Calakmul
Into the Biosphere
Stephanie would not have come up with the idea of doing many of the things we end up doing together. That does not mean she lacks an adventurous spirit. Few middle aged spouses would put a side trip to a remote, unfamiliar part of Mexico on the agenda at all, let alone agree to a spontaneous, self-directed excursion to such a place. Stephanie’s willingness to trust and join me on such adventures is one of many things I cherish about our relationship.
After our visit to Mayapan, we set off toward the village of Xpujíl on the Campeche-Quintana Roo border. Three Mexican states make up the Yucatan peninsula, Quintana Roo, Yucatan, and Campeche. Quintana Roo sits along Mexico’s Caribbean coast. It is home to Cancun and the many resorts along the Riviera Maya. It is a fun, developed place full of tourists, cenotes all inclusive resorts, and plenty of places to drink and lay on the beach. It’s where most people go when they fly to Cancun. Yucatan stretches across the north shore of the peninsula. The autopista beween Cancun and Merida runs across nearly it’s entire length from east to west. It houses the city of Merida and the famous ruins at Chichen Itza.
Campeche is the odd man out, as tourism goes. It is a neglected place in many ways. We could not have made the five hour trip to Xpujíl without a rental car, and while it wasn’t the most sporting or dangerous Latin American driving experience I have had, it was not the relaxed “Sunday drive” of the Cancun-Merida autopista. The highway south through Campeche was once a nice highway, but has apparently suffered neglect for some time. The speed limit is 120kph (75mph), and the surface is smooth enough to go that fast in many places. Then, with no warning, you’ll encounter a whole cluster of 18” deep holes! That made driving 120kph not really possible most of the time, and highly stressful when attempted.
I soon learned a trick, however, that allowed me to keep a brisk driving pace. I noticed that I was occasionally being passed by delivery trucks making as much as 130 kph. I wondered how they were navigating the road conditions and identifying the obstacles far enough ahead to avoid them. Their trick was that they already knew where all the holes were, and either slowed just before reaching them, or abruptly swerved in the correct direction so as not to hit any others. Like a NASCAR driver riding a draft, I jumped on the rear bumper of one of these savvy veterans. When he hopped on the brakes, I hopped on the brakes. When he swerved left, I swerved left. It took some concentration, but we made very good time this way.
We drove through undulating country, some of which had been cleared to farm. We saw quite a bit more agriculture in Campeche than Quintana Roo or Yucatan. Most of the farms we encountered had been planted to corn at some point. We passed many fields of dead, apparently unharvested corn stalks still standing. By and by, we passed a few very neatly kept, well organized diverse farms with modern John Deere equipment being driven by white guys. It was a Mennonite colony. I had seen a large Mennonite settlement near Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, but was not aware there were significant groups in other parts of Mexico.
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We arrived in Xpujíl in time to enjoy a delicious outdoor supper at a rustic roadside cafe. We devoured delicious plates of fajitas and later found an excellent helado stand. Our motel could also be described as rustic. As you might guess, there were not a lot of lodging options in Xpujíl. There were several places touting themselves as ecolodges in order to upcharge tourists coming to see the Maya Biosphere Reserve and the Calakmul ruins. They were expensive and often remote. Other places were nothing more than glorified campsites. The Hotel Maya Balam was a dated mom and pop type accommodation, the kind I often book when traveling alone. It has decent reviews and was priced reasonably for what it was. I usually try to find something a couple of clicks higher than this when traveling with Stephanie, but there just weren’t many options in Xpujíl.
We parked the rental car on a patch of grass down a steep hill on the back side of the motel. We were surrounded by dogs, chickens, and crowing roosters. We were greeted by kind staff members. They even ran a small restaurant from the facility. I roamed the town a bit before we called it a night, and found a tourism booth. The attendant there put me in touch with a guide who spoke some English and could help us find wildlife as well as explain some detail about the Calakmul site. I often do trips and visits without a guide, but I would recommend hiring one to visit Calakmul.
From Xpujíl, it was a two hour drive to the trail head, and then about a mile and a half hike from the parking area to the first ruins. We left well before dawn, and met our guide at the turn off from the main road. He drove us down a dirt road to the parking area. We walked slowly and quietly through the jungle in search of wild life. The guide seemed disappointed at the animals we saw, but we were able to spot a couple of different kinds of monkeys, falcons, toucans, and some kind of green turkeys that looked more like peacocks than turkeys. We didn’t see any big cats, though they are known to sometimes lurk in the area.
Even though we visited during the first week of January, Calakmul was warm. There were a couple dozen other tourists there, but I don’t think we saw any other Americans. They were all visiting from Europe. The lack of tourism at Calakmul means you can still climb all of the structures. The main pyramid is more than half again as high as the one at Chichen Itza. It’s tall! From the top of the pyramid, if you look carefully, you can see El Mirador down in Guatemala, an even more inaccessible place I would visit on a later trip!
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Only a tiny fraction of Calakmul has been excavated. Many of the large unearthed structures still have trees and greenery growing up out of them. There is a huge plaza between several apparent shrine or temple sites that was probably clear and flat when the city was occupied, but retains many of its trees in the present. Calakmul is famous for having well over 100 stelae and for the wonderfully preserved masks found under one of the later temples. We saw some of these at an off site museum. Since we visited, an on site museum as opened. I cannot really comment on that as it just opened in the fall of 2024.
We enjoyed hiking around the areas that had been excavated. We walked several miles getting in, out, and around the site. Stephanie climbed some of the main buildings, including the largest pyramid, and was patient with me as I climbed many others. We visited with our guide. We visited with European tourists. We generally marveled at this huge amazing ancient city that no Americans seemed to be visiting even now at the height of the season when it would be best visited.
Calakmul was a massive ancient city. The main area had an estimated population of over 50,000, with perhaps 200,000 people falling in its hinterland. Many people think of a Maya empire. These great Maya cities, though, were for the most part autonomous. The Maya world represented more a collection of city states with similar customs, culture, and architecture. Calakmul was a large and powerful city state. It was the major rival of Tikal. These Pre-Columbian dominions fought a long series of armed and economic conflicts with one another during the height of Maya culture and influence. Each state’s ruling dynasty appealed to different symbols, traditions, and gods. Tikal may be better known due to its easier accessibility, but the two seemed to have been fairly evenly matched rivals. Both are amazing sites, well worth visiting.
Given the remoteness of the site and the physical activity involved in visiting Calakmul, we were fairly tired by the time we were through. We decided to make the short drive over to Chetumal, which is technically on the coast. It is not exactly a beach resort. Chetumal sits on a muddy bay. It has a nice little Museum of Maya Culture, and a beachfront malecon. But walking there, as Stephanie pointed out, “smelled like Mexico.” It was worth it, though for the delicious coconut shrimp and margaritas we enjoyed before sauntering back to our motel on foot. We slept well at a middling motel, then headed north up the coast.
The collector in me was tempted to cross into Belize so I could explore a bit of that country, and mark it off as another place I had visited. Stephanie correctly and convincingly argued that I would be better served visiting Belize on another trip. Besides, she had done a bit of research on her own, and wanted to check out Bacalar on the way back up the coast of the Riviera Maya and we were already on a pretty aggressive pace.
