YUCATÁN – MEXICO IN THE CARRIBBEAN – PLAYA DEL CARMEN,
CANCUN, COZUMEL, RIVIERA MAYA
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WORDS © MARION FRIEDEL
Mexicos Yucatán peninsula, Mexico in the Caribbean - Cancún, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen. The Riviera Maya, running the length of the coast of Quintana Roo with its endless white coral beaches. A new holiday heaven, with ultra-modern hotels for independent or "all-inclusive" travellers. Explore the Maya civilization - the temple sites in the Yucatán jungle. Pure Caribbean with Mayan culture!
Bruce Montes jumps off his bicycle and, when everyone else is aboard the 4-seater Cessna, he squeezes in behind the joystick, starts the engine and prepares to take off on an excursion flight. He does not have far to go to work: the little airstrip lies in the middle of the Playacar holiday centre with its big, international, all-inclusive hotel complexes, a golf-course, a smart residential area and the Avenida 30, the main street of Playa del Carmen. This once insignificant fishing-village, whose only claim to fame was its ferry service to the island of Cozumel, has now developed into an Eldorado, a multi-cultural playground, and the fastest growing city in the whole of Mexico. We fly low over roofs, dusty roads and countless building sites. Then we cross the white sands and soar out over the turquoise-blue sea. To right and left, as far as the eye can see, the coast stretches away in a seemingly endless chain of wide, curving bays, edged with gleaming white sand, with waters ranging in colour from pale peacock blue to ultramarine. The Caribbean coast, over 400 km (240 miles) long, divides into two parts, to which the marketing men have given the hard-selling names "Riviera Maya" and "Costa Maya."
As the Cessna slowly gains altitude, the vast coastal infrastructure itself - the motorway, leisure centres, hotels, a deep-water harbour and the square parcels of development land - all dwindle to insignificant white lines and patches amid the grey-green cladding of impenetrable jungle, dense bush and mangrove forests, which covers the peninsula like a carpet and from which every square yard of land for building or agriculture must be wrested.
As we land again in Playa, everything which appeared from the air to be organized and tidily divided into rectangular plots, lapses once more into a delightful atmosphere of creative chaos, of "What the heck, lets do it!" Here in Playa optimism predominates, imagination blossoms, yet everything is unfinished; there are great tracts of nothingness and holes in the dusty, coral-sand roads.
Miguel remembers with horror his first nights in Playa. He had set up the posts for his hammock in the middle of a large, bare building-plot measuring 210 sq meters (a mere twentieth of an acre) which he occupied in the Colonia Donaldo Colosio. Trembling with fear he lay in his hammock, his hands firmly grasping a machete, continuously on the lookout to defend his plot against sinister prowlers and drunken riff-raff. After all, he was just one of todays sixty thousand illegal settlers who have migrated here from every part of Mexico to find a better job in Playa. Miguel has found work in a hotel; a little hut stands on his plot of land, a roof for himself and his family of three. Life for them still lacks any electricity, water or sewerage. It is a struggle for survival in the face of poverty, disease and dirt.
For fair-haired Sabine from Germany, known locally as "La Rubia" (The Blonde), today is a black day. She is waiting impatiently at the hotel bar for her attorney and shaking with anger and disgust. A Mexican, who had been a good friend, has just relieved her of US$ 3,000. His plan was to purchase for her a uniquely desirable piece of land in Colosio, which foreigners were not allowed to buy, since it is against the law. It measured 210 sq meters and the price was US$2,300. Sabine is bitterly disappointed, particularly in her so-called friend, since so far she has not even got back the $700 change. Even so, says Sabine, she is having the time of her life and - something she particularly emphasizes - she has finally found her true self. A former air-hostess, Sabine loves the climate, the music and the people. Two years ago she chose to make Playa her new home, realizing it was the ideal place for her: "In Germany we had too much of everything. But here in Playa you can concentrate on the essentials of life. After all, when you get right down to it, what does a human being actually need...?"
