Mexico – Day 10: Tulum and Cobá

Day 10

Wow, day 10 already, the first double-digit day. At that point you inevitably start thinking about the journey home. Club Med, the final stop, isn't until tomorrow though.

Today we did a couple more things in Tulum. Namely, we first looked at the Tulum ruins and then the Cobá ruins.

We had a very nice guide. And my partner had made sure that he picked us up at 07:30. That way we were on site practically at the opening of the Tulum park, the Jaguar park.

The plan worked: we were almost alone. The crowds only came towards us as we were leaving.

Tulum was a relatively new Maya city that existed for maybe 200 years before the Spanish arrived in the 15th century. After that the city was abandoned in a hurry.

We learned a lot about the astronomy the Maya already had 5,000 years ago. Genuinely impressive, what they achieved simply by observing the stars. They had calendars and could even predict solar eclipses.

It is also interesting to see how everything developed much more slowly on the other continent, and that there weren't as many wars as we had. Of course there were some, between the cities now and then. But nothing compared to the constant destructive fury of people in Europe over the last 2,000 years, where nobody could ever be content with what they had.

Well, and eventually the Spanish did exactly that to the Americas too.

Amusingly, right at the beginning of Mexico I asked ChatGPT why the US developed so differently from the rest of the continent.

And it is quite simple: because the US became settlement territory relatively quickly, people put down roots there and built their own economy. Meanwhile the other Latin American states simply had their resources extracted and shipped to Europe. Plus slaves. (And diseases imported in return.)

The Maya themselves didn't know gold. But they had obsidian and jade. The Spanish, however, then found plenty of precious metals and took them along. That also explains the absurd opulence in the churches.

Second on the programme was Cobá.

Cobá is a much older city that existed until roughly 1200 and was an important hub and trading city in the middle of the jungle.

The whole area was so vast that you can either rent bicycles or a bicycle rickshaw. Our private tour spared no expense, so we had someone pedalling us around. He spoke excellent English and told us his story, that he has children, and how little work he currently gets in the off season, and how little commission he receives. I was close to interrupting him and just handing over the tip to make the lament stop.

Up there we were even allowed to climb the largest pyramid. It was a temple with an altar right at the top.

Incredibly steep, and a wild feeling when you are suddenly up there looking out over the jungle. You can really imagine what an exalted feeling that must have been for the priests and rulers of the time, being able to look down on everything.

And a temple like that was built over 800 years. Everyone kept making it bigger.

Just that fact fascinates me: that you can maintain a religious, political and governing system for over 800 years in order to keep building one thing for that long. Says something about consistency.

Think about everything that happens in Europe within 800 years. How many wars are fought there, how many empires collapse and are destroyed, before the next larger empire destroys everything again, before it too falls apart or is destroyed.

When we were done with Cobá, our guide (who kept calling us "my friends", because he knew a few words of our language) took us to Taquería Honorio, the place we had been trying to get to the whole time but which always closes at 3pm.

That was really tasty again. With a braised chicken dish cooked underground. Properly delicious tacos.

Then we were home, freshened up and afterwards went to a beach club to while away the afternoon by the water. (We are now genuinely ready for Club Med.)

Later we are making quesadillas ourselves back at the flat. With cheese from Oaxaca and a sauce that I spent a good 15 minutes discussing with ChatGPT in front of the shelf, trying to work out which hot sauce to buy.

A few more observations:

Our dive guide said that quite a few brands of water sold here don't really have many electrolytes. That also explains why electrolyte drinks are such a hype here.

And I have to say, I love it, because it isn't quite as sweet as lemonade and still simply tastes good.

My partner isn't so keen, but I force them to think about their electrolytes regularly anyway.

Another small travel hack:

I carry a portable HDMI cable plus adapter. It is great for watching your shows on the big TV from your phone, without having to get involved with obscure transmission methods, syncing between devices, wifi networks and so on.

One more word on bathroom taps.

It is genuinely funny: every tap here feels different from the last. Sometimes you turn right, sometimes left. Sometimes hot is on the left, sometimes on the right.

Today I even found a row of four sinks in the toilets at Cobá where every single tap was a different type.

Generally there is a lot of improvisation here. The hubcaps on our bus were only fastened with cable ties. I like it. Exactly my style. (Or maybe it is extra theft protection. You never know.)