Coba

The clue for our 3rd adventure on our Mayan Mexican Road Trip: "Arise early and grab YOUR wheels.  The steps to heaven are high above.   Be warned of the danger that lies below!  Your fate will depend, on just one little strand."

This clue kept Darin guessing for days about what "YOUR wheels" meant.  He would ask me if they would be driving golf carts, or 4 Wheelers, or dune buggies.  I told him it would be unicycles, but was pretty worried he was going to be super disappointed that it was just bicycles.  By the time we arrived in Coba our kids were thinking they would do a zip-line.  Rose was pretty crushed when I told her she was too young for that.  It was super fun teasing the kids.  It definitely kept them all in the moment of our road trip and talking to each other about our adventures.

Coba is about a 30 minute drive from Tulum. When we arrived at Coba, Ken picked up a guidebook in the gift store and we went off on our own.  There are guys waiting around to give guided tours.  We thought they were kind of expensive (700 pesos plus the price of admission).  Plus, we knew exactly what we wanted to do.  

We picked up bikes to ride around to the different ruins on site.  

The bike ride was half the fun and made the jungle heat bearable.  Not bad for 35 pesos a person (about $3).  They also had bike taxis for 100 pesos and hour.

Coba is pretty spread out.  We probably rode about 5k round trip.

We left it up to Ginger decide if we were going to do the taxi or ride on our own.  I'm so glad she chose to ride her own bike.  What a big girl!

It was such a beautiful day.  The trees gave us shade and there are so many ruins spread  throughout.  There are 53 uncovered ruins in Coba.

We would stop and read in our guidebook, take a few pictures, then move on to the next one.  If our kids were interested we talked for longer, if not we didn't.  It was great setting our own pace.

It totally hit Ken and me that we have a pretty grown up family now seeing them all riding in front of us. When your youngest is confident enough to ride a bike off road, I think you have to admit that she's not a baby!  Sometimes the trail was kind of rough with 3-4" rocks scattered around and tree roots, but for the most part the trails are very well-done.

There were a million butterflies all around too.  The girls got such a kick out of the butterflies flying all around them.  Every once in awhile one of them would make a comment about butterflies kissing so and so.

It really was such a lovey day touring the Coba ruins!

Coba has two ball courts.

This one has a skull stone in the center so they think it signifies that this court was used for ritualistic killings.  Where the loser lost their head.  We found a great website for kids to learn about the ball courts and the game.  It's called ballgame.org.  
We learned all sorts of interesting things about the rubber ball and how the game was played.  Did you know this was the first team sport in all of civilization?

We are standing in front of a tablet that is supposed to have significant events for this village carved into it.

While we were riding Darin came to an abrupt stop and started to use hand signals to warn us to stop and come back.  Can you see why?

He spotted this iguana!  It was about 2 feet long!

This building is called Xaibe.  In Mayan this means road crossing.  Coba was a major stop between many Mayan cities.  Many roads run through Coba.  One of the longest roads is 62 miles and it runs close to Chichen Itza.  The roads were built with stone walls on either side, filled with dirt and rocks (basically a road base), then covered in stucco. The roads were an average height of 30 inches and a width of 32 feet wide.  That is alot of work for manual labor!

Most of the buildings and temples were actually covered with stucco.  The thing we really liked about Coba was that we were able to see how these magnificent structures were really swallowed up by the jungle.

When we parked our bikes and took a water break I finally told the kids what we would be doing.  I pointed to the cover of our guidebook and told them they were going to climb it.  I will never forget how big their eyes got and the huge smile on their face!  They were so excited.  Then we went out of the trees and they saw it in person.

This is Nohoch Mul.  The tallest temple in the Yucatan.  It is only partially excavated.  Those trees aren't growing up from behind it.  They are actually growing on it!  They are all over the back and sides.  In fact, this area is extremely flat, kind of like Texas.  So basically anywhere there is a hill is thought to be a ruin.

Nohoch Mul is 138 feet tall and is the last ruin in the Yucatan that they still allow you to climb up.

It is super steep and we climbed up it on all fours.  The boys went up first but before I knew it Ginger had raced ahead of me and was catching up with her brothers.  Ken raced up to her and could barely keep up.  She was quite the monkey.

Rose and I took our time.  Every few steps Rose would try to get me to look back and see how high we were up.  I kept declining, way too scary for me.  In fact the whole way up I was thinking I can't believe this was my idea, what was I thinking???

The view from the top was AMAZING!  We could see other ruins, some excavated, some not.

There are two lagoons that surround Coba which probably led to it being a major city.

Up on top, in front of the temple.  You can't go into the room of the temple.

Facing out towards the city.

The temple.

Man, that sucker is steep!

A view from the side looking down.

Taking a rest in the shade.  I was not in a hurry to climb down.

I made all of our kids kiss me before we did this--just in case any of them died.

 Seriously, I did! And I told them the reason why!  And they still wanted to do it.

Ken and I had so much fun taking the kids on this road trip.  Ken was pretty wary when I was planning it but we had such a great time!

On the way down.  Ken was in front.  I totally got the kids to go the sissy way with me for the first little bit.  Yep, I scooted my bottom down all 138 feet.

The niche on the left side.

These girls are tough!  It was no biggie for Rose and Ginger.

My men!

This is the right side of the temple.  I still can't get over how large the trees are that grow out of it.

Ancient Day I-Spy.  This tablet is registered November 30, 780 A.D.  There is a sign next to it with all the drawings inscribed on the tablet.  It was fun to look from one to the other to find different parts.

We rode our bikes to the main groupings by the front entrance.

The second ball court.  This one does not have the skull stones or other markings to indicate it was played to the death.

Which is a good thing because there is a players tunnel on the side of it and our children loved running through it out to their cheering fans.

The placard at the front of the ruins.