As Palenque gave us our first impressions what impressive Mayan monuments lurk deep in the jungle, we had to get more of that! We decided to head to Xpujil, a small little town away from the major tourist routes. When we arrived, we knew why nobody would stay here longer as necessary. The “town” more looks like a truckstop and offers nothing really worthwhile. 😅 But it is the starting point to get deep into nature to see Calakmul!
Tour planning
Most tourists only come here with their own car as the drive to the Maya ruins is still quite far from Xpujil. Until now we got lucky with quite cheap sightseeing tours, so we thought it would be the same here. We weren’t right this time… We asked around town and the prices were quite high.
Luckily we met a girl on the bus to Xpujil and she really knew how to negotiate in Latin America. We definitely could have learned something from her. 😅 With a few other backpackers we got a really special price! Even with a tour guide included!
Early start into nature
As most of our sightseeing trips this wasn’t about relaxing. We had to get up before 7 in the morning. In a comfortable car with the air conditioning blasting on maximum we drove around 1.5 hours deep into nature. We used this time to get to know a mexican tourist called Alex, who was also going to Calakmul for the first time.
On our first stop we got off to take a short walk into the Mexican jungle. This time the jungle had more of a feeling like walking in the woods in Europe. Only the animals were quite different… we came across a big tarantula which appeared from her nest in the ground. 🕷 The national park also inhabits jaguars. But sadly we didn’t get lucky to see one. Perhaps better this way. 🙀😅
Ancient history deep in the jungle
After our short walk we were going even further by car and finally arrived at the ruins. But first we had to regain strength with a delicious lunch prepared by our guide’s wife. Guacamole, chips, sandwiches and some fresh fruits helped our hungry stomachs. Now we were really ready to see the big hidden pyramids!
Our guide lead us into the national reserve of Calakmul and gave us a short history lesson. Calakmul is known today as one of the biggest and most important Mayan cities of central America. It was discovered in 1931 and has the status of a Unesco World Heritage site. Calakmul means as much as “the city of the two neighbouring pyramids”. It is estimated that 50,000 people lived there. 6,750 structures were identified so far. The largest is the great pyramid with over 45 meters in height. As Guatamala is quite near we were told that there was an intense rivalry between Calakmul and the famous city of Tikal.
Climbing and sweating
Now it was time to see the ancient city for ourselves and of course walk to the top of the big pyramids. In the humid weather we had a hard time climbing those big steps all the way up. But the amazing view over the trees made up for all the sweating. The pyramids really stick all the way up over the tree tops. As we climbed the biggest pyramid on site we tried to look all the way to Guatamala. With a lot of imagination we thought we saw Tikal…
Calakmul is really a completely other experience than the spots we saw before. It’s not really touristic and so we felt quite like discovering the place for the first time. Our guide was also great and we were happy that we took this trip to unusual paths…
Batman!
On our way back we had one last stop to complete our tour. Around 30 minutes away from Xpujil there is a well known batcave. In the evening 10.000 and more bats fly out to catch food. 🦇 Here we met a lot of other tourists so it was quite crowded. When the bats began to fly it was a nice view but nothing too spectacular. But we were also tired and still overwhelmed from our time in the Mexican jungle.
As we got back to the city in the evening we decided to get some cervezas with Alex, the Mexican tourist. He was in our age and we had a lot to talk about, like travelling and what we will do next. It was a great ending to a great day… 😊😁😴
