| Roberto will pick you up at Casa Santiago at 8 in the morning.
The caves of Loltun are in the hill county of the Yucatan. The first tour begins at about 9:30 am and a cave guide is required. The caves are remarkable. There is a decent enough path through the caves and the guide will turn the lights on and off for you as travel along. Stone tools dating back 7000 years have been found in these caves and there is an academic dispute as to whether the 11,000 year old mastodon bones found there either belonged to a very lost furry elephant or to a dinner for hungry humans who did him in and brought him home in pieces for supper. The Mayans used these caves for ceremonial purposes and after the Spanish conquest, continued to practice their rites in secret in these caves. The caves are full of stalactites and human carvings and handprints. The trip through the caves involves about 1.25 miles and sensible shoes here make sense. It is not unduly physically taxing. Near the end of your one hour or so walk in the cave, suddenly the ceiling of cave opens to the sky. The sunlight, the great tree growing up from the floor of the cave and all the birds will take your breath away and then put a smile on your face.
Now Roberto takes you to Kabah, a very famous and accessible Classic Mayan ruin. The big Temple has as many stone images of Chac the rain god as the most Chac-obsessed Mayan decorator could have coveted. At the back of the Temple are two monumental, three-dimensional figures of Mayan warriors. Take a picture. There are only a few surviving examples of full human figures in Mayan architecture. Kabah is very walkable and not too big. You can climb up a few steps to the big Temple and the rest of the site is fairly easily reached from this platform.
After Kabah, Roberto will take you to Labna, one of our favorite Classic Mayan ruins. It is beautifully maintained. Sooner or later you will encounter in your reading about the Yucatan mention of the great Mayan arch at Labna and you know what?, it really is great. But the rest of this big site is just as great. It is very accessible and has enormous shade trees throughout. Neither Labna nor Kabah are the least bit touristic.
We have purposefully not included in this day trip some of the nearby Mayan ruins mentioned in guidebooks because we found them to be not so much fun. We think that vacations should be about recreation and smiles, not the mere acquisition of more notches on the visitor’s archeological belt.
Then Roberto will take you to Oxkutzkab for lunch. There is a very nice thatched-roof restaurant where your corn tortillas are made by hand as you sit there. The food is great and inexpensive.
Roberto will then get you back to Casa Santiago by about midafternoon.
Roberto’s charges for this day trip do not include the small admission charges to the ruins and the caves or your lunch.
|
