First, the site is located in the 1,800,000 acre Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, one of the most important biosphere reserves in the world - second only to that of the Amazons. Traveling into the reserve is like traveling back into time and getting to see the same landscape that the Mayans once walked through.
Our trip to Calakmul was not quite as easy as we had hoped. While the ruins are one of the largest ancient Maya cities ever uncovered, it ceases to be a major tourist destination. We ended up taking two second-class busses south from Merida for a trip that lasted about 5 1/2 hours. We eventually found ourselves in the middle of nowhere at midnight when we encountered a small cabana for the night. The biggest perk was getting to see the stars at night without the glare of city lights to obstruct the view.
Don Antonio, the sweet old caretaker of the cabanas told us that we should get an early start on the day if we were planning on going to the ruins. He arranged for a cab, which is the only way to get out the ruins, and we headed off to sleep under mosquito nets for the night.
The next day we arose to the sound of roosters crowing and ate a nice breakfast prepared by Don Antonio himself. We were in the cab by 7am and headed off to the site.
The site is so remote that tit takes at least an hour by car to reach the ruins once you enter into the biosphere reserve. Along the road we saw a good amount of wildlife which consisted mostly of wild turkeys. But these turkeys weren't like any I've ever seen. They looked more like giant peacocks with blue and green feathers, a long neck and a small head topped with a crown of orange bumps. They were much more beautiful than I expected.
We finally reached the beginning of the ruins. From there you can take three routes, the shortest of which takes you right to the main attraction - the heart of the old city and the two big temples. Calakmul was home to about 200,000 people during its peak, so the city is huge.
Both of the temples were equally impressive in size and height, but one is slightly higher than the other. The bigger one holds the record for the tallest and I believe the biggest pyramid of the all the Mayan pyramids excavated. Four tombs have been found inside, indicating that the pyramid grew in size throughout the years that the city thrived.
The view from the top of the pyramid made the long, hot accent worth it. All you could see was jungle in every direction with the other temples poking out from the treetops. From the top of one pyramid we ran into two mexican guys with binoculars. With binoculars we could see the very tip of the main temple of Tikal, Guatemala. (The site of Calakmul is only 30km from the border between Mexico and Guatemala). So, technically, I can now say that I have seen a lot of Guatemala, regardless of the fact that I haven't stepped food inside of the country.
After spending about 2 1/2 hours at the site, climbing both of the big pyramids and running around the site, we decided not to keep the cab driver waiting any longer. Plus we were trying to fit in as many sites as possible while we had the cab for the day.
We drove back out of the site and headed off towards Balam Ku's. This site was a lot smaller than Calakmul but it had some really nice stucco work. Back in the day of the mayans almost all fo the buildings were covered with painted stucco. The site of Balam Ku's gave us a better look at what the temples used to look like.
From there it was off to Chicanná. This site was much closer to where we were staying for the night. Its big attraction was a huge building whose facade was shaped like a giant face - the doorway being the huge gaping mouth. It was a depiction of the mayan god of the earth.
From Chicanná we headed right down the road to Becán, another small, yet impressive site. There were many high pyramids with stunning views. Becán was also the first place we really encountered other tourists. We saw some mexicans at Calakmul and few other tourists at Chicanná, but nothing like the italian tourist group we saw at Becán. I think that part of the experience of going to all of the ruins that we saw was that they were so remote. It felt almost as if we had the ruins to ourselves. It made them that much more awe inspiring and impressive.
Finally it had reached 5pm, which is closing time for the archeological sites. I can't say I minded though because we had a long, exhausting day of traveling and I was ready to head back to the cabana. Luckily on the way home from the ruins site we asked the taxi driver about bus rides back north so we could get to Merida. We found out the Xpuhil (the closest city to the ruins) was so remote that only one bus left each day to go north and it happened to do so at 4am. We were very thankful that we had asked or else we would have missed our only bus north.
We headed back to the cabana where we proceeded to watch a bit of "The Little Rascals" in spanish before passing out from exhaustion. At 3:30 we woke up and Don Antonio drove us to the side of the road because he told us it wasn't safe for 3 girls to be walking alone in the middle of nowhere at 3 am. There we waited with him until we could see the headlights of the bus and we flagged it down from the side of the road.
We were back in Merida by about 9 or 10 in the morning after some long hours on a bumpy bus ride home. We had the whole day ahead of us, yet we felt as if it were bedtime.
My Lesson of the Day: Four ruins in one day is enough to exhaust even the most avid ruins enthusiast!
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