In Playa del Carmen there are still no rigid rules and regulations to hamper peoples creative urges, and a virtually free rein is given to fantasy; this is what draws rich and poor - mainly Europeans - to this place. They make grand plans and often invest every penny they have in a new future. Heinz, another German, sold his bar and his house in Mallorca and put all his money and mental energy, as well as that of his wife and children, into the construction of a hotel. He has planned it and thought it out entirely himself. Only the best is good enough. Heinz is a perfectionist and after two years work the hotel is still only a shell. According to malicious gossip, his Mexican builders cannot do anything right. They say he does not want to see the project completed. Heinz is afraid that tourists will simply defile his dream-palace.
New restaurants are springing up like mushrooms and nearly always reflect the nationality of their owners. Trained chefs are a rarity. A German car-mechanic has gone into wurst; the Italians all boil spaghetti and bake pizzas; theres a Swiss serving rösti and fondue. The French restaurants are twice as expensive as the others. But nothing stays the same for long and the South African "Zulu" restaurant cooks Thai food.
We are now driving southward: to right and left of us tarantulas lie squashed flat on the road! The bush landscape we are passing through offers little variety. The Yucatán is a broad, flat limestone plateau with mangrove swamps and dry forests. But the initial impression of monotony is deceptive. The peninsula has a great wealth of hidden treasures, both natural and cultural. The jungle is not an untouched, primeval forest; it is a landscape that was once cultivated and exploited by a civilized society, but is now wild and overgrown. In the Chronicle of Yucatán, written in 1566 by the Spanish Franciscan monk, Diego de Landa, the decline and fall of the city of Mayapán in 1461 is described in the following words: "For over twenty years the inhabitants lived in prosperity and plenty, and they multiplied so greatly that the whole country seemed like a single town; in those days temples were built in such great numbers as one still sees everywhere today, and when one travels through the forests, one sees townships with wonderfully constructed houses and public buildings among the clusters of trees. This happy period ended at six oclock one winters evening, when a wind gradually blew up until it became a hurricane... This storm brought down tall trees, destroyed wild animals in great numbers, caused every large house to collapse and fires to spread out of control, so that the majority of the people either perished in the flames or were crushed by falling timber... And thus the country lost its former name of "Land of the deer and the pheasant". So many trees were lost that those which now remain look as if they had all been planted at the same time, since they are all of the same height. As soon as one looks out across the land from a higher point, one has the impression that it has been trimmed with shears." The monk also records: "With rivers and springs nature has dealt very differently here than in other countries. For the rivers and springs which everywhere else in the world flow on the surface of the earth are all hidden in this country in caverns beneath the earth. This was revealed to us because almost the whole coastline is full of freshwater springs rising out of the sea-bed. It is possible to draw water from them in many places when the tide has ebbed, leaving the shore almost dry. In the interior Our Lord has provided a number of water-holes, which the Indios call Cenotes. They lie in hollowed-out rocks which descend to the water; ...and all flow into the sea. These cenotes contain remarkably clear water..inside they have beautiful vaulted roofs of fine rock..."
This large and complex subterranean network of rivers and caves was formed by rain-water seeping through the porous limestone. The places where the limestone layer has fallen in to reveal the groundwater are perfect for a refreshing bathe and for diving and snorkelling. The animal life of the Yucatán is also very unusual. In the jungle there are puma, ocelot, jaguar, red deer, crocodile and iguana as well as snakes and insects like scorpions and tarantulas. The abundant birdlife includes flamingoes, toucans, parrots and humming-birds.
A stretch of the new Mex 307 motorway, under construction between Cancún and Tulum, runs straight through the Xel-Ha archaeological zone. Two trucks belonging to the I.N.A.H. (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia) are parked beside the road. At dusk there is hectic activity here; people are digging, sieving and sorting. In the evening sun Graciela, the archaeologist, stands on a spoil-heap many feet high and wipes the sweat from her brow. She shrugs her shoulders resignedly: "What we have here is a Mayan settlement, a small town with several tombs and ceremonial buildings. But its such a tragedy! In a weeks time the bulldozers will arrive and destroy everything, before we have time to make a proper investigation and inventory."
Experts reckon that there are still more than 11,000 undiscovered Mayan cultural sites, hidden in the undergrowth, all over Mexico.
