Calakmul Bio Reserve/Ruins and drive to Bacalar (Day 5)
We woke up early in the morning around 4:30 am, as we were supposed to meet our guide outside the main building at around 5 am. After having a quick breakfast and picking up our packed lunch for the day we drove to the gate at the one way road to Calakmul arche;ogical site. The site opens at 8am and is around 60 km’s (37 miles) from the gate and takes around 1.5-2 hrs drive through dense forest. They open the gate around 6am and as we had booked a trip with a jungle walk for birding before the archaeological site tour we needed to leave before daybreak. We drove almost an hour or so through the beautiful forest on a winding road , keeping our fingers crossed to see a Jaguar on the road but we only got a sighting of the Yucatan peninsula endemic ( Mexico, Guatemala & Belize) the Ocellated Turkey. We stopped at the parking spot for our first hike named “Calakmul Cocodrilos” . Its a easy 2 mile long loop trail with around 200 ft elevation gain and passes by a watering hole. This place is frequented by a lot of animals in the dry season and we waited a while to see if we were lucky enough to see a jaguar , but again we had to be satisfied with the namesake of the trail , Calakmul crocodiles. But we saw some amazing lifer birds like Keel Billed Toucan ,Collared Aracari, Laughing Falcon to name a few along with spider and howler monkeys. It was an amazing experience to walk in the American tropical rainforest. We only met two other groups of people so we could really soak in the tranquility of the forest. From this we went to another trail called the “Selva Calakmul” which is a Out and Back trail of 2.5 miles with very gradual elevation gain of around 500ft. This trail is under a dense forest canopy which provides much needed shade from the sun. By this time due to the heat most of the birds were hard to find as they had gone in the shade themselves after the morning rush to find food , but we encountered a big family of spider monkeys going across the forest. It was fun to watch the young ones hang on their mother hanging upside down , without moving their curious gaze from us.
From here we went to visit the main archaeological site. This was the wrong time of the day to visit the site as the sun was almost on our head and beating down mercilessly even during the winter months. The extremely high humidity in the forest makes matters even worse. Since we only had one day, and the wildlife changes are higher in the morning , we had to do this in the afternoon. But before we began , we decided to have our lunch under a picnic spot and then proceeded forward.
After paying all the fees and using the restroom ( the entrance area is huge but crowded by this time) we walked through some elaborate carving to small structures to the the central Plaza of the Kingdom of Calakmul, which must have been one of the most grandiose places on this earth during their hay day , as it is suggested almost 50000 people called this their home.
Calakmul along with Tikal ( neighboring kingdom located in Guatemala) defined and dictated the classic mayan period with numerous and continuous battles and internal power struggle. This place is filled with history at every corner that has been excavated and so much more which still lies covered under the dense jungle. This is the end of a man made road and if you keep going south through the unforgiving jungle you will reach Tikal at the other end in Guatemala. Being the center of such a great and powerful kingdom there was bound to have huge pyramids and they have more than one , but none more grand than structure II. This structure was built over numerous times in the course of ten centuries to reach its final height of 164 feet ( 50 meters), the highest and the most massive structure in the maya world. We started our steep climb through the first section when you reach a platform where you can see miles into the forest above the treeline with no other man made structure in sight. It's a surreal feeling. This is not the top though , because if you walk around and go down some steps you can climb the actual top of this giant structure where you feel ur on the top of the world. It was hot but the breeze and the reduced humidity made it just bearable enough to sit and enjoy the vista.
After our climb down S did not want to climb another one but since R insisted she agreed and we went up to Structure I , the second largest structure of Calakmul with a great view of Structure II. From here it felt like this was the tallest of the two , even though it was at around 131 feet ( 40 meters). We were glad that we did this as the view from the top is beautiful.
This site is huge with numerous structures with lots of palaces, structures , walls , murals and steals, but you can only visit so many and as we had to drive to our next destination we turned back. At the parking lot we met some people and their car had broken down and as luck would have it they were going to bacalar as well and we were happy to give them a ride. On our way back we stopped a couple of times as a Tocan came on the road and sat on a nearby branch and for the great curassow male with its full black body and yellow beak.
Our guide had a secret spot on the way back where he promised to take us to see the red capped manakin, and after almost and out of bushwhacking and constantly hearing it we could not locate it. During this quick walk we smelt this strong musky odor which our guide told us was from a jaguar, which had just passed marking its territory or was nearby but hidden. Alas no luck of a sighting , it still remains one of the most elusive animals for us.
Their are some other very interesting sites nearby ,like Balamkú, Becán, Chicanná,Xpuhjil on the way to Bacalar on the Ruta Rio Bec , but it needs at least another day to visit those.
After dropping off our guide to the hotel and picking up the luggage we started our drive to Bacalar around 3 hrs away. We reached around 9 pm at our night stay location “Villas Ecotucan”. As we had no food with us ,w e went out to the town of Bacalar but most of the places were unfortunately closed or close to closing. Walking around the main square we found one and enjoyed some amazing seafood and cocktails before calling it a night in a beautiful cottage.