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“Ivan is all about
lost cities and their
eventual discovery.”
E
xcept for occasional marked-by-a-speed-bump
villages, the jungle-edged road fromTulum to
Coba is not unlike the one that runs across the
peninsulaabout160miles south,where I first encountered
the legend of Ivan Šprajc, six years ago, at a seven-cabin
oasiscalledRioBecDreams.Icame forCalakmul,home to
more than6,000buildings once inhabitedby some50,000
Maya.But Iquickly learned,at theopen-airbar,sloppywith
worn guidebooks andwell-thumbed
National Geographic
magazines, that there wasmuchmore to theMaya story.
In fact,one explorerwas stillwriting it.
Captivated by indigenous cultures as seen inAmerican
westernsasa teenager inSlovenia,Šprajccame toMexico in
1985 tocompletehismaster’sdegree inarchaeology,andhe
was stranded in1991whenwarbrokeout inYugoslavia.In
1996,workingwithMexico’sprestigiousInstitutoNacional
deAntropologíaeHistoria,hebegan reconnaissance forays,
andhe has sincemappedmore than80newMaya sites in
research trips that usually last threeweeks—about as long
as themoney and his body canhold out in the sweltering
jungle,whichhe calls “aggressivebut beautiful,”andwhere
everything,animal andvegetal,seemsdesigned tobiteyou.
“Whathe’sdoing isn’t far fromCatherwood,”saysDiane
Lalonde, co-owner of Rio BecDreams, referring to the
illustrator FrederickCatherwood,who,with author John
LloydStephens, created
Incidents ofTravel inYucatán
, the
seminal 19th-century account of the team’s visits tomore
than 40Maya sites.“The difference is he has anti-venom,
because if something does happen you’re not going to get
anyone to ahospital.”
Now in our air-conditionedToyota, Šprajc apologizes
for notwearinghis snake boots—knee-high, thick leather
lace-ups that resemble footwear fromCatherwood’s age,
perfect for the swashbuckling archaeologist.They resist