Only with special permission from the INAH, and by paying a high entrance fee, are we allowed to visit Tulum - the City of the Sunrise - before the normal opening-time of 9 a.m. At 6 a.m. it is still dark and deserted. The rocks and walls give off the heat of the previous day and warm us in the cool dawn air. (S.21) In the uncanny silence it is scarcely imaginable that 500 years ago, when the Spanish arrived, there was still a bustling life here; and that as the sun rose from the sea, it was greeted by the voices and sounds of men and beasts, bringing the day to life. The picturesque fortified city on the edge of the Caribbean has 800,000 visitors every year and its temples are the most-photographed tourist attraction in the Yucatán.
Tourists seldom, if ever, find their way to San Francisco Aké. Here the Mayas live as farmers, just as they have always done. For thousands of years they have worked their fields with machete and shovel and planted maize, pumpkin and beans. They build their traditional houses of wood and cover the roof with palm-leaves or straw. They all speak Maya, and only concepts which do not exist in their native language are expressed in Spanish.
The village pays great respect to the Itzá family. Juan José Itzá is a priest and leader of the Kruso Ob, the "Church of the Speaking Cross." He and his brother Santiago are also the best-known curanderos - Mayan faith-healers - in the whole of Quintana Roo. Pastora, Juan Josés 20-year-old granddaughter, is the only Spanish-speaker in the family; she is the link between two worlds, those of yesterday and of tomorrow.
In 1850, during the Caste War, when the Mayas rebelled against the occupying Spanish decendants of the original colonists, the miracle of the Speaking Cross occurred for the first time. It promised the expulsion of all white men from paradise and exhorted the Mayas to resist. To this day it symbolizes the faith in the prophesy of liberation, it gives strength to the Mayas and protects them against the foreigner. Mayan priests are demanding the return of the cities of their forefathers, their holy places which are today the playground of archaeologists and tourists alike.
The life of the Mayas is strongly influenced by Catholicism but the belief in the gods and spirits of their ancestors is held deep in their hearts, and in many villages ancient rituals have survived. The Mayas regard modern Mexico with distrust.
At the age of seven Santiago began the apprenticeship of a Mayan healer with his father. Now he is 81 and the little man with a crippled leg claims he is still learning. He holds in his head the combinations of over 800 different substances from herbs and plants; he feels his patients pulse and murmurs prayers. He stirs potions and salves but also pronounces the sacred formulae for summoning the much-needed rain. He makes sacrifices to put the spirits in a favourable mood. In his hut a cross stands, a holy candle burns and there is a smell of incense. His secret aids to healing include a burnt-out bulb from a trucks headlamp, stones and a silver coin. The aim of Mayan natural medicine is to bring body and soul once more into harmony. The success of the shamans is well-documented and the traditional healers and their methods have been recognized by Mexicos social insurance system.
The further south we journey, the more lush the vegetation becomes. Hidden in the forest, close to the border with Belize, lies the little township of Tres Garantías. In the house of Dona Olga, the towns only restaurant, the tables are decorated with banknotes from the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland under a protective sheet of plastic. For Olga and the people of Tres Garantías 1989 was a special year. They were visited by a group of international experts, whose advice on the conservation and better exploitation of the tropical forest was sorely needed. The villagers depend on the forest for their livelihood. They work as tree-fellers, hunters and as gatherers of honey and chicle. The raw material for chewing-gum, chicle comes from the sap of the zapote tree, a native species which is only found in Yucatán. In ancient times the Mayas used the sap to make balls for playing games, but the trees are now threatened by the wholesale felling of tropical hardwood. "Only if the forest is intact can chicle grow - if too many mahogany-trees are cut down, there will be no more chicle," says Pascal, proud to have been a chiclero for the past 36 years.
The chicleros work is extremely dangerous and exhausting. The white sap only flows in the rainy season, from January to June, from cuts made in the bark of the zapote-trees. The jungle is full of puma and other ferocious "big cats", three kinds of poisonous snake live in the tree-tops and the air is thick with billions of mosqitoes. A particular species of fly, which lays its larvae in human ears, causes the "chicleros ulcer." Working in small groups, they use their machetes to hack a narrow path for up to 20 km (12 miles) through the lush, steaming jungle greenery. Bathed in sweat, they set up a primitive camp with a palapa for the hammocks and a fire to boil the chicle. (S.23) Every evening the harvested sap is boiled down to a thick gum for up to four hours, then shaped into 10 kilo (5 lb) blocks. For one or two weeks the whole area within a radius of 4km (2.4 miles) is combed for chicozapote-trees that have not been tapped for at least seven years. The trees reach a height of 15m (50 ft) and are climbed with bare hands and feet, and only the aid of a rope. A channel is cut into the bark of the trunk and the sap is caught in a bag at the foot of the tree. The largest amount of sap comes from the thickest, century-old trees, but even they only produce two kilos (4 lb). "As a young man I used to collect sixty kilos a week, but now I am fifty-one and only manage twenty-five kilos. That is a lot of work for very little money, because at the moment we only get twenty pesos per kilo." The boom time for chicle is past, but until the 1930s it brought steady work for many, and wealth and prosperity for quite a few people in Quintana Roo. Now that chewing-gum is manufactured chemically, the price of chicle is dictated by Japanese industry.
