ENCANTADO

It was our third visit to Coba - perhaps the most magical of all the Mayan pyramid sites on the Yucatan peninsular.

While waiting for a taxi back to Tulum we spent some time by the ancient lake and we were struck by a mysterious feeling of electrical presence. Whatever did happen to the old Mayas of the classic period who apparently vanished around the 10th century AD? The people who built Coba - originally a thrithing city of up to 100,000 people, built on the shores of this same small lake.

The taxi came and we started our journey. The taxi driver was friendly and Miquette started to talk with him in Spanish. He told us he was from Coba village and was born there, from a Maya family that had always lived there. We told him how much we liked Coba, how we found it to be magical and we told him of the strange presence we felt at the lake. "That's no surprise", he said, "you are feeling the spirits of our ancestors. They are encantado......"

"Does this mean we can even feel the spirits of the old Mayas that built the pyramids?", we asked. "Of course you can", he said, "we are all encantado......"

(Encantado in Spanish means "enchanted", or "entranced")

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