Losers live, Winners Die

If you find yourself in Cozumel with 3-4 hours to spare I highly recommend visiting Kun Che Park. No worries, you will not find dinosaurs here but what you will find is a world of Mayan culture re-imagined. As you walk around the village, you will cross stations that teach you about the lives of the Mayan people. You will sample food recipes passed down from generation to generation. After 2 hours in you will be questioning yourself like Robin Williams in Jumanji.

Kun Che Park is considered a Mayan sanctuary. Located in the oldest town on the Island, El Cedral, is where Mayan descendants still walk and communicate in the Yucatec Maya language. Before we were able to walk through the village we needed to be blessed in the Mayan Language. This was our first dose of the Yucatec Language. This older lady came up in front of us, waved her arms around and all I could think was how I just met the real Coco from the Disney movie. She spent the next 3 mins blessing us, shaking vines dipped in water, and sprinkling it on us.

After she finished the blessing and purifying us we walked to where the main event was about to unfold. The reason we decided to visit the park was so we could witness POK TA POK in person and no, its not a newly discovered Pokemon in the wild but rather an ancient Mayan ball game.

We were moved to a court where we were greeted by a ceremony that resembled the Intro to 90's wrestlers coming into the ring. On one side we had the Jaguars (no not some kids from the Hidden Legends of the Temple) and on the other side we had the Skeletons.

POK TA POK is no joke. The Object of the game is to get a rubber ball through a hoop attached to the wall. Simple right? Well, no. The use of hands and feet are not allowed. Only the thighs, knees and hips can be used to bounce the ball around in hopes to score by making the ball go through the hoop on the side of the court wall. But Jesse, this seems impossible you say. Well let me remind you, the Mayans were the original stair masters. Going up and down those temples are a work out.

After an awkward, yet very interesting game filled with drums beating, Mayans chanting, and bodies flying through the air, the rubber ball finally made it through a hoop and just like that a winner was declared. These games were known to last hours and even days until a team won. In the Mayan times, the winners were the ones that were sacrificed to the Gods cause, lets face it, nobody likes losers and apparently neither do the Gods.