The enormous sums that are paid for stolen Mayan art-treasures are something a poor chiclero can only dream about. Countless cultural treasures lie buried or overgrown by the jungle: thousand-year-old Mayan ruins, temples and tombs. Men in search of a quick buck have come to plunder with pickaxes, sledge-hammers and chain-saws, and cause incalculable damage. They leave behind nothing but piles of rubble, useless to archaeologists and lost for ever to posterity. Although grave-robbers face the most severe punishment in Mexico, the Museum of Anthropology calculates that some 300 works of art leave Mexico illegally every day.
It took the Mexicans a very long time to realize that a fortune lay in the beaches of Quintana Roo, on the almost deserted Caribbean coast of Yucatán and its offshore islands. In 1969 an elaborate plan was worked out on the drawing-board for a tourist town, the perfect holiday factory. It was to be on the island of Cancún, 21 km (12.6 miles) long, 400m (1/4 mile) across at its widest point and with only 126 inhabitants. Since then hotels have soared skywards like contemporary pyramids. Half-a-million migrants from all over Mexico and the rest of the world have come to fight for a living in Mexicos tourist capital. Today the tourist sector is the biggest employer and still growing. This giant beach resport, born in a test-tube as it were, is continuously expanding. It is one gigantic money-machine. Of the 3 million tourists in the whole of Yucatán, 2.6 million - mainly from the USA - come to Cancún. Statistically they spend on average 5.2 nights in one of the 28,000 beds and spend about US$1,200 during their stay. Everything is designed to make Americans feel at home. Here they can eat at MacDonalds, the Hard Rock Café, Planet Hollywood, the Rainforest Café, Ruths Steak-House and so on. Even the prices are shown in familiar dollars and cents. The entertainment dynamo runs at full revs round the clock, with Caribbean Night, Fiesta Mexicana, Miss Bikini, Mister Cancún...theres never a dull moment. Its a promise!
Charter flights land and take off continually at Cancúns international airport. On a day-trip to the island of Holbox Bruce Montes flies over the tourist metropolis. From a height of 1,000 ft Cancún looks small and vulnerable. The hotels stand huddled close together on the narrow coral strip between lagoon and sea. No longer do the waves break on a broad, white beach since Hurricane Gilbert slimmed it down severely in 1988. Instead, in many places they lick hungrily at the concrete foundations of the hotels.
A pirates lair, a fishing-village, a bird-watchers paradise, a beach with no gringos and no air-conditioned luxury. More sand than you could ever wish for, calm waters, a heaven for shell-collectors. We have come back to nature - on the little island of Holbox off the north coast of Yucatán, between the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. From Cancún it is only 20 minutes by air and we fly over a gently curving bay, 30 km (18 miles) wide, with a deserted beach of white sand. The Cessna is on familiar territory when it lands, because the airstrip is the private property of the man who owns Swedens Saab Aircraft company. The edges of the sandy track are decorated with shells, and two dogs wag their tails happily. The village consists of typical Caribbean houses, built of wood and painted in glowing colours, their windows and doors wide open. The islanders greet us in a friendly style, looking us straight in the eye. The visitors, who are predominantly Mexicans and Europeans, are warmly welcomed on Holbox and provide a pleasant diversion for the inhabitants of this idyllic, unspoilt haven. Holbox is like Cancún and Playa used to - 30 years ago.
