Having had more than enough of boring highways, we took the inland road to Uxmal, pronounced as 'Uschmal'. First thing we had to do was getting something to eat in Campeche and then find our way through this city towards the road that would bring us to Uxmal. The first part was easy, the second not. We had breakfast at a place where a huge Mormone family were having breakfast too, so it took a while before we received our order! After we finally had our brekkie, we visited one of old fortresses in town before heading to Uxmal. The 'Fort of San Jose el Alto' dates from the 18th century and houses a Maya museum. There weren't too many visitors that early in the morning but plenty of big Iguanas everywhere on the walls!
One of the many typical houses we saw along the way |
The landscape in the Yucatan isn't very inspiring. It reminds me of Queensland around the central coast and we even drove past a ranch with the name 'Australia'! In Mexico though there are beautiful small villages. People still live in small huts with roofs made from palm leaves. They are obviously very poor by our standards, but yet are much more friendly than in Chiapas for instance. We met a couple this morning who had been a little bit further south into Chiapas than we have and they had seen a group of men chasing a tourist for taking a photo at a festival... They wanted his camera! Here it is luckily very different. People smile, wave and ask us what we are doing. When we tell them we get the thumbs up. How different than just a couple of days before.
Still, we all prefer these roads over highways as here
we experience real Mexican life. We stopped around noon in the old town of Hopelchen for a well deserved cold coca cola. Just 34 pesos for 3 cold cokes and some sweets :-) Sitting under a palapa we smiled as we saw Mexican life go by. Two man transporting a ladder on a scooter, and many three-wheel bicycles with handmade roofs used for carrying anything from cargo to people. Just out of Hopelchen we passed the Tohcok ruins, a small site, on our way to Uxmal.
Halfway the '261' we crossed the 'border' and drove into the state of Yucatan. The Puuc route took us past the Kanab ruins and via the colourful town Santa Elena to the Uxmal ruins. In the western part of Yucatan there are several cities built on a low range of hills called 'Puuc', meaning 'hill' in the Mayan language.
The 'Pyramid of the Magician' is impressive and is also the highest building. The 'rounded' corners of this pyramid makes it distinctly different to the other pyramids we had seen so far. Next to it is the 'Quadrangle of the Birds' where you can see representations of parrots, macaws and hummingbirds carved in stone. The 'Nunnery Quadrangle' looks like a patio which itself is overlooked by the Chambers in the constructions surrounding the square. The lintels here are adorned with geometrical patterns and snakes.
We bought the tickets for the 'laser' light show in the evening. The lasershow was a bit tacky and were just coloured lights rather than lasers. We think the loudspeakers blared out a historical story but unfortunately we couldn't understand a word of it as everything was in Spanish while most guests were clearly from overseas... We took photos of the ruins at night in coloured lights and the patterns in the walls of the Nunnery Quadrangle, which gave a very different effect under coloured lights.
The Yucatan is becoming a bit of a ruin tour. The landscape isn't, so far, very inspiring. Don't be fooled though there is an enormous amount of incredible history to be found here. The next 'stop' is not going to be a ruin though, at least we hope not, as it's the bikeshop in Ticul where we hope to fit new tyres!