin Stephens called Chack, we turned off the Uxmal road on a poor lane to the east, past the 105 km marker. "On leaving the rancho we saw at a distance on the left a high ruined building standing alone amid a great intervening growth of woods, and apparently inaccessible," wrote Stephens. After only two kilometers, we had to turn back due to the poor condition of the road, and the probability of Mr. Bernard destroying the Combi. However at one halt I discovered two perfect mot-mot tail feathers cradled in the crotch of a tree; I have claimed them as my own.
One of Mr. Catherwood's most famous and unique drawings of the Maya
world is of the colossal wooden ladder leading down into the Cenote of
Bolenchen, with a dozen Indians carrying water jugs up and down.
Bolenchen is right on the main road, somewhat south of Kabah, but when
we were there, there were no signs other than the small marker for the
village. However, the village is small and it was not difficult to
find the cave (also called Grutas of Xtacumbilzunan).
[Picture (clickable): 'Bolenchen: Cenote'
Frederick Catherwood, 1842]
There was no one at the cave entrance so we just walked in. Once through the cave's entrance into the hillside you find yourself inside, standing on a ledge overlooking a huge hole into the earth, over 100 feet across and 90 feet deep. Nowdays there is a sturdy metal ladder with hand rails straight down to the bottom of the huge gallery, whose ceiling is far above the top of the ladder; Stephens measured its entire depth at 210 feet.
On the bottom, a path leads about one third around the circular gallery where you come to more grottos leading steeply down even farther into the earth. Here is a long rope which you can use to let yourself down the steep and slippery slope another 80 feet down the low narrow grotto. It seemed pretty scary since it was quite dark, and we only had our small flashlights. At the end of the rope was an even smaller tunnel only two feet high through which we crawled to find a small pool of fresh water which was at least one of the water sources of this vast 'well'.
Upon emerging from this tunnel, we found the cavern filled with electric light, and three more visitors were descending the ladder. Back on top, the caretaker took our money, and apologized for his previous absence.
From Bolenchen we continued farther south to the crossroads of Hopelchen where we badly needed to fill up on gasoline before going back to find Santa Rosa Xlapak. But the gasoline stand had no gas and was waiting for the truck to arrive. We waited there for two hours, and as rain and darkness approached, we drove off to find a place to spend the night. We parked in an old quarry down a side road and slept in the van.
By the next morning the gasoline had arrived and we drove back north to try and find a road east that would lead us to Santa Rosa Xlapak (also called just Xtampak). Stephens stayed for some time at the hacienda of Santa Rosa and also at the fine Mayan ruin that he describes at length, and refers to as Labpahk.
"...in a few minutes we saw peering through the trees the white front of a lofty building, which, in the imperfect view we had of it, seemed the grandest we had seen in the country. It had three stories, the uppermost consisting of a bare dead wall". Mr. Catherwood includes drawings of full length sculptured bas-reliefs (Plate X, vol II), which include some Mayan glyphs, but while they "resemble those at Palenque in general character and detail of ornament, they are greatly inferior in design and execution." Still, full bas-reliefs in Post Classic Yucatan would be quite a good find.
Twenty-four kilometers north, we found two unmarked dirt tracks both heading east within one kilometer of each other. We chose one and slowly followed it 17 kilometers where it formed a Y. Taking the left fork, we continued another 7 kilometers to a water hole beside the road, beyond which the road became completely impassable. We returned to the Y and took the right fork only two kilometers before it too became no more than an unused mule track.
There were few trees in this countryside, but we could see no promising signs of anything ahead. Defeated, we turned back without finding Santa Rosa Xlapak, and filled up with gas again at Hopelchen.
From Hopelchen, the main road turns west toward Campeche city, but we continued south on the paved side road to Iturbide. Stephens' party approached Iturbide from the east, where today there are no roads, so he did not come near Hocchob. Going south, we passed the hamlets of Xcupil, Becanchen, Konchen, and Pakchen. It was a good paved road over 30 kilometers to Dzibalchen, where the main road turns east. Following only map directions, we took the nearest gravel road turning to the west, and followed it nine kilometers to the village of Chencoh.
At Chencoh we asked directions to the old Hocchob ruins, and acquired a volunteer guide in a young local boy named Victor, who was happy to ride with us in our van. We started out on a lesser dirt track, which we were only able to follow for 1.5 kilometers before it became too difficult for the van. (I might mention that we specifically chose the VW bus because of its high ground clearance; it took us many places that other ordinary vehicles would not -- and took much abuse in the process -- but it was no match for much of the rough terrain we came across in the Yucatan bush.)
Victor led us on foot another 3 kilometers down this track when we saw the ruins on a hillside to our left. We soon came to a pathway and followed it 10 minutes up the (apparently artificial) slope to the partially ruined temples. Atop the main pyramidal mound stood a 'Mirador' with two rooms and a crowning roof comb. Two chultuns were sunk into the platform in front of this temple. To one side was a nice temple whose entryway was a large Chaac mask with open mouth, a definite Chenes style. Except for the hooked nose of Chaac, all the relief was made of stucco, including several other figures on the facade; the only other one complete enough to recognize was a white owl.