YUCATÁN – MEXICO IN THE CARRIBBEAN – PLAYA DEL CARMEN, CANCUN, COZUMEL, RIVIERA MAYA
WORDS © MARION FRIEDEL
CANCUN, COZUMEL, RIVIERA MAYA
WORDS © MARION FRIEDEL
Mexicos Yucatán peninsula, Mexico in the Caribbean - Cancún, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen. The Riviera Maya, running the length of the coast of Quintana Roo with its endless white coral beaches. A new holiday heaven, with ultra-modern hotels for independent or "all-inclusive" travellers. Explore the Maya civilization - the temple sites in the Yucatán jungle. Pure Caribbean with Mayan culture!
Bruce Montes jumps off his bicycle and, when everyone else is aboard the 4-seater Cessna, he squeezes in behind the joystick, starts the engine and prepares to take off on an excursion flight. He does not have far to go to work: the little airstrip lies in the middle of the Playacar holiday centre with its big, international, all-inclusive hotel complexes, a golf-course, a smart residential area and the Avenida 30, the main street of Playa del Carmen. This once insignificant fishing-village, whose only claim to fame was its ferry service to the island of Cozumel, has now developed into an Eldorado, a multi-cultural playground, and the fastest growing city in the whole of Mexico. We fly low over roofs, dusty roads and countless building sites. Then we cross the white sands and soar out over the turquoise-blue sea. To right and left, as far as the eye can see, the coast stretches away in a seemingly endless chain of wide, curving bays, edged with gleaming white sand, with waters ranging in colour from pale peacock blue to ultramarine. The Caribbean coast, over 400 km (240 miles) long, divides into two parts, to which the marketing men have given the hard-selling names "Riviera Maya" and "Costa Maya."
As the Cessna slowly gains altitude, the vast coastal infrastructure itself - the motorway, leisure centres, hotels, a deep-water harbour and the square parcels of development land - all dwindle to insignificant white lines and patches amid the grey-green cladding of impenetrable jungle, dense bush and mangrove forests, which covers the peninsula like a carpet and from which every square yard of land for building or agriculture must be wrested.
As we land again in Playa, everything which appeared from the air to be organized and tidily divided into rectangular plots, lapses once more into a delightful atmosphere of creative chaos, of "What the heck, lets do it!" Here in Playa optimism predominates, imagination blossoms, yet everything is unfinished; there are great tracts of nothingness and holes in the dusty, coral-sand roads.
Miguel remembers with horror his first nights in Playa. He had set up the posts for his hammock in the middle of a large, bare building-plot measuring 210 sq meters (a mere twentieth of an acre) which he occupied in the Colonia Donaldo Colosio. Trembling with fear he lay in his hammock, his hands firmly grasping a machete, continuously on the lookout to defend his plot against sinister prowlers and drunken riff-raff. After all, he was just one of todays sixty thousand illegal settlers who have migrated here from every part of Mexico to find a better job in Playa. Miguel has found work in a hotel; a little hut stands on his plot of land, a roof for himself and his family of three. Life for them still lacks any electricity, water or sewerage. It is a struggle for survival in the face of poverty, disease and dirt.
For fair-haired Sabine from Germany, known locally as "La Rubia" (The Blonde), today is a black day. She is waiting impatiently at the hotel bar for her attorney and shaking with anger and disgust. A Mexican, who had been a good friend, has just relieved her of US$ 3,000. His plan was to purchase for her a uniquely desirable piece of land in Colosio, which foreigners were not allowed to buy, since it is against the law. It measured 210 sq meters and the price was US$2,300. Sabine is bitterly disappointed, particularly in her so-called friend, since so far she has not even got back the $700 change. Even so, says Sabine, she is having the time of her life and - something she particularly emphasizes - she has finally found her true self. A former air-hostess, Sabine loves the climate, the music and the people. Two years ago she chose to make Playa her new home, realizing it was the ideal place for her: "In Germany we had too much of everything. But here in Playa you can concentrate on the essentials of life. After all, when you get right down to it, what does a human being actually need...?"
In Playa del Carmen there are still no rigid rules and regulations to hamper peoples creative urges, and a virtually free rein is given to fantasy; this is what draws rich and poor - mainly Europeans - to this place. They make grand plans and often invest every penny they have in a new future. Heinz, another German, sold his bar and his house in Mallorca and put all his money and mental energy, as well as that of his wife and children, into the construction of a hotel. He has planned it and thought it out entirely himself. Only the best is good enough. Heinz is a perfectionist and after two years work the hotel is still only a shell. According to malicious gossip, his Mexican builders cannot do anything right. They say he does not want to see the project completed. Heinz is afraid that tourists will simply defile his dream-palace.
