Julio was our guide, I was videotaping, and paying attention to my new handycam, not our guide's explanations.
Monica got snappy, and kept telling me:
"Pay attention, the guide has already explained that!"
I will upload the videos as soon as I have time, maybe when we come back to Mexico City. I will also try to put some captions in English, and edit those parts where I ask what the guide had just explained.
What a shame! The thing is you cannot tape and listen at the same time. At least it is difficult for me.
It is 1 am now. We were very tired, and went to sleep early. Now, I am fresh, sleepless, but Moni wants to sleep, so I am wrtiting in the bathroom again. I want to see what I recorded on tape.
Pretty good handycam, uh! Not a pro, but the best I've ever had. The zoom is great, my pulse is not. Wish I had my tripoid here.
The only problem is when I tape in the beach, and there is too much sun: I can't see what I am shooting.
But I was supposed to talk about Coba.
The first pyramid is called "The Church". Of course this is what archaeologists call it. They think it was the first building in the site, and was used with a religious purpose. The place had been inhabited for many years when the pyramid was built. There were inhabitants in Coba 200 years before Christ, maybe more. But they lived in wooden houses, which can't stand time.
I have seen documentaries where archaeologists try to locate things built with wood. In some cases, there is no more wood, but the dirt in the site has a different color, or a different shape, like on Ararat mountain, where some archaelogists are sure they found Noah's arch. Pottery and tools are also an indication that lives longer than wood.
At the time "The Church" was built, houses were built on top of stone platforms. Their walls were coated with stucco, which is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. Mayans in Coba had white and red stucco. It must have been beautiful to see the pyramids all covered with those colors and painted with frescos.
Visiting an archaeological site takes a lot of imagination. Some people say: "What is the point of seeing all these old stones?" I understand them, it is much funnier to be at the beach, with a bottle of beer in your hand. But visiting a site and picturing what life could have been in those ancient times is also great.
I liked Julio's botanical explanations. As I said in Coba, part I, there is a poisonous tree called chechem. You can touch most of the bark, but don't touch the black spots or you will get a bad rash that can last up to 10 weeks. I was amazed to see this tree on the main path, anyone could have touched it, no warning notices at all.
The antidote tree is called chaca. If you touched a chechem black spot, you have 5 minutes to collect some of a chaca's resin and spread it on your skin. You will be instantly cured.
The good thing is there is always a chaca close to a chechem. As I understood "chechem" means evil, and "chaca" means good in Maya.
Another word for saying good in Maya is "ma'lo". It is funny because in Spanish "malo" means evil.
The tree that is used to make yellow pigment is called ciril (that's what I understood). Just by rubbing the bark your fingers get the yellow color.
The ceiba was called "yax'che", which means "the first tree of the Mayans".
Julio showed us a tree, whose root is used to dissolve kidney stones. I did not get the name though, but I promise I will upload the video. Maybe one of our biologist friends can help us identify the tree.
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