Had a great breakfast and road thought the milpa feilds and forest to the ruins of Yookop. The first stop was known as the Caste war fortifications. For thoughs who dont know (and it is not common knowlage) the Maya fearsly resisted the Spanish. They were, and presumably still are, very formative in battle and very intellegent in their tactics. In the center of the Yucatan there were no minerals to mine, so there was little interst in it for the Spanish, but the Spanish still made a half ass effort to round up the Maya and Christenize them. Maya repeatadly escaped for the woods and repeatedly attacked the spanish. The fortifications here consisted of a well, 5 subterranian ovens and a subterranian room all surrounded by a dry moat. The ovens, room and moat were then all covered with roofs, flush with the ground and covered with dirt and vegitation so it would be invisable to the spanish. If the spanish approached, they would fall into the moat, and probably meet an unfortunate fate.
My dad asked a good question regarding the police in these small towns. There are a lot of police in these towns, and everywhere. The police are from out of town and do not speek Maya. The local people watch the police drive around, but they only watch them, no hellos. Very little crime, most are drinking and domestic abuse related (which is realated to the drinking).
An oven from the caste war fortifications.
the subterrian room. My guide here was so excited to show me around and have his picture taken.
An increadible aspect of Yookop is it has signs of continous habitation from at least 250AD (probably the first settlers were there by 60-400AD) all the way up to the present. Like Ixil, the ruins are totally untouched, and a machette was nessesary to get around the ruins. Not a great deal is kown about the ruins but it is interesting that Yookop stylistically has elements of both Coba and Ek Balam and is very usful in understanding how all three site relate to each other. Like Coba, Yookop also has a number of ancient roads that radidate out from the center (although not to the extent that Coba does, and it should be noted that Ek Balam also has a network of radiant roads, but for less effort was put into them than Yookop of Coba where road building boarded on obession). Most of the ruins probably date to 400-800AD, with a strong contiuation of construction possibly from 800-1400AD. The efforts made in this latter period are realativly rare.
The walk up a the tallest pyrimid, really cannot get any scale in these photos. Very tall and very steep. The summit becomes truly vertical.
To get the to summit (were it becomes vertical) of the tallest pyrimid you have to jump down into a hole in the roof of a chamber and walk up a post classic hall with a staircase, very cool.
From the top of the tallest pyrimid, nothing like Coba, but still very dramatic.
An opening that leads down into the pyrimid. This type of structure is believed to be associated with the rights of kingship.
Looking up one of these passages, you can see the stairs still exposed.
An increadable carved stone just hanging out, probably once part of a staircase, a favorate place for the Maya to add decoration. A number of these stones have been found and some are still at the site. One has the name of a powerful ruller from Calakmul, the very largest classic period Maya site (sorry, the largest Maya site is not Tikal, but Tikal and the dynasty of Calakmul were bitter enemys). Calakmul is close to the Guamala boarder and i will be there soon. It is belived Calakmul may have been so powerful that it actually rulled over sites this far north, and certainly influenced sites, if not rulled them even further south than Tikal.
An increadable stella. Stellas are carved freestanding stones very much like a gravestones. This one is on its side, and you can see the feet of the left and the complex element on top is part of a cerimonal bar frequently depicted with Maya kings, the top of the stone, shoulders and head are missing.
My guides in front of a post classic temple.
At first i though these things were dead leaves becasuse they were far to big to be spiders, but they are totally gross spiders. notice the legs are folded and still are not in the photograph. Way bigger than a hand, i think if the legs were spread they would be about 8 inches. Oh yeah, there were tons of these things in the room i slept in, but they all seemed to be dead.
Distance rode: 12km
Total distance: 437km
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