November 9th, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

For the past weeks, I had the chance to reunite with some of my closest friends and travel across Mexico together. We have been friends since 1st grade of elementary school (that’s now more than 25 years ago) and since we can’t see each other so frequently anymore, it was an memorable experience to hang out together and have long conversations on all the aspects of life that are important to us — and all while exploring a country that none of us had ever been to before.

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We started off in Cancun, where we rented a car, and from there we embarked on a round-trip around the Yucatán Peninsula. We stayed a few days in the towns of Tulum and Mérida, from which we explored Cenotes (caves of limestone rock, filled with water) and visited several ancient Mayan ruins.

The History of Mayan Civilization

The rise and decline of civilizations throughout history has always been an interesting topic for me. The Mayan civilization offers an interesting case study. It was a well advanced culture, that was able to build impressive buildings, made great progress in agriculture and came up with sophisticated calendar systems, as well as hieroglyphic writing. But surprisingly, it is still unknown and there is no clear evidence, how the decline of this civilization happened. According to History.com:

Scholars have suggested a number of potential reasons for the downfall of Maya civilization in the southern lowlands, including overpopulation, environmental degradation, warfare, shifting trade routes and extended drought. It’s likely that a complex combination of factors was behind the collapse.

In German schools (and I guess most other Western countries), there is a tendency in history classes, to focus on the wrongdoings of the “white race” and its meddling in other countries by conquest and colonization. I guess that if asked about the reason for the Mayas decline, most German students would immediately answer, that it is because of the Spanish colonization — without even having gone through the exact historic events, but just looking at it through the general lens through which history is taught and perceived.

The truth though is, that the Spanish conquistadores only arrived in the early 1500s, at a time in which most of the decline of the Mayan civilization had already happened. Thus, the Mayans offer an example that major civilizations can rise and decline not just by exterior forces, but all by themselves.

I am by no means a well-read historian. I just have some basic interest in history and how different ideas and life philosophies have shaped it.

My thinking about world history was actually deeply influenced by mainly reading about it from an economic perspective. Especially Murray Rothbard’s revisionist take on historical events had a great contribution to the way I think about it.

Focusing on economic incentives in combination with the predominant ethical philosophy of the actors and their incentives at the respective time and place. And then further look at it from an individual perspective, rather than through a collective angle: What did individual people do? And why did they do it? What was it that drove their incentive to do it?

Rothbard comes to the conclusion, that history can basically be boiled down to a constant race between the struggle for power over others on the one hand, and peaceful cooperation on the other:

Just as the two basic and mutually exclusive interrelations between men are peaceful cooperation or coercive exploitation, production or predation, so the history of mankind, particularly its economic history, may be considered as a contest between these two principles. On the one hand, there is creative productivity, peaceful exchange and cooperation; on the other, coercive dictation and predation over those social relations.

— Murray Rothbard

From all that I know and have learned about history, this view offers the best framework to look at historic developments and events, since it always provides reasonable explanations of what might have happened.

From this viewpoint, my theory would be that the Mayan culture rose to predominance when they were more free and cooperative as compared to their neighboring tribes. This is supported by the circumstance that according to the inscriptions we are reading while strolling the ruins, trade played a major role in their daily life.

This allowed them to engage more profoundly in the division of labor, which in turn led to significant progress, revealed by innovations in agriculture, technology and architecture.

As the Mayans rose to become the predominant power in the area, the leadership of the Mayans over time likely extended their power over their population. They confiscated more of the food for themselves, they enlisted more soldiers to conquer new territory and they let them build bigger and bigger pyramids to get worshiped.

Using the predominant religious superstitions, individual actors were able to gain more power over their subjects, who willingly followed their ‘wise’ leaders, who were the intellectual class at the time.

Hence, the parasitic elite grew over time and at some point got too big for the underlying productive working sector — that it was feeding off — to support.

The consequences were:

• More centralization of decision making.
• Less freedom.
• Less progress & innovation.

This, in turn, resulted in a crumbling economy, followed by a declining civilization.

(Side note: This is a phenomena that has repeatedly happened throughout history and I think that the massive debt levels in our society and first signs that even major sovereigns are on the brink of not being able to service their debt, is a sign that the parasitic parts of society — mainly embodied in the state and its institutions — has also grown too big).

One of the aspects that is well known about the Maya society, is how they waged wars and how they dealt with the tribes that they conquered. They believed in a bunch of gods and the defeated enemies served as a welcomed way, to use as a sacrifice to honor them. Wikipedia gives the following description:

During the pre-Columbian era, human sacrifice in Maya culture was the ritual offering of nourishment to the gods. Blood was viewed as a potent source of nourishment for the Maya deities, and the sacrifice of a living creature was a powerful blood offering. By extension, the sacrifice of human life was the ultimate offering of blood to the gods, and the most important Maya rituals culminated in human sacrifice. Generally, only high-status prisoners of war were sacrificed, with lower status captives being used for labor.

Basically, if you fought against the Maya and were captured, you either became a slave and were coerced to build these impressing monuments, or — if you held an important rank — you got the honor of being sacrificed.

