''Roadways to the Mayan Route"



Roadways to the Mayan Route.



During the 1970’s my father was a journalist and close collaborator of the former President of Mexico. As such, one day he was assigned to document the tourism development project of the state of Quintana Roo. For my father, who traveled frequently, that assignment became one of his favorite trips to make as it represented a great six-year long project in which he documented the progress of this plan for “Saeta” magazine and other publications. One summer my father announced we would travel to the Mayan Route and that it would be something very special and beautiful. We left Mexico City for Kunkuna, which means snake nest, the sacred land of the Mayans that is today known as Cancun. On the way we crossed the jungle in the family’s beige Chevelle Malibu, making several stops over many hours. 


The days were hot and extremely humid. We first reached Escárcega, a small city in the state of Campeche, after having driven over 600 kilometers on a barely explored dirt road, with the thick jungle as our companion for the long journey. When my father needed a rest we stopped in random villages deep in the jungle asking for hot water to make instant coffee and put it in our thermos. The people were so generous and humble, and displayed amazement at us strangers driving through their jungle in an American muscle car. So it was until we glimpsed the beautiful turquoise color of the sea and the finest white sand that you could ever imagine. We settled in a rustic cabin made of liana, a tropical woody vine, for almost a month in front of the beach. I became acquainted with the native children of the region, and even though they only spoke Mayan, it was not necessary to understand each other because the mere act of play was our language.



It would be more than a decade before I returned to the same place, attempting to recreate the trip that I had in my childhood now with my own son. But of course recreation is impossible, there is only creation.

And so we had our own unique adventures - there were no more small cabins of liana, no more almost inaccessible roads but rather hundreds of luxurious hotel centers and resorts. Despite the shocking change, we still managed to get away from those materialisms and enjoy the beauty of the jungle and the beaches.

Traveling is one of the strongest connections for immersion in a culture and of course learning its language.



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