Coba

So here I am at the archaeological site of Coba. Coba is located in the northeast of the Yucatan peninsula, in the state of Quintana Roo, about an hour away from Valladolid (where the program was based). Coba is an enormous site! It surged into being the dominant city in its region, along with Chichen Itza, of the Yucatan peninsula during the Terminal Classic (from the late 9th century onwards). Coba was Uxmal's (another site located on the other side of the peninsula, about 137 miles from Coba) contemporary, counterpart site in the peninsula. During the Classic period (250-900 CE), Coba follows the general pattern of other Maya sites of this time period (they seemed to all have a close relationship with sites in the Peten region). At the end of the Classic, Coba asserted itself as the regional capital. Coba was a set of neighborhoods sprawled around a cluster of lakes. Coba has several clusters of civic-ceremonial architecture, and we were only able to see a few of these. I wanted to include a few pictures of Kati and Maggie because they were my Coba buddies. After our brief tour (given mostly in Maaya), Kati, Maggie and I rented bikes (for 35 pesos) in order to cruise around this enormous site (I have never had to ride a bike around an archaeological site before!!). It was a lot of fun and Kati had been here before so she gave us the little tour (including a stop at this stela that supposedly has some glyphs relating to 2012). Coba's area by the Terminal Classic covered 70 sq. kilometers (about 28 miles) with about 20,000 structures and a population around 55,000. Anyways, it was an incredibly hot and humid day, but I liked Coba and found it to be quite impressive.

I wanted to include a few pictures from around the site of Coba because it's such an enormous place! We were only able to see and experience a small fraction of the site because of time constraints. But I've included here pictures of a small tunnel that we traversed, one of the ballcourts, and a picture of one of the most picturesque buildings that I've ever seen at an archaeological site in Mexico. Despite the extreme heat and humidity, I did enjoy Coba (I usually do enjoy visiting these 'ancient' archaeological sites).

Here are a few pictures of me starting to climb the largest pyramid at Coba, called the Imoja temple. It is rather large (79ft), but it isn't the largest that I've ever climbed. Kati was nice enough to take a few of these pictures of me. The day was just so hot and humid! It made it extremely difficult to enjoy the site (and sights!).

We had to hurry (because of the small amount of time we were given to explore the site on our own) to get to the largest pyramid at Coba. It was an intense climb, but I always try to ascend these pyramids as quickly as I can. Going down is another story! I, of course, was completely drenched in my own sweat from the very beginning of the day as we left Casa Quetzal in Valladolid. As we stepped onto the archaeological site of Coba, all of us were already sweating profusely. Needless to say (or write), Yucatan is not my favorite place in Mexico because of its nasty humidity and heat combo. Anyways, as we got to the top, we looked at the tiny structure with a diving god in the center of it. The diving god still has some (supposedly) original paint on his legs. I then turned around and was able to see for miles in all directions. It was quite a sight.

The very last thing we did was go down into the cenotes right outside of the archaeological site of Coba. Here are pictures of Stephanie (with the kids) who was the program coordinator in Yucatan. It was potentially a treacherous descent into this particular cenote as you can see from the picture. The stairs were completely wet and extremely slippery, but luckily we all made it down safely. It was kind of eerie to descend into the earth's depths (it really wasn't too far down underground), and only a few people actually got into the water. I had to include a picture of Rosi, Tiana and me as we sat by the water's edge down in the cenote. It was an interesting way to end our day at Coba.