Day 10: Coba Ruins and Cenotes

December 22, 2023

The first map below shows us heading from the hotel and through the Ruins, then out to a cenote. The second map is coming back from the cenote, with a brief spur to pick up some goodies.

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Since this was a "day off" here in Coba, we got up extra early, so we could be at the gate of the Ruins when they opened. We hoped that we would see some nice birds then, as we walked through the jungle and among the ruins.

On the way to the Ruins, we see a lone heron on guard by the misty lake.

But wait, we are not the only "birders" swarming around at this hour. We think the guy with the tripod is a guide. All the others came with binoculars ( or were supplied, most likely.)

This serious looking fellow was on his own.

Another heron at the opposite end of the lake.

Dodie always wants to see the Jacana's big feet, so we got this one to lift his leg.

Ash grey feathers at the wing tips of the Black Vulture

The Coba site is very spread out, with kms between groups of buildings. Consequently they rent a lot of bicycles, or transport people seated on cargo bikes. However they would not permit us to bring our bikes on site. That's clearly just to earn money, since they are obviously not concerned about disturbing the grounds.

The blue line is at least 2 kms top to bottom.

We actually preferred to walk quietly, to enjoy the jungle and to look for any birds.

The jungle road looked like this, and was generally very quiet and pleasant.

A disturbing bit was this staffer with a gas powered leaf blower. It's hard to meditate among the trees and temples with "blaaaaahh"!

We were pleased right away to run into an Ocellated Turkey. This is something from our guidebook that Dodie had really wanted to see, but figured there was little chance since the book says it is extremely shy. In fact, this one came to us, and wanted to peck me. Little did it know just how many turkeys, exactly this many days before Christmas, I did in during my years as a farmer!

The first buildings are called the Coba Group. It's insanely complicated about what the structures all are and when they date from. I guess because there are almost no interior spaces, they more or less all amount to a pile of rocks.

It's hard to see, but this goes way up there.

The Ball Court is a very recognizable structure. The ball game has been revived, and there are leagues in operation in Central America. The object is to butt a rubber ball with the hip, through a ring.

Here is a rare, almost arched, covered area.

The thatched hut above is protecting some painted bits, but wood and thatch must have made up the actual livable quarters amid the stone here.

A jungle walk features jungle trees, like this one with the iconic roots.

In several places one could see "stellae", which are standing stones that were or are inscribed with writing and drawings. Unfortunately we could not make out a single thing on these heavily weathered relics. However we did see a guide with a bunch of people, indicating features with a laser pointer.

A guide has an audience about this one. The guy scratching his head could also be us.

At the entrance was what we take to be a representation of what a stella contains, but maybe this is just an art work.

Coba was a big town, and here we see a second ball court.

The quiet jungle walk was really nice, but in fact the quiet was too quiet. We scarcely heard any birds, and had to more or less accept the turkey as our only find (and it found us!).

An oropendula nest. This is the home of an Oriole.

The largest pyramid at the site is called Nohoch Mul, which appropriately is Mayan for "Big Hill". It is the largest structure like this in Northern Yucatan.

From this point we walked back out to the entrance, shaking off offers of a ride from the cargo bike people. Their price was at least 100 pesos each. That's about $20 per km.

Out on the road, we were watching various butterflies on the move. It's remarkable how much straight line distance they can cover, while still flying a crazy zig zag route. There is no way to photograph them in the air. We did find one, sadly, in the road:

There are three cenotes quite close to each other in the Coba area. We have visited each in the past, and noted that one particular -Choo Ha - was both easiest to get in and out of the water, and had some areas where one could stand instead of swimming. So we went for that one, which we had earlier labelled the "baby pool". Our recollection was accurate, except that as is the case for most cenotes, getting down into the hole requires some care because of steep wet slippery steps.

On the way back up we met this iguana. His portrait is very degraded, by the cell phone camera. It's the first time we have used it, and did not know they would put in a watermark by default. Given the quality, I think hiding the camera make by default would have been a better strategy.

But the camera did inadvertently produce this rather artistic portrait.

Tomorrow we hit the open road again, except we are planning to try out some tiny back roads. If they are ok, we'll be in Valladolid in good time. If not, tears.

Today's ride: 25 km (16 miles)
Total: 350 km (217 miles)

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