5 {travel} things!

(in rhodes, greece. i live for the chance to jump for joy.)

Mel passed the torch on to me. Here are five {travel} tidbits about me! 

• I was 21 the first time I stepped foot out of the country. It was my senior year in college, and I boarded a jet plane to study abroad in South Africa. Go big or go home.

• I've pooped my pants on two continents. I mean, what can I say? When you go big or go home, you also just go, a lot. (They're both epic  stories. One you've heard, and one involves skinny dipping, bandits in the night, and Cormac McCarthy - it's quite the tale/tail.)

• I'm really outgoing in my every day life and get a lot of my energy from being around other people. But secretly, I'm a closet-introvert who loves reading, writing on my own time, exploring remote places far away from the big cities, and who one day wants a house in the mountains or country near great hikes and beautiful vineyards.

• The first mountain I ever summited was Stellenbosch Mountain in South Africa (I don't count Stone Mountain in Georgia - no way, no how!). I hated outdoorsy things, especially climbing up large hilly things and things that generally involved sweating, and I don't even remember if we really made it to the top. But I do count it as my first foray into hiking. Here's how that first hike went:

• I studied karate in Japan....... with black-belt elementary schoolers. And a few incredible adults. My sensei went with me to be fitted for a gi (women's sizes were too small, men's were too large - I was so awkward there!). She surprised me with having my name inked onto my uniform in kanji - Chinese characters. Culturally, kanji names are treated with reverence and used only for Japanese-born. She translated my name, "Cynthia," as forest, poem, and Japan. It's one of my most treasured memories.

 

Now that I've shared my five things, I want the dirt on Jess, Noe, and Paige!

tulum, mexico | to the mayan ruins

I want to tell you this before you hear it from someone else. 

You know how rumors get started - one little inside joke tweet raises eyebrows, and gchats buzz with questions, all, "like really? did she really do that? No she did not." and facebook posts get overanalyzed, and suddenly every instagram picture is like a piece of a puzzle and then the whole interweb thinks they know exactly what you did in Mexico. So before it comes to that, I want to set the story straight with you, readers.

I pooped my pants while climbing the ancient Mayan ruins of Coba.

Let me back up.

Alsinsio, our cab driver, picked Zander and me up at 6:00am from our hotel, Posada Luna del Sur - a great, small place in Tulum pueblo - or town, run by an American expat named Tom. Tom set us up with Alsinsio for a day of hiking and exploring two famed sets of Mayan ruins.

First we would head 2.5 hours into the Yucatan to see Chichen Itza, a Mayan city center and sacred religious grounds named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. After Chichen Itza, Alsinsio would take us to Coba, the ruined Mayan city only discovered in the 1980s and about 10% excavated. We were warned that the climb "to the top" (of what, we didn't know) was steep and not for the faint of heart or weak-legged.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed; Zander kept stealing my side. I was crabby, too. Even the prospect of 10 hours in Mexican jungles, hiking on ancient rock, couldn't shake my sour mood. Something was very, very wrong. But as I'm keen to do, I figured I was tired and needed some caffeine and carried on.

Chichen Itza is a sprawling, well-preserved wonder. The main temple, along with the surrounding sacred sites, are roped off and kept safe from human hands. Lizards ignore the "don't touch" warnings and sun on the chipped and ornately carved stone. We meandered without a guide, appreciating the symbolism and intricacy of a row of hand-carved skeletons on the side of a sacrificial plateau, and the rows upon rows of stone columns that comprise the world's largest column-based meeting area. Naturally, I did handstands in front of the primary temple.

But my heart wasn't as in it as it normally is. I still felt, let's just say it, crappy.

Heading towards Coba, we knew we had messed up: we didn't bring lunch. We asked Alsinsio to stop somewhere quick. He promised us a "not so tourist" joint and ushered us into an empty taqueria outside the entrance to Coba. 

I did not want to eat at this place. My most ornery side came out. I nearly stomped my foot like a two year old. I love a dusty, rickety taco stand as much as the next person, but my gut insisted - no. no. no. Always listen to your gut. But, you know, we were here.

I ordered tacos con verde. Zan had tacos con something else. I tried a bite of his; he had a taco of mine.

I was admittedly calmed, rejuvenated, and gaining back some of my normal perkiness when we entered Coba.

 

Coba is remote, beautiful, dusty, dirty, filled with lizards and god knows what other creatures, and raw. It's a raw experience. It is Chichen Itza probably 20 years ago. I wish I could freeze time for Coba and keep it as untouched and remarkable as it is.

Coba is so raw that it's interactive; you can touch the sanctuaries, the temples, the ancient meeting areas. You can climb through carved out areas of stone that were never finished; what were they going to be? And after a 2k walk, or so, you can climb to the tip top of Coba - the temple with a view that spans across the top of the jungle. 

When we came to Coba, the temple, we stopped in our tracks, kicking up dust and dirt behind us. It's steep. There's a rope attached, to assist climbers up and down it. The steps are narrow - did the ancient Mayans have smaller feet? These steps weren't made for my size 10 clunkers. It's astounding and marvelous.

We started to climb, Zander ahead of me. My thighs burned. Coba is a beast. I kept climbing.

About 3/4 of the way to the top, I felt a rumbling. Is this thing stable? No rocks were loose. The rumbling continued. I stopped, a foot poised mid-step. Coba was stable; my stomach wasn't.

Uh-oh.

REALLY UH-OH.

You know how they say before you die your life flashes before your eyes?

Well.

Before you poop your pants, all the things you have eaten in Mexico do the same.

I saw images of verde salsa - on tacos, on all those chips I'd been consuming, on enchiladas, quesadillas - I'd eaten so many quesadillas! Steak tacos, pork tacos, tacos al pastor, verde... verde... verde... verde.

I climbed down. I grabbed the rope. No time for the rope. I leaped down the stairs like they were bleachers. One at a time. Two at a time. I expected an imminent death from this sort of reckless abandonment on this like 40% incline, but frankly, death is less scary than what was about to happen.

....and what was happening.

It was inevitable. Believe me when I say it was inevitable.

I kept running down the steps, fearless. I half expected to start flying.

I reached the bottom and started running. WHERE? I ran in a circle. Another circle. But seriously, where do I go?

(Unspoiled ruins are great, and I can sing their praises all day long, but I will give you this one thing about Chichen Itza and all other well-preserved historical sites set up for tourists - there are bathrooms everywhere.)

I used the jungle. In plain sight.

I ran to the side of Coba, found the least thorny-and-creature-filled nook I could, knowing that everyone walking up to the temple could see me if they happened to look that direction, and lord help the people on top who choose to look down (a whole other kind of view), and I squatted.

The temple is this looming, giant structure literally designed to see everything - renegade stomachs beware. 

Meanwhile, Zander was at the top, unsure where the hell I was.

So I climbed Coba... again, and I'm proud to say that I didn't poop my pants twice. 

Motezuma’s Revenge: 1
Cyndi: 0