A second high mound was nearby, but the temple at its top was in ruins. There were numerous other smaller ruined mounds in the immediate vicinity. From the 'Mirador', we had a splendid view to surrounding countryside which is mostly flat and covered in scrub brush and sparse trees. Victor grew tired of waiting for us and walked back on his own; we found him again in Chencoh and presented him with some small gift from among our camping gear.
Back to the 'main' road at Dzibalchen, we continued 20 kilometers east to the village of Iturbide. The village itself is built among a part of the original Mayan city called Dzibilnocac, and carved Mayan stones are to be seen in the construction of some of the buildings and the old well. The main Mayan temples are easily seen, rising high above the plain less than half a mile from the town.
As Stephens describes, there is one very long mounded temple terrace structure over 50 yards long, with a large temple in the middle and two solid square towers on either end. One of these towers is covered with stucco reliefs, including several Chaac masks, while the other remains in ruins. Some reconstruction has been accomplished of the main temple. Within the main temple some of the painted figures Stephens described are still visible. There is one male figure complete from the waist up, and fragments of several others, in fading greens and reds.
In the 'plaza' in front of the long terraced mound lay a number of plain stone columns, three feet high and one and a half in diameter, as well as one large chultun.
Like many of the far-flung sites we visited, there was no 'archeological zone' at Dzibilnocac, and no caretakers to prevent theft or vandalism. It is therefore hoped that whatever artifacts of interest to Mayan scholars have been removed to safer places for study or display.
Returning north to Hopelchen, we turned west toward Campeche. Only two kilometers down this road, and just before the turn off to San Juan Bautista Sahcabchen, we came to the small site of Tohcok (Tahcoh). There was just one building still standing, which was of interest because the front of the main room was supported by two free-standing stone pillars.
The site of Edzna is about half way from Hopelchen to Campeche and a good 15 kilometers south of the road on its own newly paved and marked side road. Edzna has had some restoration work done on it, and is now in an archeological park of its own. The main plaza is quite large and surrounded by large pyramid temple complexes which are quite impressive among the trees. At least three stelae were discovered here, one of the few Yucatan sites known to erect these stone monuments. INAH Site Link.
Before the road reached Campeche, we turned north on the narrow 180 and were once again in the hands of Mr. Stephens, looking for ruins that no one else seemed to have noticed. Following Stephens map, we found a Jalacho town which must correspond to the current Halacho village which is now on the paved road. Along this route, we stopped in Becal and visited several underground limestone caves where the locals weave their famous 'Jipi-japa' straw hats.
In Jalacho, Stephens and company attended "next to that of Yzamal, the greatest fair in all of Yucatan," a week-long affair involving numerous bull-fights, processions, and much gambling and merry-making. The Halacho we passed through was as sleepy as any little Yucatan roadside village. Stephens had visited the Mayan ruins of Sijoh (Sihoh), "two leagues distant" from Halacho.
We took the only road west, and after 9 kilometers came to an abandoned factory where a village had been. The local farmers pointed us to the row of mounds among a sparse area of sisal plants. There was not much left to be seen of Sihoh, just another collection of ruined mounds with no distinguishable carvings, but Stephens had found much more. Leaving Rancho Sihoh, he "in five minutes saw in the woods to our left a high mound of ruins... proclaiming the existence of another unknown, nameless, desolate, and ruined city."
Here he found "a solid mass of masonry, about thirty feet high and nearly square... and a range of steps still in good condition... On the top was a stone building... and within, the apartment was precisely like the interior of the buildings at Uxmal."
From the ruins of Sihoh, Stephens "mounted immediately and continued on a gallop to the hacienda of Tankuche, two leagues distant." By his map, it was to the south of Sihoh, so off we rambled on a rough track to the south, asking whatever farmers we passed for Rancho Tankuche. As I mentioned, while towns have come and gone, many of the old land holdings still retain their old names, or are at least still known to the locals by these names. As usual, the locals who knew the names of the ranchos were quite unaware of there being any ancient ruins near these sites.
Following word of mouth, we continued 9.5 kilometers south on a poor road whence we came to a paved road and turned left toward San Nicholas. Five kilometers down this road we came to the large pile of stones we had been told to look for, with a large pole sticking out its top, and here we turned in left for one kilometer to the unmarked entry gate of what we were told was Rancho Tankuche. In the pasture beside the gate we could see the swelling mounds of a row of old ruins, and we walked over less than half a mile to review them. Again we found mounds about thirty feet high with signs of fallen rooms and doorways on their summits. As usual however, most of the intact smooth facing stones had long ago been carted away for use in more plebeian local houses.
The ruins of Sihoh and Tankuche were somewhat disappointing, but merely being able to find these almost unknown sites with only the help of a 140-year-old travel journal, and the magic names of the old ranches the author had stopped at, somehow seemed an accomplishment.
