Visitors from a Foreign Land

The theory since day one has been simply that as we move further away from the center of Xtobo there should be fewer buildings, and thus the work would proceed more rapidly. This week reality decided to intercede. The boys from Ucu did a heck of a lot of clearing, but made relatively little forward progress in terms of the number of grid squares cleared. This is simply because they found a whole mess of structures. This is good, in that we most certainly want to document every piece of surviving evidence left behind by the former inhabitants of Xtobo, but somewhat bad in the simple since of it may take some what longer to complete that documentation. You never quite know what will happen out here though, so perhaps next week the pendulum will swing in the opposite direction. This week the mapping did speed up though due to the triumphal return of Dan. Xtobo had missed him.

The big event of the week however would have to be the royal visitation that occurred yesterday. Not only were we visited by Dan’s wife Cher, but also my parents made the long trek down from Chicago to check out just what the heck I’ve been doing down here. Surprisingly enough everyone seemed to be impressed by my piles of rubble. We made the grand circuit from the central plaza and its flanking pyramids, down to the humble house mound clusters. Everyone was taught which plants not to touch, and which insects would give the most pleasant greetings, and everyone came through the day with flying colors. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was the appearance of a fox on top of one of the structures during the tour. I was not even aware that there were foxes in Yucatan, but we were given a beautiful view of such a creature making their existence rather indubitable.

So in short tourism has begun at Xtobo. We are expecting the first bus load of camera wielding tourists to arrive some time next week, and the five star resort and spa will start construction later this month. So tell your friends they better come quickly if they want to see the true unspoiled glories of Xtobo. If they wait too long they will have to put up with someone trying to sell them a piece of kitsch at every turn, and a bunch of people clapping in front of every building in order to discover the truly remarkable properties of reflected sound waves off of stone. Boy, those Maya’s sure were geniuses.