Maya + Kayak = Mayaking

“Mayaking”: described in the tourist brochure as kayaking in the Mayan preserve of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere near Tulum—a UNESCO world heritage site. Corny name, but cute. Later we learned the name was actually pretty significant.

The Sian Ka’an preserve is actually a giant national park—in fact, the fifth largest in Mexico. It stretches down the Yucatan coast from Tulum halfway to Belize. It includes many different ecosystems—brackish coastal lagoons, inter coastal waterways, jungles, freshwater lagoons. It is home to manatees, jaguars, huge saltwater crocodiles, hundreds of species of birds, and rich collection of both freshwater and saltwater fish.

Our tour company, Community Tours, based in the tiny town of Muyil, is completely operated and run by Mayans, part of a local effort to build a local economic base for jobs and to keep kids in the community. Our guide for the three of us, Benjamin, left his village at age eleven as the only way to further his education. After college, he tried living in Mexico City but came back to his roots and culture. Mayan language and culture is very much alive in this region—in fact there are about 800,000 Mayan speakers left in Yucatan. Benjamin’s first language is Mayan and he said his English is much better than his Spanish.

The Community Tours headquarters is right on the main road in Muyil and consisted several whitewashed buildings, including a beautiful open air, thatched roof meeting room that doubled as the dining hall. On the grounds were a butterfly enclosure and, of course, a gift shop that featured local handmade souvenirs (which, strangely enough, Benjamin never urged us to visit).

The tour began with a typical Mayan breakfast of fried tortilla chips, ground pumpkin seeds and tomatoes and sautéed summer squash. Sounds slightly strange, but was delicious! As we ate, Benjamin gave us the overview of the kayak tour which would take us onto two huge freshwater lagoons connected by an ancient cut dug by the Mayans. Both lagoons are fed by rain runoff seeping through the Yucatan limestone into the underground rivers—the same rivers that fed the dozens of local cenotes.

A short, but bouncy van ride took us through the jungle and past barely visible Mayan ruins covered by vines and brush. There are likely dozen more ruins throughout the area that have simply been swallowed up by the jungle. Hard to imagine the size of the population that must have existed before the arrival of the Europeans.

When we arrived at the lagoon, we saw a dozen of more Mayan locals sitting around with cell phones perched on top of huge plastic gas cans. Later we found out they were the boat operators who took less adventuresome tourists out for boat rides on the lagoons.

We settled into our kayaks — certainly well used (aka beat-up) sit-aboard kayaks, but with the most comfortable strap-on backs we’ve ever used, first-class paddles and new personal floatation devices. And we were off on the absolutely flat, crystal clear water.

Through water grasses along the shoreline we saw dozens of birds, with Benjamin calling out their names and pausing to show us pictures in his dog-eared bird book, always carefully stowed back in a plastic bag. Some of the birds were known to us like the Great Egret and Green Heron, but others were new, the Black Crowned Heron, Tiger Heron, Tropical Kingbird, Northern Jacana and Anhinga. The water lilies that the raccoons devoured in our fish pond at home in Seattle grew here unscathed.

The first and smaller lagoon was several feet above the larger lagoon and as we ventured through the very narrow canal a slight current made the paddling easy. The entrance to the 500 meter channel was all but invisible to us but Benjamin signaled for us to follow him and suddenly we were in a beautiful narrow waterway barely wide enough for our kayak paddles. An oncoming motorized boat every now and then added to the excitement—forcing us to the side as we used our hands to guide the boat past us.

Benjamin kept checking the reeds along the shoreline for crocodile nests. One of the other guides reported seeing one, but no such luck for us.

Once in the large lagoon we stopped briefly for a dip in the clear water. A soft bottom of silt felt a little strange on the toes, and we were told to avoid the darker rocky or sponge-like objects — actually an important organism that created oxygen that flourished in these waters.

All in all, the kayaking was peaceful, gorgeous and easy. However, by the end of the three hours, our sitting muscles were sore and our paddling muscles tired. It had been almost six months since we had been kayaking! Getting out of the kayaks was a bit exciting as a result, but the Mayans did not let us embarrass ourselves.

We returned to the lodge for lunch — our choice of chicken or fish cooked in banana leaves and hibiscus juice, again prepared in a more traditional manner. Quite tasty.

As we were eating, Benjamin used some well-worn, laminated pictures of Mayan drawings to illustrate the tree of life and several Mayan legends. After unsuccessfully trying to teach us some basic Mayan phrases (the word Ka’an has four different meanings based on slight changes in pronunciation), he explained that Sian Ka’an translates to “where the sky is born.”

Not hard to see why after mayaking in this gorgeous part of the Yucatán.