New restaurants are springing up like mushrooms and nearly always reflect the nationality of their owners. Trained chefs are a rarity. A German car-mechanic has gone into wurst; the Italians all boil spaghetti and bake pizzas; theres a Swiss serving rösti and fondue. The French restaurants are twice as expensive as the others. But nothing stays the same for long and the South African "Zulu" restaurant cooks Thai food.
We are now driving southward: to right and left of us tarantulas lie squashed flat on the road! The bush landscape we are passing through offers little variety. The Yucatán is a broad, flat limestone plateau with mangrove swamps and dry forests. But the initial impression of monotony is deceptive. The peninsula has a great wealth of hidden treasures, both natural and cultural. The jungle is not an untouched, primeval forest; it is a landscape that was once cultivated and exploited by a civilized society, but is now wild and overgrown. In the Chronicle of Yucatán, written in 1566 by the Spanish Franciscan monk, Diego de Landa, the decline and fall of the city of Mayapán in 1461 is described in the following words: "For over twenty years the inhabitants lived in prosperity and plenty, and they multiplied so greatly that the whole country seemed like a single town; in those days temples were built in such great numbers as one still sees everywhere today, and when one travels through the forests, one sees townships with wonderfully constructed houses and public buildings among the clusters of trees. This happy period ended at six oclock one winters evening, when a wind gradually blew up until it became a hurricane... This storm brought down tall trees, destroyed wild animals in great numbers, caused every large house to collapse and fires to spread out of control, so that the majority of the people either perished in the flames or were crushed by falling timber... And thus the country lost its former name of "Land of the deer and the pheasant". So many trees were lost that those which now remain look as if they had all been planted at the same time, since they are all of the same height. As soon as one looks out across the land from a higher point, one has the impression that it has been trimmed with shears." The monk also records: "With rivers and springs nature has dealt very differently here than in other countries. For the rivers and springs which everywhere else in the world flow on the surface of the earth are all hidden in this country in caverns beneath the earth. This was revealed to us because almost the whole coastline is full of freshwater springs rising out of the sea-bed. It is possible to draw water from them in many places when the tide has ebbed, leaving the shore almost dry. In the interior Our Lord has provided a number of water-holes, which the Indios call Cenotes. They lie in hollowed-out rocks which descend to the water; ...and all flow into the sea. These cenotes contain remarkably clear water..inside they have beautiful vaulted roofs of fine rock..."
This large and complex subterranean network of rivers and caves was formed by rain-water seeping through the porous limestone. The places where the limestone layer has fallen in to reveal the groundwater are perfect for a refreshing bathe and for diving and snorkelling. The animal life of the Yucatán is also very unusual. In the jungle there are puma, ocelot, jaguar, red deer, crocodile and iguana as well as snakes and insects like scorpions and tarantulas. The abundant birdlife includes flamingoes, toucans, parrots and humming-birds.
A stretch of the new Mex 307 motorway, under construction between Cancún and Tulum, runs straight through the Xel-Ha archaeological zone. Two trucks belonging to the I.N.A.H. (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia) are parked beside the road. At dusk there is hectic activity here; people are digging, sieving and sorting. In the evening sun Graciela, the archaeologist, stands on a spoil-heap many feet high and wipes the sweat from her brow. She shrugs her shoulders resignedly: "What we have here is a Mayan settlement, a small town with several tombs and ceremonial buildings. But its such a tragedy! In a weeks time the bulldozers will arrive and destroy everything, before we have time to make a proper investigation and inventory."
Experts reckon that there are still more than 11,000 undiscovered Mayan cultural sites, hidden in the undergrowth, all over Mexico.
Only with special permission from the INAH, and by paying a high entrance fee, are we allowed to visit Tulum - the City of the Sunrise - before the normal opening-time of 9 a.m. At 6 a.m. it is still dark and deserted. The rocks and walls give off the heat of the previous day and warm us in the cool dawn air. (S.21) In the uncanny silence it is scarcely imaginable that 500 years ago, when the Spanish arrived, there was still a bustling life here; and that as the sun rose from the sea, it was greeted by the voices and sounds of men and beasts, bringing the day to life. The picturesque fortified city on the edge of the Caribbean has 800,000 visitors every year and its temples are the most-photographed tourist attraction in the Yucatán.
