10 eco wonderlands

TEMPLES OF THE SUN

Maya Riviera
I’m standing at the top of the great pyramid at Coba. I’ve just climbed about a zillion steps so steep that you could probably base jump off them without worry of hitting anything below. My legs, I hate to admit, are a bit rubbery because I’d hired a mountain bike and sped down the sultry, tropical forest trail to the pyramid like a beserker before taking on the Maya stairmaster. But the view from the top was worth the effort, and it’s easy to see how the constant and insistently encroaching jungle at one time completely obscured this magnificent structure from all view.

Along the stretch of land that extends from Cancun down to Tulum on the Yucatan peninsula, the jungles are thick with memories of Maya warriors and chiefs and gods. Sacred temples and cenotes punctuate the landscape from the beach (Tulum) to the most impenetrable jungle (Chichen Itza and Coba). Most of the rainforest of the Yucatan peninsula in completely in accessible. But when you fly over the area, every cenote you see has remnants of a village next to it. It’s hard to imagine that at one time the population that existed here dwarfed the current population.  And what was once the exclusive playground of Maya Royalty, the Maya Riviera has become one of the globe’s top escapes for divers and non-divers alike.

The show starts in a place completely incongruous to the easy rhythms of the Mexican culture: the non-stop whirlwind of Cancun. Here people and marinelife flock in great numbers. At dive sites such as Herradura and El Tunel thick aggregations of snapper and porkfish roam the reef in parades of silvery blue and gold.  During the months of July and August slow moving bus-sized whale sharks show up by the dozen off the nearby Isla Holbox and Isla Mujeres. There’s even a couple of artificial reefs, the C-58 and C-55, which also attract schooling fish in astounding numbers.

A little further down highway 307, the breathless rhythms of Cancun are taken back a notch, then another notch, ratcheting back almost as fast as the miles accumulate until you reach Playa del Carmen.

If they could design a perfect Mexican town, full of saltillo and red roof tile, courtyard sanctuaries, mariachi bands, shady promenades and a slow but impulsive attitude to enjoying life, then the manifestation would be Playa del Carmen. It’s Fifth Avenue pulses with arts and crafts shops and like the nearby reefs, it’s at its most colorful once the sun goes down when music, drinks and warm, salty breezes combine in sensual brew. Along this stretch of the coast, legendary places reign both on land and offshore.

Off the coast are the fabled Chinchorro Reefs. Savvy divers have long whispered about this remote reef system in back rooms of dive shops. It’s a place of sponge-laden coral heads chock full of queen angels, lobster, blue tangs and a load of current riding critters. But the real pulse of blue life around here resides in the lightless and soundless realm of Xibalba, the Maya underworld, which is accessed via jungle shaded cenotes. Here massive ballrooms of stalactites and stalagmites exist within sight of the sunlit pools that provide access to the vast tunnels and flooded rooms that flow beneath the steamy surface like veins. Snorkelers and divers (cave and PADI Cavern certified) quickly fall under the spell of these bewitching realms, where the only describable difference between the crystal clear water and air is the sensation on your skin.

It’s no wonder this place was once the exclusive dominion of chiefs, priests and kings.

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