Exploring Coba Ruins and Punta Laguna Reserve (Day 8)
Another early rise saw us packing all our stuff before dawn and picking up our guide from Tulum and driving to the Coba Ruins, which is around an hour away. Since the archaeological site only opens at 8 am , we walked around the Laguna Coba enjoying birding and the sunrise through a foggy morning.
We saw ..
Coba is a big and important site in the yucatan, and was constructed as a collection of settlements with the famous white road or Sacbe connecting them and the other major cities in the region. This ancient site was discovered only in the 1800’s due to it being situated in a very dense jungle and is still largely unexcavated. This place is so huge that they rent bikes as well as small rickshaw’s to take people around different sections. The very wide ancient sacbe covered with tree canopy shade provides a pleasant walking experience as well , as you are shielded from the scorching sun as well as a huge birding opportunity.
We had some difficulty entering with a telephoto birding lens as somehow it's perceived in Mexico that a long lens means professional photography/videography and is therefore not allowed without permission from Head Office in Mexico City. After a lot of discussion they finally let us in and we entered the first site known as the “La Iglesia” or “The Church” which is the tallest building in this section known as the “Coba group” at 72 feet ( 24 meters). This is the second tallest building in the site, has nine tiers and is closed for climbing due to loose rocks/steps. Within this group of buildings there are numerous palace structures of thatched roof design along with lots of Stella’s or Carved rock monoliths. It also has a Ball Court ( one of two in this site) and numerous other small buildings .
Moving along the main road you have the choice of going right to another group of structures known as the Macanxoc group named so for the Macanxoc lagoon close to it or continue on to The Painting Group, named for painted stellesl on top of the building in this section. We chose the former which is quite a bit walk through the canopy covered Sacbe but gives you a chance of seeing the spider monkeys as this area is less traveled and quieter. It's quite fun to see this endangered species with their small babies clinging to their mother in an upside down position staring at you with their big eyes. It's advisable to not stand directly underneath them as they are known to poop on you. Being quieter also makes this path an ideal path for birdwatching. After exploring the numerous altars and stela’s that are scattered around in this group of ruins we came back though the road to the junction and went forward towards the Painted Group of buildings.
This group of buildings has another group of beautiful stela’s and numerous structures with thatched roof altar on top. One of the pyramids has frescoes with paintings at the top, from which this group of structures gets its name.The 2nd ball court is also in this group along with a semicircular base 4 level pyramid called the Observatory or “Xaibé”. It is supposed to represent the Mayan calendar and is the one end of the main road called the Sacbe 1 which is around 62 miles ( 100 kms). This unique road system was the heart of civilization ( same as our highways are now) and was around 30 ft wide in some places. It was covered with limestone which reflected light and provided natural lighting in all conditions, very similar to current fluorescent lighted pathways. Due to the dense vegetation there are birding options all along, but at the main ruins it declines due to high foot traffic.
After this we started walking towards the most famous of all the structures in Coba, the Ixmoja pyramid in the Nohoch Mul site. This is almost 1.2 miles from the main entrance and gives you a lot of birding changes on the way. It is one of the main attractions and pre-Covid this was one of the few structures that you were allowed to climb up to get a view from the top. The Ixmoja pyramid is 138 ft tall ( 42 m) and has 120 steps. It is the tallest pyramid in the northern Yucatan.
Coba is a huge site and said to have a population of 50,000 at its peak. The entire forest is covered with numerous structures,stela’s and other man made architecture which is yet to be excavated. There are numerous cenotes very close to the site for cooling off or swimming, like Choo-Ha, Tankach-Ha and Multan-Ha. Since we were focused more on wildlife we drove to Punta Laguna , around 20-25 mins drive from Coba. But before departing the Coba site we had a sumptuous lunch at one of the cafes right next to the entrance.
Punta Laguna is the gateway to the Otoch Ma’ax Yetel Kooh National Protected Area and home to spider monkeys and howler monkeys along with other birds and plants.The Nature Reserve is operated by and directly benefits the local Maya people and it did not disappoint as we followed a group of spider monkeys all along the forest. There is also a lagoon where you can go boating or a cenote for swimming but it was time for our evening flight out of Cancun and we had a long way to go. We dropped off our guide at Playa del Carmen, a famous touristic beach town along riviera maya , before entering the traffic jam of cancun on our way to the airport. We have been driving 7 days all over the Yucatan peninsula but nowhere did we face the chaotic traffic till we reached Cancun.
We landed in Mexico city late in the night and went straight to our hotel as we had another early morning tour , the last one for this trip