Tourists seldom, if ever, find their way to San Francisco Aké. Here the Mayas live as farmers, just as they have always done. For thousands of years they have worked their fields with machete and shovel and planted maize, pumpkin and beans. They build their traditional houses of wood and cover the roof with palm-leaves or straw. They all speak Maya, and only concepts which do not exist in their native language are expressed in Spanish.
The village pays great respect to the Itzá family. Juan José Itzá is a priest and leader of the Kruso Ob, the "Church of the Speaking Cross." He and his brother Santiago are also the best-known curanderos - Mayan faith-healers - in the whole of Quintana Roo. Pastora, Juan Josés 20-year-old granddaughter, is the only Spanish-speaker in the family; she is the link between two worlds, those of yesterday and of tomorrow.
In 1850, during the Caste War, when the Mayas rebelled against the occupying Spanish decendants of the original colonists, the miracle of the Speaking Cross occurred for the first time. It promised the expulsion of all white men from paradise and exhorted the Mayas to resist. To this day it symbolizes the faith in the prophesy of liberation, it gives strength to the Mayas and protects them against the foreigner. Mayan priests are demanding the return of the cities of their forefathers, their holy places which are today the playground of archaeologists and tourists alike.
The life of the Mayas is strongly influenced by Catholicism but the belief in the gods and spirits of their ancestors is held deep in their hearts, and in many villages ancient rituals have survived. The Mayas regard modern Mexico with distrust.
At the age of seven Santiago began the apprenticeship of a Mayan healer with his father. Now he is 81 and the little man with a crippled leg claims he is still learning. He holds in his head the combinations of over 800 different substances from herbs and plants; he feels his patients pulse and murmurs prayers. He stirs potions and salves but also pronounces the sacred formulae for summoning the much-needed rain. He makes sacrifices to put the spirits in a favourable mood. In his hut a cross stands, a holy candle burns and there is a smell of incense. His secret aids to healing include a burnt-out bulb from a trucks headlamp, stones and a silver coin. The aim of Mayan natural medicine is to bring body and soul once more into harmony. The success of the shamans is well-documented and the traditional healers and their methods have been recognized by Mexicos social insurance system.
The further south we journey, the more lush the vegetation becomes. Hidden in the forest, close to the border with Belize, lies the little township of Tres Garantías. In the house of Dona Olga, the towns only restaurant, the tables are decorated with banknotes from the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland under a protective sheet of plastic. For Olga and the people of Tres Garantías 1989 was a special year. They were visited by a group of international experts, whose advice on the conservation and better exploitation of the tropical forest was sorely needed. The villagers depend on the forest for their livelihood. They work as tree-fellers, hunters and as gatherers of honey and chicle. The raw material for chewing-gum, chicle comes from the sap of the zapote tree, a native species which is only found in Yucatán. In ancient times the Mayas used the sap to make balls for playing games, but the trees are now threatened by the wholesale felling of tropical hardwood. "Only if the forest is intact can chicle grow - if too many mahogany-trees are cut down, there will be no more chicle," says Pascal, proud to have been a chiclero for the past 36 years.
The chicleros work is extremely dangerous and exhausting. The white sap only flows in the rainy season, from January to June, from cuts made in the bark of the zapote-trees. The jungle is full of puma and other ferocious "big cats", three kinds of poisonous snake live in the tree-tops and the air is thick with billions of mosqitoes. A particular species of fly, which lays its larvae in human ears, causes the "chicleros ulcer." Working in small groups, they use their machetes to hack a narrow path for up to 20 km (12 miles) through the lush, steaming jungle greenery. Bathed in sweat, they set up a primitive camp with a palapa for the hammocks and a fire to boil the chicle. (S.23) Every evening the harvested sap is boiled down to a thick gum for up to four hours, then shaped into 10 kilo (5 lb) blocks. For one or two weeks the whole area within a radius of 4km (2.4 miles) is combed for chicozapote-trees that have not been tapped for at least seven years. The trees reach a height of 15m (50 ft) and are climbed with bare hands and feet, and only the aid of a rope. A channel is cut into the bark of the trunk and the sap is caught in a bag at the foot of the tree. The largest amount of sap comes from the thickest, century-old trees, but even they only produce two kilos (4 lb). "As a young man I used to collect sixty kilos a week, but now I am fifty-one and only manage twenty-five kilos. That is a lot of work for very little money, because at the moment we only get twenty pesos per kilo." The boom time for chicle is past, but until the 1930s it brought steady work for many, and wealth and prosperity for quite a few people in Quintana Roo. Now that chewing-gum is manufactured chemically, the price of chicle is dictated by Japanese industry.
