MAGIC TREKKING-PART I

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This first part of MAGIC HIKING refers to enjoying extraordinary walks through the Mayan region, located in the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico. In the future we will present other areas that we consider true wonders in other parts of the world.

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Getting ready to visit important parts of the Mayan culture region, through its white roads, crossing its jungles and archaeological zones, is a true magical adventure. A cultural experience that will never be forgotten.

There was a fabulous number of white roads that were built and used by this great culture, as we have mentioned in post THE ANCIENT MAYANS AND THEIR WHITE ROADS-PART I: “These roads were built with sascab or saskab (in Mayan Sahkab: white earth), which is a material that abounds throughout the Yucatan Peninsula, coming from limestone rocks, a kind of road with a width that varied from 13 to 33 feet (4 to 10 meters), same that started and ended in Monumental Arches. It represents part of the architectural urban conjugation that was carried out when locating those majestic arches at the entrance of each of these ceremonial centers, which were connected to these white roads, and which had a spiritual symbolic meaning. All this that the Mayan culture carried out was extremely great and something that we must bear in mind is that those GREAT WHITE ROADS always united MONUMENTAL ARCHES and that they fundamentally symbolically signified the routes that the ancient Mayans carried out in those lands of the New World ”.

Walking along these roads in the middle of the jungle and the archaeological ruins is a wonderful experience in which you do not have to tolerate those hardships suffered by the first explorers who inspected and saw these paradisiacal places, traveling those same routes, millennially journeyed by its original builders; a whole Mayan architecture that stands imposing before the new walkers and travelers who come to contemplate and enjoy them.

As Edel C. Piñera once commented: “To open up to the unique experience of the walker in the lands of the Mayab is to rejuvenate. It is to open the gaze and the soul to let ourselves be carried by our children’s hearts and to be touched again by surprise and amazement. It is letting yourself be invaded by the magic of the place and what it offers us in abundance: mystery, art, inspiration and knowledge. All in one”.

CULTURE OF THE FOUR SEAS

The Mayan nation is the only culture in the ancient world that, when it settled in its territory, was able to look out over four seas. We now call them the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, and all four are perfectly distinguishable from each other as they belong to different oceanographic formations. These formations include underwater topography, ocean circulation, water temperature, current patterns (with the Gulf Stream and the Atlantic Current). A difference between deep and shallower trenches, all with a wide expanse of abyssal plains. The Caribbean Sea, for example, has a smoother underwater topography compared to the other 3 seas. These characteristics influence and play an important role in the climate of the entire Mayan region. The 4 seas interact with the region and influence the temperature and weather patterns associated with each of the 4 seas. There is also a difference in marine biodiversity and ecosystems vary between the 4 seas.

The Maya settled in this region of southeastern Mexico to communicate with and through them, which is why we have designated it as the Culture of the Four Seas.

This nation developed significantly in all aspects, and from my personal point of view, the location of the lands that the ancient Maya chose were decisive for their cultural development.

In the following image we can appreciate, in a very general way, the natural vegetation of most of the Mayan region, in order to know the distribution of its different types, in an area of 135,000 square miles.

Source: Federal Government of Mexico

Today, like Stephens and Catherwood many years ago, and a dozen other explorers who came to these lands, we too can marvel at the ruins and the exorbitant nature of these places that are no longer hidden from our eyes, to be witnesses of that ancient culture.

We can let our spirits wander along these white roads as we walk through these Mayan sanctuaries, with the full security that, as Piñera said, to open up to these experiences is to rejuvenate, body and soul.

What routes can we choose to achieve these magical experiences? We can use any of the publications that exist for it, or consult my book “THE MAYAN ARCH ROUTE” (2010), which shows and explains 10 different routes that we can access to have the experience of meeting the MONUMENTAL ARCHES. “The lengths of these 10 white road journeys (sacbe’ob plural Mayan of sacbé) vary and in its development that we present, we found several towns, which in their time wore splendid Mayan arches, always retaining their original style, with different shapes and sizes. These road networks are truly ‘Wonders of the World’ ”. Let us keep in mind that these roads were built analogously to the journeys that the stars made in the sky (Archaeoastronomy).

This whole world, of the ancient Mayans, is full of mysticism, ecstasy, greenery and traces of an ancient art that has not died and that will continue to seduce us. Each walk we take will be a living encounter with the history of this ancient town, with its architecture, its astronomy, its mathematics, and above all, with its still alive and dynamic plastic genres that take us back in space and time. .

I invite all lovers of walking (and the Mayan world) to carry out this recreational leisure and exercise experience, which can also be mixed with experiences of exploration of archaeological ruins, which combines all our curiosity and wonder, for all the unparalleled beauty that surrounds us in this area of the Mayan world. Let us witness these images of the first explorers again and engrave them in our minds and soul.

Let us be, therefore, testimonies of that extraordinary people who possessed the knowledge, skills and creative spirit, to overturn them in their architecture that currently offers us an unparalleled show, clothed by time and sheltered by exorbitant nature.

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