Cenotes and Dinosaurs

This cenote had the roots of a tree hunting out the fresh water

Natural wells.

That's the closest translation I can find for the Spanish word cenotes. A cenote, then, is a naturally occurring underground aquafer or reservoir. So far so boring. Where it gets interesting is that these water courses can sometimes work their way through the soft and highly permeable bedrock of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula to form large, freshwater cave systems. As the rock is so permeable all the rivers in the Yucatan have burrowed their way away from the surface so that, unless you know where to look, the whole region appears to be devoid of any drinking water; but before I continue with caves I have a slight digression.

The Yucatan peninsula is quite a place, not just historically and culturally as I have begun to explain in my previous post, but geographically and geologically as well. Let me explain via the medium of dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs, for those that have never seen Jurassic Park, are super mega cool giant lizards that mostly went extinct approximately 65 million years ago at the end of what is known as the Cretaceous period. I say mostly as all birds are evolved from dinosaurs. But what caused this extinction? Volcanoes? Meteor impact? Climate change? Disease? Well, the answer is that it was probably a bit of all of these but the single most significant of them has now been shown to be a massive strike from a meteor 10km across. And where did this most monumental of meteors strike the Earth? The Yucatan. You would think that the crater left by such an impact would be huge, and indeed it is, measuring some 180km across, but that doesn't mean that it's easy to see. If you were to wonder along the north coast of the Yucatan you would walk right through it and never know you'd been inside one of the planet's largest scars. It was only discovered in the late '70s and it was many years before it was even established that it was a crater, nevermind the most likely candidate for wiping out the dinosaurs.

These little fellows were abour 6 inches long but kept to themselves

In the years since it's discovery the crater, known as Chicxulub after a nearby town, has given up a wealth of evidence including a layer of impact dust covering the Earth and a gravitational anomaly at the site. You can see a review of this evidence along with several cool pictures here. But what, you ask, does this have to do with today's topic of discussion? Nothing really, I just wanted to write about it. Actually that's not strictly true; if you look at the third image in the link above you'll see dozens of little white dots that rather nicely help demarcate the boundary of the crater. Each of these dots represents a cenote. The two cenotes in my pictures here are on the very right hand edge of the picture just over half way down.

These cenotes were the lifeblood of the Yucatan and wherever one was discovered a habitation soon sprung up; today, Valladolid is the nearest large town near these two particular remarkable structures. We had made our way there from the next town along specifically so that we could go for a swim..... and take a few photos. These caves are basically the local swimming baths and very popular in the summer; on a weekday in spring, though, they were all but deserted. The temperature was in the mid 30s Celsius and we were clad in our finest sun hats and shorts, slathering sun cream onto our pasty forms at every opportunity; some locals were still wearing heavy coats and gloves. So it was with tangible relief that we descended the thirty or so metres into the cool darkness of the first cave down a higgledy piggledy staircase hacked out of the bare rock.

The lines through the water are ropes there to help anyone that gets into trouble

Straining eyes and ears we began to see and hear the bats that make up half of the permanent population of the subterranean grotto we were about to enter. Sympathetically placed lights around the edge of the cave both above and below the water line changed colour every minute or so altering the atmosphere of the cave in a mesmerising sequence. The main feature of the cave was very much the 30m wide almost circular pool of crystal clear freshwater, but it wasn't long before the eye was inevitably drawn upwards to the mass of stalactites that hung almost menacingly, like the Sword of Damocles, from the roof. One area was so thick with the formations that the stalactites had congregated into a tight formation that put me in mind of an organ from one of the worlds great basilicas. This wasn't the only feature that gave this great cavity the feel of a cathedral; the coolness, the respectful quiet, the mass of stone and faint echo of hushed voices all added to the effect. Further, the small opening in the roof through which poured a single perfect shaft of sunlight could almost be a typical rose window so popular in medieval Europe's Gothic masterpieces.

The water was cool, perfectly so. I'm a keen swimmer, I'll be in the Thames again next week, and I have swam in many beautiful locations but none, I think, as tranquil and captivating as this. With the bats and stalactites above and the shark-like fish, the other permanent inhabitants, as black as jet, gently swimming below this was an experience that will stick with me forever. After we'd had our fill we went across the road to the neighbouring cenote; this one didn't have such an impressive array of stalactites but it did have something to make up for it. Hanging straight down from one edge of the hole in the roof there was a mass of  tree roots eagerly seeking out the precious water below; and instead of bats this cave had lots of little birds flitting in and out chirruping as they went. Somehow, perhaps because it's easier to envision the growth of a tree than it is the incremental elongation of a rock formation, this cave felt even older than the first one although they're actually contemporaneous.

