In 1986 I made my first trip to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.  Like most first time visitors, my destination was the resort city of Cancun, with its white beaches, crystal clear turquoise waters, and thriving night life.  While there, I rented a car for a day and drove down the coast to the ruins of Tulum, the fascinating walled Mayan fortress spectacularly perched on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean.  I fell in love with the Yucatan on that trip, not the glitz of Cancun, but the languid palm and mahogany covered landscape found outside of the tourist zone.  For many years after that first trip, I returned annually to explore parts of the peninsula that have changed little over the course of generations.

The Yucatan and adjacent parts of neighboring Central America were once controlled by the great Mayan city states.  Many of these have been restored to provide a glimpse of their original glory, and are visited by thousands of tourists each year.  Chichen Itza, Palenque, Tikal, and Copan rank among the greatest archaeological sites in the world.  Even today, however, there are other great Mayan cities that remain virtually hidden by jungle growth, largely unknown to the outside world.

One Mayan site I have visited several times is Coba.  It is rather astonishing that Coba is not visited by many tourists at all.  It is an easy drive from Cancun, just 30 miles northeast of the much smaller Mayan site of Tulum.  What makes Coba fascinating is that only a fraction of this huge archaeological site has been uncovered.  The pictures below are from a few of my trips to Coba and its environs.

Welcome to the Land of the Maya!

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A short drive away from the coastal resorts of the Yucatan brings travelers to a world that bears little resemblance Cancun or Cozumel.  The eastern Yucatan is quite sparsely populated, its villages little more than small collections of thatched one or two room huts. 

 This This cemetery was outside a small village north of Coba, on the road to Valladolid. 

Once you arrive at the Coba site, you must park your car and walk about 3 km through thick jungly forest.  Small signs of an ancient civilization appear here and there, but nothing spectacular.  Eventually, however, you arrive at the first of two 140 feet high pyramids that have been partially uncovered from their jungle blanket:

From the summit of this pyramid, you can survey the Coba archaeological zone and begin to get a sense of its immensity:

Note, this part of the Yucatan is flat as a pancake.  The hills you see on the horizon are actually ruins still covered by jungle growth.  In the center distance you can see a pyramid that is partially excavated.  To the left of the pyramid is another site that is completely hidden by the jungle, the only evidence of its existence is the elevation rise seen from this perspective several miles away.

Here is a closer view of the distant pyramid.

While walking the jungle paths, I came across this woman and child, clearing the pathways with a machete.

Stelae are scattered throughout the Coba area.  A stela is a carved stone slab memorializing a ruler or event.  Many of the stelae are so weathered that it is difficult to discern what they depicted.  Pictured here is one of the best preserved ones.  Like most of the stelae on the site, it shows a Mayan ruler standing on the heads of captive slaves.

Here is a close up of the stela pictured above, with the detail outlined.  Interestingly, when the Conquistadors took control of the Yucatan in the 1520’s, they used the same motif in their new cities.  Only this time, it was no longer a Mayan chief standing atop a Native American slave.  This time it was the Spanish Conquistador standing atop the Mayan slave’s head:

This is Casa Montejo, the 16^th century home of Francisco de Montejo, the Spanish conqueror of the Yucatan, and its first governor.  Located in the Yucatecan capital, Merida, the building now houses a bank.  The building’s façade is little changed from when it was built in 1549, and leaves no doubt about who the new masters of the region were.

Detail of Casa Montejo, with the Conquistador standing on the heads of Mayan captives.