The enormous sums that are paid for stolen Mayan art-treasures are something a poor chiclero can only dream about. Countless cultural treasures lie buried or overgrown by the jungle: thousand-year-old Mayan ruins, temples and tombs. Men in search of a quick buck have come to plunder with pickaxes, sledge-hammers and chain-saws, and cause incalculable damage. They leave behind nothing but piles of rubble, useless to archaeologists and lost for ever to posterity. Although grave-robbers face the most severe punishment in Mexico, the Museum of Anthropology calculates that some 300 works of art leave Mexico illegally every day.
It took the Mexicans a very long time to realize that a fortune lay in the beaches of Quintana Roo, on the almost deserted Caribbean coast of Yucatán and its offshore islands. In 1969 an elaborate plan was worked out on the drawing-board for a tourist town, the perfect holiday factory. It was to be on the island of Cancún, 21 km (12.6 miles) long, 400m (1/4 mile) across at its widest point and with only 126 inhabitants. Since then hotels have soared skywards like contemporary pyramids. Half-a-million migrants from all over Mexico and the rest of the world have come to fight for a living in Mexicos tourist capital. Today the tourist sector is the biggest employer and still growing. This giant beach resport, born in a test-tube as it were, is continuously expanding. It is one gigantic money-machine. Of the 3 million tourists in the whole of Yucatán, 2.6 million - mainly from the USA - come to Cancún. Statistically they spend on average 5.2 nights in one of the 28,000 beds and spend about US$1,200 during their stay. Everything is designed to make Americans feel at home. Here they can eat at MacDonalds, the Hard Rock Café, Planet Hollywood, the Rainforest Café, Ruths Steak-House and so on. Even the prices are shown in familiar dollars and cents. The entertainment dynamo runs at full revs round the clock, with Caribbean Night, Fiesta Mexicana, Miss Bikini, Mister Cancún...theres never a dull moment. Its a promise!
Charter flights land and take off continually at Cancúns international airport. On a day-trip to the island of Holbox Bruce Montes flies over the tourist metropolis. From a height of 1,000 ft Cancún looks small and vulnerable. The hotels stand huddled close together on the narrow coral strip between lagoon and sea. No longer do the waves break on a broad, white beach since Hurricane Gilbert slimmed it down severely in 1988. Instead, in many places they lick hungrily at the concrete foundations of the hotels.
A pirates lair, a fishing-village, a bird-watchers paradise, a beach with no gringos and no air-conditioned luxury. More sand than you could ever wish for, calm waters, a heaven for shell-collectors. We have come back to nature - on the little island of Holbox off the north coast of Yucatán, between the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. From Cancún it is only 20 minutes by air and we fly over a gently curving bay, 30 km (18 miles) wide, with a deserted beach of white sand. The Cessna is on familiar territory when it lands, because the airstrip is the private property of the man who owns Swedens Saab Aircraft company. The edges of the sandy track are decorated with shells, and two dogs wag their tails happily. The village consists of typical Caribbean houses, built of wood and painted in glowing colours, their windows and doors wide open. The islanders greet us in a friendly style, looking us straight in the eye. The visitors, who are predominantly Mexicans and Europeans, are warmly welcomed on Holbox and provide a pleasant diversion for the inhabitants of this idyllic, unspoilt haven. Holbox is like Cancún and Playa used to - 30 years ago.
YUCATÁN – MEXICO IN THE CARRIBBEAN – PLAYA DEL CARMEN, CANCUN, COZUMEL, RIVIERA MAYA
WORDS © MARION FRIEDEL