Monday, March 3, 2003
Just one more exploit before we head home.
Tabasco's Mayan city of Comalcalco lies an hour and
40 minutes northwest of Villahermosa. Conditions here
were different than elsewhere in the Mayan world, and
they were lacking the rock to build their temples.
They made do though. Comalcalco is the first and only
Mayan city constructed of brick and mortar. The city
reached its height from 600 to 900 A.D., and by 1100
was completely abandoned. We took a bus and then a
taxi to reach here, and arrived mid-afternoon.
Plaza Norte, Comalcalco
As we entered the zona arqueologica Comalcalco, we
were immediately drawn to a refresco stand. In case
you're thinking of visiting, I think it's worth
noting that they do not sell water!
Templo I
As many ruins as we've visited, we still found
this site very interesting. The brick structures make
this one completely different and really quite
striking. It also gets my award for the sweatiest
Mayan site. It was I mean HOT, but we lived to tell
about it. We spotted a couple of large lizards, but
they stubbornly refused to pose for our
photographs.
Great Acrópolis
At the site museum you can appreciate features of
the structures you couldn't normally see. Many of the
bricks used in construction have shapes of animals,
humans, or symbols baked into them. Strangely, the
bricks were normally placed so that the designs faced
inward, presumably never to be seen again. Also on
display were bodies found buried in a crouching
position inside large ceramic jars.
Burial position
Our taxi having long ago left, one of the site
guards arranged for us to ride back to centro in the
back of a guy's pickup. Our driver graciously refused
payment.
We bought tickets on a second-class bus for our
trip back to Villahermosa, and ended up having to
stand in the crowded bus all the way to Cárdenes,
over an hour, where most of the passengers unloaded.
We weren't sure if we were to change buses, but Tom
asked the bus driver and he told us to stay on board;
we were in the right place.
The two of us ate eight delicious, greasy carne
asada tacos and had two Cokes at Tacos Cha-Lu, near
our hotel, 48 pesos. Taco Bell could learn a thing or
two. We headed back to our room and packed.
Playing while packing
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