The story continues from ‘The Puuc Route’

Ric Bec Dreams and the ancient sites of Balamku, Nadzcann, Chicanna, Xpujil, Becan, Homerigero and Calakmul

The drive from Campeche to Rio Bec Dreams in Xpuji:

I left the city of Campeche about mid morning and drove along the coast toward the town of Champoton. The sea was beautiful and peeked through the trees various times until I made the final hill and the road sloped down along the beach. Then it came into its full glory with the sun glittering off the surface of the calm water. There were many beach houses along this area of Campeche bay. I spotted a little Mayan structure with palm thatch roof. I pulled into gravel area in front of it. That was a good place to eat lunch. I took my sandwich and coke down to the shaded area and sat there awhile watching the sea and the pelican’s dip down catching a fish or two. It was so quiet and peaceful I hated to get back on the road.

I continued on to the town of Champoton. Well, well, another party town on the sea. They must do a super business in the summer season with all the beach houses up and down the coast. From there I had to turn inland and follow the highway to the small truck stop town of Escarcega. There was nothing much there but a place to eat. It looked rough and dirty so I just drove on by and turned south on Highway 186 headed for Rio Bec Dreams.

That was a long way down the road being there were only 3 or 4 small villages to pass through to break up the scenery. The scrubby trees started to become more prevalent and soon the sides of the road were covered in thick brush obscuring the view. On one section of the road I came across a group of men with machetes hacking the weeds along the side of the road. Another lesson in the use of manpower, as no machinery was used to mow it down, only the sweat off the brow of brown skin locals wielding their blades.

I came up over a rise in the road to find the highway filled with young men running along the side of the road. Ahead of them was a truck filled with more young men. I stopped to take a picture and the kids hammed it up and posed for me. They were runners on one leg of the run to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe. They were from Chetumal and were members of one of the churches there. This loosely translates into “if you answer my prayers I will run a section or highway for you.”

The whole scene was very emotional for me and every time I saw I group of kids doing that I would get all choked up and teary eyed. That has been a tradition for many years to run for Our Lady during the month of December. I felt honored to have seen so many of the youth running along the road to honor the blessed Lady.

After a 142 k of highway I saw the flags of Rio Bec Dreams waving in the breeze. Their place is located on the left side of the highway about 6 k before you reach the town of Xpujil. This was to be my home for the next week and I had a whole group of ancient sites in close range to spend time visiting. I drove in and parked. The place was cute and quaint. The gardens were full of blooming flowers. I made my way through the gate past the first Mayan house that was the office and found myself in front of the parrot house. To my right was the restaurant dining area. To my left was the public restroom in another Mayan house shape. Straight ahead was the kitchen and bar. I didn’t find anyone there but I could hear voices coming from the kitchen. I went around to the door and hollered to Diane and Rick. She came running out and gave me a big hug. Soon Rick joined us and we chatted at the bar for a little while. Rick then took me to my jungleow cabin. It was built out of wood and raised off the ground a couple of feet. The windows were screened and it had a net covered bed and vanity in one corner. They were adorable. The other jungleow cabins were built the same and all were clustered spaciously around a central bath and shower house. The construction was superb and rustic. The path was made of planks that wound in among a group of skinny trunked trees. All of this part of Rio Bec Dreams sits on the edge of a good number of acres they own that backs up to the site of Becan. This is part of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve.

I settled in and had dinner and a couple of drinks from the bar. It had been a long drive and the thought of lying down became overwhelming so I retired and pulled the velvet night over me as I went to sleep.

Homerigero and Xpujil.

I started my rounds of visiting the sites by going the closest ones first. Homerigero is a very ancient site and the stones there reflect that fact in that they are very dark gray looking. The Earth Monster doors were fabulous and had lots of detail to them. I wandered around the site for a long time before I went to see the Xpujil site that is located on the edge of the village. That one was different as it had a temple with three towers to the building. There were staircases leading up to where a platform would have been on top of the first story roof. I could see out of the doorway to the middle section and across to the third tower. Below were rooms, which were now roofless. I tried to imagine being a priest during the time Xpujil was at its zenith and stepping out on to the platform to perform some ceremony above the crowd of inhabitants below. I could see bon fires burning and hear the beat of the drums. The sun was starting to go down, so I made my way back to the entrance with a small detour to a small Mayan building I saw on the side. It was a caretakers' hut, which had a step fret design worked into the stucco covering the base of the building. Next to it was the care takers quarters and he had a fire going on the Mayan grill for his dinner.

This site also had a miniature sacbe (road), or in this case, a paved trail leading from the entrance to the first of the buildings in the site. The next one I was to encounter was at Calakmul. It was ancient engineering brought into modern times. Super, gotta love it.

I find it amazing that out in the wilds of the jungle even a small village has an Internet. This one has two. They weren't very fast but were helpful. Both were small buildings about 10 by 12 and had 6 or so computers. Another helpful hint, the town is spelled Xpujil, and pronounced 'Spool-heel'. That is for those of us that can't get our tongues rapped around the x and z sounds.

Diane helped me with the locations of the sites and drew maps in my little notebook I carried around with me. She gave me directions and approx miles or (k) they were to their place. She also told me that site of Rio Bec was not open to the public as the villagers blew up the road. No clue why. After a lovely breakfast with them, she packed me a lunch to take with me for the day.

