Cozumel

Goodness, but it's been quite challenging finding the free time to wrap up my Caribbean report. Sorry about that. After Grand Cayman, our final port of call on the cruise was the island of Cozumel. While on the ship, I'd stepped on a slick spot on the floor of the atrium and had a hard fall the night before. I'm not entirely sure how, but during my abrupt descent I'd managed to twist in an attempt to catch myself and my shins caught the full brunt of the impact. The pain was staggering. I limped back to our cabin, took some painkillers, and hoped it wasn't as bad as it felt. I'd managed to deeply bruise myself--bone bruise, whatever. It hurt to walk. To give you an idea, this spill happened a full month ago, and my left shin still pains me if I kneel on it. This development posed a problem for our final port of call. Again, we had no interest in the chain restaurants and shopping malls that cluster around the cruise terminal. We were there for the Mayan ruins of San Gervasio. Which would involve a lot of walking. Which I wasn't in terribly good shape to attempt.

A short taxi ride took us to the interior of the island, and we entered the federal park ready to enjoy the thousand-year-old ruins. I was looking forward to getting a lot of good photographs, but I did have to contend with certain challenges, as the following picture can attest.

The park grounds are clean and well-maintained. The thick forest comes right up to the edge of the maintained paths and lawns surrounding the various ruins. It's not hard to imagine the jungle taking over completely in short order if the landscaping were ever discontinued. Likewise, it would be extremely easy to get lost by venturing off the path, as the land is flat with little in the way of landmarks other than the ruins themselves. The park is laid out, more or less, in an elongated triangle, with clusters of ruins at each point. The largest collection of ruins is the Plaza Central, right at the entrance. Many of the ruins are poorly preserved, but it's clear this was once an impressive city. During this time, I'd inadvertently switched the camera to fully manual operation, and my settings were off--way off. None of the shots I took here came even close to turning out, which just underscores the need to always, always check your camera settings.

Probably the highlight of San Gervasio was Murcielagos (at least, I think that's the name of this particular ruin). One of the most distant sites in the park, there is an impressive round structure tourists are actually allowed to climb upon. After seeing so many of the buildings roped off to ensure preservation, it was nice to be able to get up close and personal.

The Murcielagos area is speculated to have served as the residence/estate of the leader of San Gervasio. Obviously a very wealthy person, the remains of the building are expansive and fairly well-preserved. From the round structure, you can see the remaining walls and the one surviving building which currently serves as home to a colony of bats. We spent a great deal of time here, as it was the most interesting and "user friendly" of the various sites in the park.

Murcielagos also got me excited for another reason entirely. That plant in the photo above, I've since learned, is passiflora biflora. At the time, all I knew was that I'd found a small passion flower of the decaloba type growing amongst the Mayan ruins. This made me very happy.

We continued on to Nohoch Nah (The Big House) pictured above. It is the best-preserved structure in the park. Unfortunately, the doors were closed and we couldn't go inside to see the preserved coloring on the wall. It is somewhat isolated, but connected to the Plaza Central by what was once a white limestone road, but is now broken up by trees growing from among the road stones. It's quite interesting.

I did, of course, attempt some infrared photography. There were lots of clouds--as was the case with Grand Cayman--so getting good exposures was a challenge. I did manage to get a decent shot of Ka'na Nah (The Tall House) above, which is thought to be a worship temple for the Mayan fertility goddess Ix Chel. The entire site of San Gervasio is thought to have served as a religious pilgrimage destination for worshipers of Ix Chel. Below is another view of the round structure at Murcielagos, also in infrared. These are obviously false-color images, but I plan to go back through my shots and convert some to black-and-white duotones and tri-tones, to bring out more of the rich texture in the stonework.

All in all, San Gervasio isn't as sprawling and overwhelming as Chichen Itza or Uxmal, and it can't compete with the stunning beauty of Tulum, but for people with an appreciation for ancient civilizations and ruins, it's not a bad place to visit. Birds and other wildlife can be heard in the woods, just out of view. There are probably more varieties of butterflies in the park than any other natural setting I've ever been to. There are also lots of iguanas--so so many, or so large as those at Uxmal, but iguanas nonetheless. Things to remember when visiting San Gervasio: 1) it is humid. It wasn't all that hot, but Houston in June is an apt comparison. You're going to get sweaty. 2) There are mosquitoes, so remember bug spray. I'm not talking life-threatening clouds of the blood-sucking monsters, but they're annoying enough to distract you from the park and diminish your enjoyment.

And for those of you wondering, yes, I managed all that walking fairly well, if a little slow. I recommend not doing any severe damage to your legs beforehand if you plan on such excursions, though. For more images from our San Gervasio visit, check out The Wife's gallery at Lisa On Location.

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