Villa Maya

Well, the cold front has moved out. Amazing how cold 69 degrees feels when you’re used to mid-80’s! When it gets into the lower 70’s here, stocking caps and insulated vests appear. Not on us yet, but certainly on the locals. Yesterday, when it was cool, we went with several friends on a tour in the jungle. Sergio, who lives a few blocks away, bought a chunk of land about 15 years ago in the middle of the island from an old Mayan family. Over the last several years he and his family have spent untold days here developing it into eco-park with walking trails, some cooking facilities, a sweat lodge and overnight accommodations. After arriving, we looked at some large maps showing the distinct areas of vegetation and points of historical interest, such as rock walls built by the Mayans perhaps 1000 years ago. After dousing ourselves with natural mosquito repellant, we hiked off to view the facilities and then took several trails, ending up at the cenote, a fresh water sink hole. We saw lots of labeled medicinal plants and trees, large hardwood trees, and huge blue butterflies (these were bigger than a lot of birds here). There was a small farm hacked out of the jungle by an old man who raises corn, squash, achiote and papaya. The jungle is incredibly thick, almost impenetrable without a machete. Amazing that the Mayans could find their way here, much less live here. The soil seems fertile, but is only a few inches deep. You can easily scrape it away to the limestone underneath. Trees have a huge root system, because the roots have to spread out to get nourishment. We imagined how scary it must be to live in the jungle during a hurricane with the trees so precariously rooted. We saw several huge trees that were toppled by Hurricane Wilma a few years ago. The walls of piled up rocks are a mystery. We’re wondering if Ed’s walls in Cedaredge will be so mysterious a thousand years from now. Sergio’s theory is that the Mayans cleared a section of land for cultivation and marked it by these long walls. That way, future generations would know when and where to burn the jungle away for replanting- maybe in 75 or 100 years, when the ground had become fertile again. There are also half a dozen or so large (30 or more feet in diameter) circles of limestone rocks. A couple of places where Sergio has cleared the jungle away you can see them. Maybe they were homesteads or had religious significance. Who knows? It seems that on the mainland, several Mayan sweat lodges have been discovered so Sergio has built one here. The Mayan sweat lodges are similar to the one that the North American Indians used. We all decided that we want to come back and go through the sweat lodge ritual complete with steaming rocks, music and a director to lead the experience. Peggy wants to spend the night in a hammock in one of the Mayan stick huts but it will take some convincing to get others on board. In the meantime, we all were impressed by Sergio’s dedication and hard work. It has taken resources and sacrifice by him and h is family to do this work in addition to his regular jobs as a manager of a large dive operation and a marine biologist.

Lynn taking her own pictures at the sweat lodge.
Tree roots finding their way to some soil.