Balamku, Nadzcann and Chicanna:

Balamku was the first site I started with the next day, however it is located about 60 k from the Xpujil area near Calakmul. There are lots of sites on the map but some are too little and lost down in the jungle or have no roads to them, or whatever, and I had to forget them. Diane gave me the goods on what to see so I started with Balamku. I started early and in an hour made it to the site. It had many trees in the plaza that I am sure are newly grown since the ancients were here. The most the site had to offer were the frescos now contained inside a wall of the reconstructed temple. Of course I couldn’t take pictures. I’ve scanned the little book I bought to give some idea what it looked like. The frescos were of frogs and crocodiles sitting with other figures. This had to be a woman’s temple as the whole thing had to do with fertility. Below is a copy of the illustration from the small brochure of the frescos inside the temple.

I went on to Nadzcaan. I found the gravel road with a teeny sign on a small piece of wood and was suckered into another dirt road, not bad but 15 k of it and the next day my wrists were swollen up again from gripping the steering wheel so hard. It had lots of outcroppings of rocks to wiggle around. When I arrived at the site I found I had a small wooden bridge to cross. Not even in a heartbeat was I going to cross that and end up in the bottom of the ravine with no one around to get me out of the hole. So I safely parked the VW and walked the last 2 k to the site, all up hill by the way. It had four buildings surrounding a central plaza that were partly reconstructed. I climbed the stairs to one and ate my lunch up on one of the platforms. I found out later, I missed the ball court and the observatory. I didn’t find any paths, so I was out of luck there. I was the only person up there except for a couple of caretakers, who disappeared with the heat of day. There was no entrance gate and no ticket to buy. With a road like that, I wonder why. I enjoyed the way the walls were constructed with inter locking stones. The site had been worked on recently but no signs told about any of the buildings. I began my descent to the bottom of the hill and ran into a zillion butterflies on the few flowers that grew along the path. They were not even aware of my presence and sat still enough for me to take some pictures.

I had enough time to go to Chicanna on the way back as it is only 3 k from Rio Bec Dreams. I just loved the Earth Monstrer doorways. Hochob, Hormigero, the one on the magician’s temple at Uxmal and now Chicanna. I’m just having a ball trekking around these places. Chicanna and Hormigero are located closer together near Xpujil.

Even at that, Chicanna seemed newer as the stone wasn’t as dark gray color. It has some reconstruction on the buildings and I found the two story temple with the staircases inside really fascinating. The engineering was amazing that they could get the steps inside and build the walls around it. Of course, that temple along with all the rest were covered with a outer coating of stucco to cover the stones that made up the core walls

Calakmul the towering giant city in the rainforest:

The following morning I was going to go to Calakmul. I found the Austrian couple, Oliver and Jasmine had arrived at Rio Bec Dreams the night before. I offered to take them, as there were no busses that went there. We started early, as the drive there was 60 K to the turn off. We shared the fee to get in, 10.00, which was a road toll fee from the highway to the site about 40 K and then another 20 K beyond that over rough potholes. The site was set deep in the rain forest and when we arrived we were not disappointed. In fact, I was so overwhelmed by the amount of the temples and buildings that I got lost several times. After a while they began to look the same just by their shear size. There were so many huge, huge buildings, more than any other site so far. A lot of work has been done to restore the site to where it is today. We wandered from plaza to plaza thankful for the signs that were posted by each temple. There were Stelae stones in front of a lot of the buildings, but only a few of them had glyphs that were readable.

When we reached a grove of trees at the top of a small hill, there were several howler monkeys in the trees. They didn’t make any noise, but we could see them jump from branch to branch. The pictures are going to have to do the rest of the talking, as they are more impressive that I can be or do writing. I did find a group of workmen building another path or small sacbe road between two plazas. That was the most fascinating thing to watch. The most effective way it has been done for thousands of years and still built the same way today. If it isn’t broke why fix it.

Becan, the walled city next to Rio Bec Dreams:

This place was a delight from the first walk through the walled passageway to the last of the temples. Oliver and Jasmine went with me. We delighted in each of the buildings. Becan also has an Earth Monster temple. This one we could climb and get a close look at the face carvings on the doorway. Down the back side of the temple were many rooms and a courtyard. Beyond that, the ball court was located. When we climbed down and walked around the side we found a windowed area with frescos framed behind it. It was one of the sun masks similar to ones I was to find at Kohunlich the next day. The workmanship was wonderful. We walked around to the other side of the plaza area where more of the temples were located and found a way to climb up some steps to the very top room. The room was roofed at one time, but today the openness to it just begged for me to throw out my jaguar skin rug and set and talk to the gods awhile. The middle had a big room with a room on each side with benches carved with tooth designs on their bases. This city was magical and worth every minute I spent there. On the way out of the site we could see the village located close to the site proved that this city is still being occupied to this day. The property that Rick and Diane own backs up to the site and they have found mounds of buildings located there. It will take time to find out what they are.

My stay with Diane and Rick was delightful, but I felt the need to go on to Chetumal the next day by way of the site of Kohunlich. It was another 60 K down the road and the city of Chetumal was not far from there. It only made sense to continue and not drive back again to Rio Bec Dreams. I bid everyone a fond farewell the next morning and started on the 60 K drive toward the sea and my next stop. More later, Gay

The story continues with the section on ‘Chetumal, Bacular Bay and the surrounding sites’. Pictures are posted on Webshots.com and can be reached by clicking on the Mexican hat on the first page of the web site.