I've never seen anything quite like these underwater lagoons and I'm not surprised that they were often considered sacred places in times past. Hundreds of offerings and sacrifices have been found in some cenotes, not just ceramics and jewellery but human remains too, thought to be an attempt at appeasing the gods in times of drought. Before the Europeans built their churches and cathedrals it is easy to see how these caves could have served a similar purpose bringing an air of sanctity to proceedings designed to make the participants feel closer to god. I don't care for gods, but as I swam in the cool waters I certainly could appreciate the elemental nature of this most imposing of pools.

Tulum

It's pronounced TOO-lum. No, I hadn't heard of it either. Nice place, though; you can find it in the Yucatan peninsula on the west coast of Mexico. About half way between Cancun and the border with Belize lies this most unusual, not to mention beautiful, of sites. As you can see from the picture below it is quite popular with the tourists and this is by no means a new phenomenon established by the gringos. This was a coastal retreat of Mayan kings in the 13th century, and who could blame them. I mean look it. I have read many books on pre-Colombian America, I have watched many documentaries about it and I have scoured every last inch of the British Museum's Mexico gallery but I had never come across this jewel of a location and we basically decided we were going to come here on the strength of pictures just like these. Having arrived at Cancun airport, then, we hopped onto a couple of buses and got ourselves down the coast arriving slightly after dark.

Fancy a visit?

Perhaps the reason that I hadn't come across Tulum was that, by Mayan standards and Mesoamerican civilisations in general, it's not a particularly important place. The buildings are quite small and they were mostly built at a time when the once great Mayan empire was in decline. There are no grand pyramids like at Chichen Itza or Teotihuacan; it wasn't a permanent seat of power like Yaxchilan or Palenque, and it's not in a geographically significant position like Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. Yet it's position is, essentially, why it exists at all. The main building complex straddles two headlands that form a cove about 100 yards wide. The volcanic basalt cliffs embrace the golden sands as if to protect them from the unknown dangers of the deep. An arrow shot from the shore there is a coral reef, the second largest in the world, that, viewed from the cliff tops, tantalisingly breaks the water's surface between the gentle white waves. This reef perhaps gives a hint as to the first function of the site; it may well have acted as a lighthouse and, indeed, there is growing archaeological evidence to suggest just that. The main building of the complex, known as El Castillo, has a novel and sophisticated lighting system that would have allowed navigation of the narrow channel between the reef and the cliffs. So Tulum was once a port that was soon appropriated by the ruling class of the time and so began it's long history as a tourist resort.

It is about a kilometre walk from the road that runs through the town of Tulum, often referred to simply as Pueblo, to the ruins on the coast. A wide gravel path has been hacked out of the jungle to allow access and as we made our way down it the heat and humidity became ever more oppressive. 35C and 95% humidity does not lend itself to so much as a gentle stroll much less lugging a heavy camera bag up and down hills. To protect the trade that went through the port the three landward sides of the complex were surrounded by a very large, very think stone wall through which two breaches have now been made on the north and south sides for the passage of tourists. This wall was 4 metres high, 8 thick, ran for over 700 metres and would have been an incredible undertaking which gives some measure of how important a trade route this was considered at the time.

This photo nicely sums up the Mexican attitude to polite notices

As the port grew in importance this inevitably attracted a larger and more diverse set of people to the area and soon a town of more than 1,000 inhabitants had been born. More and more structures were built, residences, a commercial area; an observatory (the Mayans were accomplished astronomers and mathematicians, temples for worshipping in; and so it was that, in 1518, when Juan de Grijalva saw this mass of structures all painted red, blue and white atop the cliffs from his boat he declared that he had found the Seville of the New World. Anyone that visits Tulum will know that this is a gross exaggeration but it would still have been an imposing sight. Grijalva was leading a small expedition from Cuba under the instructions of  the legendary Hernan Cortes who had set up a base from which to explore the New World; it would be he and his men that would conquer the Aztecs who controlled the interior of Mexico over the next few years.

Tulum was not put under siege or fought over with the invaders, the fall of this city was a gradual one caused by the breakdown of society that occurred as European diseases swept through the continent and decimated populations. Within 70 years of Europeans landing in the area Tulum had been abandoned to the jungle; it's only permanent residents now being the hundreds of black lizards 1-3 feet long that sun themselves on the exposed rocks. It wasn't until the first decades of the 20th century that it was put back on the map as archaelogists slowly revealed it's secrets.

All of the places and people I have mentioned in this blog will have their stories revealed over the next weeks and months. Everyone has heard of the Aztecs but not many people know the remarkable story of the collapse of this awesome empire at the hands of just a few hundred ruthless men. This was our very first port of call in Mexico and whilst, perhaps, the structures themselves were not the grandest or largest that we would see we could not have hoped for a more tranquil and beautiful beginning to our travels.