Day 59 – 60 : 3 Strangers on a Road Trip to Calakmul

I had read good reviews about Calakmul, located in the middle of a jungle with all temples climbable and with little visitors. There's a good reason for the little crowd, since getting there wasn't easy without own transportation and tours were very expensive.

Adamant on visiting the site, I decided to rent a car for 2 days and was prepared to go on my own, staying a night each in Zoh Laguna and Bacalar. 

It would had cost me close to S$200 for the car and gas if I had done it alone. By luck, I managed to get 2 more people whom I hardly knew to join, just the day before I was due to travel to Chetumal to pick up the car. 

First was Pau from Spain, a chance encounter as he happened to share a table with me at a local taco place. We had a random conversation regarding each others travel plans, and when he heard of my plans to Calakmul, he expressed interest on joining the road trip, and immediately bought the bus ticket from Tulum to Chetumal for the next day. Pau didn't speak much English, so I am proud of myself for explaining in Spanish!

The second person was Alex, a Venezuelan guy, whom works as a volunteer at the Weary Traveller Hostel where I was staying. He heard about my plans when I first arrived into the hostel, but was only keen to join and split cost only if there were more than 2 people.

When he learnt that Pau had signed up, he made arrangements and rescheduled his work shifts for the next 2 days. It was a good thing too, as Alex was fluent in both Spanish and English and helped with communication during the trip. 

When we arrived at the rental car company, I was told the only car they had available was a 7 seater family sedan, even though I had booked a normal 4 door sedan car! 

I had never driven such a huge vehicle before, and it would had been hilarious if I had no one joining me on the trip and only just me in the vehicle.

The drive to Chetumal to Zoh Laguna took about 2 hours, arriving just as the sun was setting. It is a very small town, and was meant solely to sleep for the night.  We were all pleasantly surprised by the hostel. 

I was expecting a very basic accommodation, because of its remoteness, but it had very plush mattresses and pillows, clean rooms and even had a sizeable pool on the property and for just MXP150 per night.

Highly recommended!

There weren't too many food choices available at Zoh Laguna, so we headed to the next nearest town, Xpujil, located about 10 mins drive for dinner,  and met with Katerina, an acquaintance I knew via Couchsurfing whom is volunteering and teaching English in Xpujil. 

Calakmul opens at 8am and we wanted to be there first thing in the morning. This meant we had to leave the hostel before 6am, as it was a 2.5hr drive away.

The first 1.5hr drive was pleasant, driving on nice highway roads. However after the ticket checkpoint, the roads got windy and I had to be extra careful to avoid the numerous potholes on the road. 

 

We knew we were driving deeper in the jungle as the roads also got narrower, with thick lush green lining each side of the road.  

We were one of the first few to arrive on site. After a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches prepared by the guys, we started our exploration. 

Calakmul translates as "City of the Two Adjacent Pyramids" and is modern.  The original Mayan name for the site is unclear, though most likely known as Kaan or the "Kingdom of the Snake", and well known as the rival to the mighty Tikal in Guatemala. 

Spread over 70 square kilometers, the grounds is huge. It doesn't has the same impressiveness as Chichen Itza or Palenque, as a number of temples are yet to be excavated or properly restored. Most of the exposed stelaes had deteriorated, so making out what was previously carved was also difficult.

But it was remarkable because of the 2 main pyramids, with the largest one reaching 55 meters high, and making it the 2nd tallest of all the Mayan pyramids ever found. 

They were both steep with very narrow steps and took some effort to get to the top, but once up there, it was very worth it with views of nothing but the jungle and a couple of the taller temples and pyramids peeping out from the green. 

We even saw some monkeys, many different bird species and other wildlife during the 4 hours we were at the site.  We could had easily spent more time, but we wanted to also cover Chicanna and Becan too, and quickly made our way before they closed at 5pm.

Chicanna was small, but had a number of beautifully preserved temples on site, with elaborate carvings on a number of them. 

Becan was slightly bigger than Chicanna.  I was very impressed as there were many huge temples still in good condition.

We were exhausted from all the climbing in the 2 previous sites that by the time we got to Becan, we had ran out of energy to climb them all and only climbed the tallest of the lot. 

I consider it a remarkable feat that we managed to cover 3 ruins in 1 day, on top of a total of 6.5 hours drive, and felt like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. 

By the time we got to Bacalar, I was so exhausted that I didn't even have energy to get my luggage out of the car and Pau was kind to help me with mine. 

Travel has a strange way of putting people together. It was a fantastic road trip, made better with company that had worked out remarkably well, and definitely beats driving alone.