First of all, let me just say that I, hands down, heard the most annoying cell phone ring tone EVER while in Mexico. One of our drivers had a baby screaming, or crying, or maybe it was laughing (??) as his ring tone for his phone. Lets just say that man gets a lot of phone calls in a short period of time. One would hope that it is at least a recording of one of his own kids…

The ruins in Coba are set back in the jungle. The ruins date 600-900 AD and it is estimated to have had one of the largest populations of ancient Mayan cities (around 50,000 people). The grand pyramid (Nohoch Mul) at Coba is the only ruin that people are allowed to climb in the Yucatan and once at the top you get an amazing view over the jungle canopy. There are actually only a few ruins that have been excavated and uncovered at Coba, the rest (an estimated 6,000) are still buried under centuries of jungle overgrowth.

The tour guide mentioned Mel Gibson’s new movie, Acocalypto at one point. He claimed that the movie was actually fairly accurate to the Mayan Kingdom. He said that the only thing that was blatantly wrong was that at one point in the movie when the priest sacrifices one of the victims, the movie shows the priest being clean when in reality he would have been very bloody from the decapitation. Decapitation sacrifices were so central to the Mayan culture that there are skull carvings and sacrifice ritual carvings throughout the ruins.

I was actually surprised by the smell of the jungle. It wreaks. It smells like rotting…fruit, I guess. The amount of birds singing was overwhelming and equally frustrating because I could rarely spot them. I never realized how hard it would be to try to bird through thick jungle canopies. I probably only saw 10% of the different birds that I could hear singing in the canopy.

The picture below is of a weaver on his nest.

Equally disappointing was the lack of insect abundance that I could see. The only thing flying around was butterflies, which made the ruins seem somewhat magical. But other than that, I definitely missed the presence of flies (which are definitely abundant in North American forests during the day), beetles, parasitoids, and the like. I have a sneaking suspicion though that if I had returned to the jungle at night, it would be a completely different insect story being told. Most insects probably retreat during the day under the debris on the jungle floor avoiding the heat or are high up hiding in the canopy.

The lepidopteran below is mimicking a dead leaf as part of its natural defense against predation.

I’m not sure what species of caterpillars these are, but I have solicited the help of a friend who may know and will fill y’all in soon.

This last picture is of a termite nest up in the canopy.

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