Dreamers Rise An Open Notebook And for those who choose the twisty road, prefer it to the straight Let joy beat out old misery, as love will conquer hate. Illustration by Henry L. Stephens from The Goblin Snob (ca. 1855) A sort of electronic broadside, composed of rants and reviews, conceits and speculations, and whatever else feels the need to be here. Issued as chance will have it. Incidents of travel (VII) From Cancún we drove south and overnighted near the ruins of Tulum, a small post-Classic Maya ruin notable for its well-preserved murals and its scenic location on the Caribbean. It must have been an off-season for tourism, because in spite of Tulum's proximity to major resort areas there was hardly anyone at the site. We ate lunch in a little place nearby, where the daily specials included tortuga — presumably some kind of sea tortoise, whether legally obtained or not I can't say. I took a pass on the tortuga, opting instead for venison, which I probably have not eaten since. In mid-afternoon we checked into a modern beachfront hotel and took a room on the second or third floor. The hotel was deserted except for a young German couple whom we apparently interrupted in flagrante, with the door of their room wide open, as we dragged our luggage to our own quarters. Either that day or the next we headed inland for a side trip to Cobá, an extensive but mostly unexcavated complex of ruins that had been well off the beaten track for many centuries. The road ran through thick tropical forest interrupted here and there by rough trails and little settlements; at the ruins themselves there was a somnolent Villa Arqueológica and a stand selling unrefrigerated Cokes, which weren't particularly easy to gulp down in the formidable heat and humidity. In spite of the conditions we made it to the top of the steep and crumbling Nohoch Mul pyramid — said to be the largest in the Yucatán — and from there we peered out over the nearby small lakes and the forested lowlands that stretched out as far as we could see in all directions. According to the Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World, at its peak Cobá had a population of from 75,000 to 125,000. Back on the coast, we went looking for a public beach at a place called Xel Ha. We turned down the wrong road and wound up instead at a tourist resort / ecological park with the same name, which wasn't what we had in mind. Eventually we found the Playa Xel Ha, which we had to ourselves with the exception of a Mayan man who passed through the palm-shadowed parking light looking for a light. The beach sands were blindingly white and the water very clear, and by the time we were through swimming we both had sunburns bad enough to keep us in discomfort for the next several days. We got back on the road and headed for Chetumal, which is as far to the southeast as you can go without leaving Mexico. Along the road we passed through a town called Felipe Carrillo Puerto, after a former governor of the Yucatán who was assassinated in 1924. Neither our Sanborn's log nor my Frommer's mentioned the name it bore in the second half of the 19th century, Chan Santa Cruz — or more elaborately, Noh Cah Balam Na Santa Cruz, which according to Nelson A. Reed's The Caste War of Yucatán translates as The Big Town of the House of the Priest of Santa Cruz. In 1847 an army of Maya insurgents, seizing an opportunity to redress long-held grievances against the Ladino population of the Yucatán, rose up and drove government troops and settlers alike out of most of the peninsula; the collapse of the few remaining strongholds around Mérida and Campeche seemed imminent. At the last moment, however, the Maya, faced with the need to prepare their fields for the growing season, drew back to their villages. The pressure on the two cities was relieved, but for decades large parts of the Yucatán would remain beyond effective government control. In the off-and-on guerrilla war that ensued, the Maya rarely attempted to hold ground. Faced with a government offensive, they would evacuate their villages and encampments, then conduct a harassing campaign of ambushes, booby-traps, and hand-to-hand jungle combat against government forces, who were almost inevitably forced to beat a hasty retreat. Neither side was inclined to take prisoners, and horrible atrocities were committed all around, with little distinction made between combatants and non-combatants, including women and children. Deserters, and any Maya who showed an openness to a negotiated end to the war, were summarily executed. Chan Santa Cruz was to emerge as one of the principal centers of Maya resistence, as well as the most important sanctuary of the syncretistic religion of the Speaking Cross. In 1850, a Maya prophet named Juan de la Cruz Puc, influenced by both Christian and indigenous beliefs, began to receive and relay instructions from a small wooden cross, which commanded the Maya to intensify their stalled drive to expel the foreigners from their ancestral homeland. Puc himself disappeared from history within a year or two, but the Cross continued to speak to other leaders and prophets. Part millenial cult, part guerrilla army, the Cruzob, as the followers of the Cross were known in the Yucatecan Maya language, continued to hold sway over large sections of southeastern Yucatán until the early years of the 20th century. The sanctuary at Chan Santa Cruz was repeatedly sacked by government forces, but the Cruzob would simply move elsewhere (the Cross itself proved to be highly portable) and reoccupy the site when the army departed. Only with the arrival of modern weapons — Mausers and machine guns against which the machetes and handmade bullets of the Cruzob were no match — were government forces able to gain the upper hand. Even so, in the continuing political turmoil of the Mexican Revolution, parts of the southeast would remain unstable for years. But at the time I knew nothing of this, of course. We drove on to Chetumal, a town that hadn't even existed during the years of the Caste War, stared out across the bay at the coast of Belize, gassed up, and moved on. (To be continued) February 26, 2008 [ Permalink ] Previous page Next page Home Index About Email me