Uxmal & Kabah on The Puuc Route and driving to Calakmul (Day 4)
The Mayaland Lodge at UXMAL apart from being located right next to the archaeological site is surrounded by gardens all around it. The lodge has a central pool with lots of tall trees around , which is filled with birds. We woke up at sunrise and after getting ready won't go around the area to look for birds. This being our early days of birding, we could hear a lot of birds but were not able to locate or identify them as quickly . After an hour or so of enjoying the surroundings we went for breakfast and had a leisurely breakfast under a tree canopy overlooking the archaeological site entrance.
The plan for the day was to do another round of the archaeological site as soon as it opens at 8 am for a more detailed look at this beautiful site. This time we hired a guide who took us through the entire site explaining all the details and the history behind it. This helped us a lot in understanding the area, its cultural significance and history along with seeing this wonderful marvel in completely different lighting conditions.
Sometime around 11 am we came out of the site and packed our bags and loaded it up to drive to the next destination , the town of Xupjil near the famous site of Calakmul. This was the longest drive of our whole trip and would take around 5 hrs without stopping. As the famous Ruta Pucc was on the way ,we had planned to do a leisurely drive, stopping at as many of the archaeological sites in this route as we could.
The Route Pucc starts from Uxmal and ends at the archaeological site of Labná with many sites like Kabah,Sayil and Xlapak in between.Since we were already late when we started and going to all the places would have taken us about 5 hrs more as each archaeological site’s take some time to visit and soak in all the history, we could only stop at the second most famous site on the Route Pucc, Kabah.
The Pucc region ( Pucc means “hills'' in Mayan) or the “rolling hills region” in contemporary terms, has some distinctive architectural style, with ornate carvings in various geometric patterns. They all have elevated palaces along with ball courts and huge stone arches. While the site at Chichen Itza and Ek Ballam shows the grandeur and the power of the mayan culture the sites at Ruta Pucc shows more of the artistic and beautiful village settlement.
Kabah is the 2nd most important site and closest to Uxmal , straddling the main road. While the main site is being reconstructed the other side is still being excavated, with archaeologists painstakingly putting all things together.We parked on the roadside parking lot , paid the entrance fee and hired a guide, who turned out to be an artistic wood carver of some repute. As we ascended sideways the first flight of steep and narrow stairs we saw one of the most impressive walls called the Codz Poop ( translated to rolled mat) or the Palace of Mask’s. The wall facade is covered with stone carved masks of the rain god Chaac. It's a beautiful sight, hindered by the scaffolding put up by the Mexican archaeologists trying to put things back together . You can see all the broken pieces that have fallen off lined up right next to the palace.
As we walked along this beautiful Palace , our guide took us to another side with two beautifully sculpted figures with some carved lattice below it. This was the first time we had a completely carved human sculpture on these sites. He then took us to another unique feature , a carved door jambs which showed two separate scenes carved in the stone with a hieroglyphic band below them. Our guide beautifully explained this as a new paper recording of the past historical event where the hieroglyphics showed the date in the Mayan long calendar, which is how we would capture an image with a date stamp.
After ascending and descending through a few other elevated buildings in the area , we went to the other side of the road to explore the east side. On this side you will find the Great Pyramid ( still being excavated) and a giant arch. Our guide told us that this is not as elaborate as the one in Labná, but was taller. This Arch was the entrance to the city on the Sacbé ( the mayan highway) and travelers would have been greeted with the awe inspiring giant pyramid before being blown away with the beauty of the Palace of the Mask’s in the inner sanctum. As we were getting late we had to end our visit and we started our long drive , after saying thanks and goodbye to our wonderful guide. Definitely needs a full day to explore all the sites on this Rutta Pucc, and will come back to explore the area again.
From here on we started our drive to Hotel Puerta Calakmul, where we had a Bat Volcano trip planned right before sunset, but we were sure to miss it as we could not have reached there before sunset. It's a spectacle worth seeing when at sunset millions of bats ( around 4 million) come out in a whirlwind fashion to look for food. Since we wanted to drive on the main highways rather than the small roads in the jungle we went through the city of Campeche before ending at the entrance of the road to Calakmul where the hotel is located. It was an hour past sunset , and dark and rainy. We quickly checked into the beautiful cottage before rushing to the main area to discuss our pre-booked whole day trip to Calakmul as well as to have dinner. Soon after dinner we went to bed as we had to wake up before dawn to start another unique trip.