Moreover, the sacrifice methods of their rituals were quite vicious:

• In a beheading event for instance, “the victim was tortured, being variously beaten, scalped, burnt or disembowelled.”
• Arrow sacrifice was another popular method. In such an event, “the sacrificial victim was stripped and painted blue and made to wear a peaked cap, in a similar manner to the preparation for heart sacrifice. The victim was bound to a stake during a ritual dance and blood was drawn from the genitals and smeared onto the image of the presiding deity. A white symbol was painted over the victim’s heart, which served as a target for the archers. The dancers then passed in front of the sacrificial victim, shooting arrows in turn at the target until the whole chest was filled with arrows.”
• Heart extraction was the major and most cruel method:
  “It began with a dispersal of blood extracted either from the mouth, nose, ears, fingers, or penis, typically with a sharp tool made from animal bone, such as a stingray spine. They then positioned the victim on a stone or wooden altar. Next, access to the heart would be achieved with a variety of procedures and techniques. […] Following access, the heart was exposed to retrieval. If accessed through the sternum, the ribs would be pulled apart, or tissue would be cut through if accessed through the diaphragm. The actual removal of the heart would then be continued by cutting any attaching ligaments with a bifacial tool. Finally, offering of the heart would take place with either special positioning or through burning. At this time, blood would also be collected from the victim. The ritual will end with mutilation of the body, usually through dismemberment, or burned”.
  I also read that finally the dead body would be thrown down the stairs of the pyramid into the cheering crowd.

In other words, the Mayans were not only this advanced and harmonious culture, like it is often depicted in Western books and movies, but they also had some quite sadistic streaks in their culture.

Back to our trip.

After our Yucatán round-trip, we took a plane to Mexico city, where we stayed for 4 days to explore the capital.

Exiting from the airport, I was right away surprised by how cold the temperature was in comparison to Yucatán, just 2 hours earlier, since it lies at about the same geographical latitude. I learned that it is mainly due to the high altitude of the city, at 2240 meters above the ocean, which also became obvious to me when I went for a run and I needed to run slower than usual to keep within my target heart-rate zone.

Mexico city is a big metropolis and according to Wikipedia, it is the world’s 5th largest city. It is marked by imposing skyscrapers with impressive modern architecture, which stand in a strong contrast to an otherwise not very developed city, which often seems dirty and is surrounded by slum-like districts.

Next, we took a night-bus to Guadalajara. Despite comfortably adjustable reclining seats, perfect air-conditioning and spacious legroom, none of us could sleep well in the bus — which is partially due to a very uneasy and abrupt driving style, which apparently most Mexican bus and taxi drivers seem to have adapted.

I liked Guadalajara better than Mexico city. It felt more relaxed and I also appreciated the remnant architectural spirit of the colonial time. However, it is just a matter of preference, my friends were more inclined towards the vibes of Mexico city.

From there, we went on another 8-hour bus ride to Puerto Vallarta, which I really enjoyed. The ride took us through an amazing landscape. It was just pure nature, marked by fresh green jungles and mountains in the backdrop — totally different from the desert-like landscape filled with occational cacti — which I imagined most of Mexico’s landscape (except Yucatán) would look like. Along the ride, there were almost no signs of civilization, except for some scattered small villages. It was just fascinating.

From the bus station in Puerto Vallarta, we took a taxi to the town of Sayulita, where we spent the remaining days of our journey.

Yoga Classes

Sayulita is really nicely located between a bay-like beach and several mountains that abate into smaller hills and valleys towards the ocean. This makes a beautiful scenery. The town is packed with (mainly North American) tourists, backpackers — and Yogis.

Looking for a “gym” on google maps returned me a bunch of Yoga- and Pilates places. And indeed, our hostel also offered a daily morning class in yoga, which I took advantage of. I actually wanted to give it a try for a long time already, reason being that I think it might be a really beneficial accompaniment to my regular endurance and strength training, which might lack to some extend when it comes to mobility. However, I had never ultimately pushed myself to go for it, so I finally did it. And I think it is indeed a quite positive exercise add-on. Besides that, it’s definitively a nice way to start into a day!

Our hostel was located on a hill and the common area was equipped with a restaurant, bar and pool, all situated on top of an architectural interesting construction complex of several towers, with a really nice view over the bay area.

‘El Día de Muertos’

Throughout the trip, we could see all the preparations for ‘Día de Muertos’ (the Day of the Dead), which is an important traditional celebration in Mexico, that takes place on 1st and 2nd of November. The day is to remember and honor ancestors. Interestingly, the celebration days themselves, revealed to be less of a mourning event, since the general atmosphere did not really have a solemn tone, but rather felt like a joyful celebration.

I first felt a bit strange, since my expectation was that it would be kind of a mourning event, but then there were skeletons dressed in funny attires and skulls with funny grimaces, in all kinds of shapes and poses everywhere.

And the general mood was joyful.

My takeaway was: A bit strange, a bit funny and culturally quite interesting.

Overall, the trip was an absolute blast and we are looking forward to repeating that in other parts of the world in the future.

Now my friends are back in Germany, while I have the luxury to spend some more time in sunny and warm Puerto Vallarta.