Back at Halacho, we turned south again and enjoyed our only hot shower of the trip at a nice organized campground in the middle of Campeche city. We also had our laundry done and stocked up on provisions before heading south toward the Chenes-Rio Bec region. Here we left Stephens behind for awhile, until we moved back up onto the coast of Quintana Roo.
It's a long haul down to the Rio Bec region. From Campeche it's 150 km. to Escarcega where you turn west on the 186. Then it's another 140 km. to Chicanna, but the roads are good and fast. Chicanna is right beside the road and is well marked, as are Becan and Xpuhil, nearby.
The main temple at Chicanna has a beautiful and well preserved (or restored) Chaac face as its entryway, very similar to what we had seen at Hocchob. Across from this temple is a Rio Bec-style solid square tower structure, similar to those we saw at Dzibilnocac in Iturbide. Here we were helped by the local custodian Felipe Osorio R. who had been at this well-maintained and lovely site for 12 years. Felipe directed us far back into the woods to structure 20, a three story temple complex with Chaac masks all around it. The roof comb and stairway had crumbled, but it was quite an interesting sight. INAH Site Link.
While not at all impressive on first view, Becan was a very enjoyable site, just a few kilometers beyond Chicanna and north of the road. The main plaza contains a Rio Bec-style tower structure in poor repair.
Across the plaza is a very interesting and unique low pyramid temple, reached by a stairway that tapers up in stages. On the top platform there is a large patio area, and this patio is enclosed in non-structural walls with a wind-symbol design made by staggering the stones to leave open spaces.
On opposite sides of the back wall to this patio, the wall is offset to conceal two passages with stairs leading down to two separate rooms a half-level below the platform. One of these rooms has another passage out the back end of the pyramid. The second room has a corbeled-arched passage which doubles back into the pyramid itself; it is three feet wide, head high, and runs about thirty feet before terminating (at least today) in a dead end.
It all seems very mysterious, perhaps even secretive, and it appeared to me like nothing so much as a theater stage, where priests could make secret or 'magical' entrances and exits from the patio and the pyramid itself, with 'changing rooms' hidden below view in the back. From the plaza floor, all that is seen is the broad platform 'patio' with what appears to be a continuous wall across its back.
Beyond the main plaza we investigated several other larger pyramids with square towers protruding, unrestored and with the slopes covered in grass and shrubs. In the side of one of these pyramids, only a few yards above the base, we saw an opening about three feet square, and naturally decided to investigate. After crawling several yards through this passage on hands and knees, including a turn to the left, we emerged into a fantastic system of nine rooms and many passages, all within the depths of the pyramid itself!
Using our flashlights, we explored all the passages, which led up to several levels within the pyramid, via steps and sloped passageways. The nine rooms were in two separate rows on different sides of the pyramid, separated by about fifty feet of passages and stairs. The adjacent rooms themselves are separated by passageways and have steeply corbeled ceilings about thirty feet high! The feeling inside these rooms is quite amazing in the faint torchlight.
Like most Mayan rooms, they are small, the largest being about 8 by 12 feet, and this room had two large shelves cut into its walls at a height of five feet. Both series of rooms lead to fourteen or fifteen steps up to other exits, one of which is now blocked off. But we were able to leave these catacombs via one of the exits, and emerged about twenty yards higher up, on the opposite side from our original entrance. We had never read anything about such a system of rooms inside of any pyramid, let alone at Becan, so we were quite excited by this discovery.
After Becan, Xpuhil, just down the road, was not nearly so exciting. The main ruin at this site is one long Rio-Bec type terraced mound structure with three towers. There were actually some passages to be seen inside the structure, but they had mostly fallen in. Some stucco work was to be seen on the outside. INAH Site Link.
Felipe Osorio at Chicanna had given us some directions in finding the site of Rio Bec, which is far from the road and seldom visited. Just past the gasoline station beyond Xpuhil, we turned south on an unmarked gravel road of reasonable quality. At 13 kilometers we came to the hamlet of Hormiguero, and at 17 kilometers the good road ran out at a small ejido (collective farm) in the forest.
Our van had struggled through two large mud holes in the otherwise passable road so far, but beyond this point the road was a river of mud, with the ruts of large (logging?) trucks standing two feet deep all over the road. We gave up after the first 100 yards of struggling, and turned back. No Rio Bec on this trip.
I think it's about time to draw this lengthy narrative to a close. We continued on via the very nice and interesting site at Kohunlich (INAH Site Link) to the Caribbean coast. There we stopped to investigate some old favorite ruins such as Tulum (INAH Site Link), Coba (INAH Site Link), Tankah, X-Caret, and Isla Mujeres, and discovered some new ones (for us) at Chacchoben (or Chocchoben), Nohbek, Bacalar, Muyil (INAH Site Link), Pajaros, Chemuyil, and Pamul.
Yes, Stephens and Catherwood actually made it to the coast of Quintana Roo in 1841 as well. Making the journey by boat, they visited Tulum, Tankah, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, and even the 'island of Kankune' (Cancun), as well as noting the many small ruins to be found along the shore.
