Our Great Adventure: Coba Day 356 09/09/2015

As with our other trips to Mayan ruins we wanted to go early to avoid the crowds and heat. We had an early breakfast at Casa Sophia and walked the short distance to where the shared taxis wait to take people to Coba. There was nobody else waiting for a lift so, after a bit of negotiation getting the price down to 700 pesos, we set off on our own, travelling the 48km back along the main highway to the site. It's set in dense tropical jungle and is believed to have been home to c55,000 Maya at its peak. Around 40 sacbeob (stoned paveways) lead from the site, the longest over 100km. The taxi dropped us off near the entrance gate and we agreed to be back around midday. There are estimated to be over 6500 structures although only a few have been excavated. Not far from the entrance is the Grupo Coba with a huge pyramid, La Iglesia. Nearby are a couple of corbeled vault passages that you can walk through and there is a well restored juego de pelota (ball court) with rings in tact. You can hire bikes or pedicabs to help cover the distances between the various structures. We opted for bikes and set off towards the Grupo Nohoch. It was lovely cycling along in the dappled shade and the little breeze there was helped to cool us down. Nohoch Mull is the main structure of the group, a 42m high pyramid which you can climb up to look out over the jungle. The only thing we could see was the top of Xaibe sticking through the canopy, everything else was flat and green all the way to the horizon. Back on our bikes we stopped off at another juego de pelota, with has a carved skull in the centre of the court and Xaibe, a well restored temple, and then continued on to Grupo Macanxoc. The track followed by the side of a small lake and we both kept a careful watch out for crocodiles. Luckily we didn't see any! The area includes a group of recently restored stelae with reliefs of royal women thought to have come from Tikal. From here it was a short cycle back to the bike hire concession. We walked back to our taxi, stopping at the shore of Laguna Coba where crocodiles are often spotted. We were both rather glad we didn't see any! Coba is very different to the other sites we've been to and is definitely worth a visit. On the way back to Tulum our driver asked if we were OK if he picked up other passengers and as we were we soon had 2 travelling companions. Back in town we walked to the b&b and enjoyed left over pizza for lunch. After a rest we headed out and rented bicycles to go to the beach, about 3km from the main town. The bikes had no gears or brakes (you back peddled to slow down) and it was quite hard work cycling along in the heat (for Diane at least). At the coast we headed north towards Tulum ruins where the road ends before retracing our route. We stopped off at one of the lovely public beaches. Unfortunately the seaweed is quite bad here so we decided not to go in the sea. We were very hot and thirsty and had drinks at a beach cafe before continuing. Diane had coconut juice with the coconut being cut straight from a tree. Unfortunately the juice was warm and Simon's lemonade was much more refreshing. Back on our bikes we continued back along the coast and stopped at another beach where the seaweed was less. We had a quick dip in the sea followed by ice creams and then set off back to town. By the time we were back we were exhausted and very hot and went straight in the pool to cool off. In the evening we went to El Asadero for dinner which had a really nice atmosphere and we both enjoyed tasty Mexican meals.