Sunday, August 28, 2016

Several Mayan Ruins of Guatemala and Belize

Before I went to San Ignacio, I decided I wanted to head over to Guatemala and visit Tikal and Yaxha.  San Ignacio isn’t far from the border, so I thought it would be fairly easy to get to Guatemala and see these two ancient cities.

Nope.

A day trip to Tikal was $140, not including dinner or the hotel for that night.  It was $130 for a separate day trip to Yaxha, making both $270 plus one night in a hotel and dinner for that night.  That seemed stupidly expensive to me, being used to Southeast Asian prices, so I started to look at ways of doing it on my own.

Turns out it wasn’t that hard.  When I got up in the morning I ate my leftover chicken from the night before and bought some mango down the street to munch on along the way.  I also bought bug spray and sunscreen at a local shop.  Then I took a $1 local bus to the last bus station before the border (Benque), then grabbed a $2.50 taxi (shared with another woman, or it would have been $5) to the actual border crossing.  It costs $16.50 to get through the border and it only took me maybe 30 minutes, including getting my money changed.  I found a taxi and had read that I should take the taxi to a spot called El Cruce, a bus stop between Flores and Tikal, where I could catch a bus or another taxi.  However, I would have to wait in that spot and hope to catch a bus at the right time, which is difficult, time consuming, and unlikely as those buses are often full.  The bus to that stop from the border cost $5, and then the remaining hour taxi ride would have been $40.  Or I could just take a taxi straight from the border to Tikal for $50.  So I did that.

My taxi driver was really nice, and it turned out that my high school Spanish from 10 years previous actually stretched sufficiently far to carry on a very detailed conversation.  He mostly wanted to talk about relationships, love, and sex, which was a bit awkward as he was over 40, but he wasn’t pushy.  He pulled over at one point to tell me he was in love with me, and that if I moved to Guatemala he would treat me like a queen, give his whole heart to me, and give me whatever I wanted.  I asked if we could keep driving.  However, he still offered to come back and get me the next day and take me to Yaxha, wait there for me, and then take me back to the border for another $50, essentially taking me to Yaxha for free.  The $270 for two days trips plus dinner and hotel not included stretched really far.  I was getting all my transportation for $100 (plus $10 on the Belize side), ended up finding a $15 camp site that provided all the gear, $20 to get into the park and $10 for breakfast and dinner.

I camped that night at the Jaguar Inn, which was $15 for a tent with a mattress, pillow, and blanket, and free usage of the outdoor shower.  The air was unbearably hot and still, so that it felt like I was sleeping wrapped completely, head and all, inside of a woolen blanket, but all told it was a pretty good deal

Tikal itself was absolutely incredible. 


I climbed to the top of two of the biggest temples and watched the sunset from the top of one of them (Temple 2).  I could also have watched from Temple 4, but the west facing side of that structure was crumbling and a bit dilapidated, so I opted for the safer route.  Which was an unusual choice for me, in retrospect.


I saw howler monkeys, an ocellated turkey (which was weirdly beautiful and repulsive at the same time), spider monkeys, a coati, and a keel-billed toucan.  

The toucan was actually the first one I saw, and it’s the kind with the brightest beak: green with a red tip, an orange smile-like slash, and blue underneath.  I had just started walking into the park and was studying my map, when I heard a small plop, like a stone being dropped into a pond.  I look over and saw a small stone square filled with water, and then looked up and the toucan was just above it, about 5 feet away from me.  I was so surprised when I saw it that I immediately said, “Oh my god!” which scared the toucan.  It flew off before I could reach for my camera.  The other animals were around various areas of the park.

The park was rather large, if I’m being honest, and was at times difficult to navigate.  Part of me wished I had a guide, but the map was fine, to be honest.  The park is so large that it’s difficult to get all the way around it in one day, so I didn’t put too much pressure on myself and just decided to hit the big sights and find whatever else I wanted from there, without worrying to much about the percentage of the park I was seeing.  It was also 104 degrees that day, and a lot of the park is not in shade, so I had to take a lot of breaks.  Every time I saw a vender selling water I would buy 2, chug one, and save the other for the walk until I found another vender.

Many of the ruins at Tikal are not excavated all the way, both because there aren’t enough funds and time, and also because sometimes they begin excavation and find the ruins to be too dilapidated to fix, so they are forced to re-cover them.  Even though they appeared from the outside to merely be very steep hills, with pictures nearby of what is under the dirt and trees (they’ve surveyed the land to see what various things look like), it was still very interesting to think about what it all must have looking like hundreds of years ago, when the city was a bustling metropolis.  It was completely amazing to think about people walking those same path sand climbing those same buildings thousands of year ago.

In the central pavilion, where Temple 2 was located, there was also the North Acropolis, the Central Acropolis, and the Jaguar Temple (also known as Temple 1).  
It was the most impressive part of the park.  Jaguar Temple is closed for climbing, but you can walk all over and around the rest of it, though you have to take care to use the proper paths and staircases so that you protect the architecture.  Apparently, it was okay to climb Jaguar Temple up until 1987, and the attitude was always the same as it is now with climbing: do so at your own risk.  However, at least one or two people died almost every year climbing the Jaguar Temple, and in 1987 there were three by May, so the government decided to close it.

I ate a super cheap shitty dinner at one of the comedores nearby (there are a few along the road approaching the National Park and the hotels) and then went to bed, wanting to rest before waking early the next day to head to Yaxha.

My driver picked me up at my hotel the next morning and we were once again off, this time to Yaxha.  The taxi ride was interesting once again.  We talked about religion, and I got educated on Catholicism.  Then we talked about our families and the presidential race, and all the jobs he’d had over the years, working in Tikal and driving a public bus.  As we turned off the main road and got onto the unpaved road for Yaxha (it was only 15 miles but it took almost an hour because the road was so bumpy and unever) he rolled up all the tinted windows.  It was unbearably hot, but he said that side roads, particularly unpaved ones, can be very dangerous in Guatemala, especially if they can see a white person inside the car.  He told me that once when he was a bus driver they gave him a different route than usual, and on an unpaved road he was pulled over by some soldiers holding guns.  When he saw them closer he realized they were wearing the wrong boots, which meant they were probably guerillas of some kind, but he had already stopped.  They made everyone get off the bus and get on their knees, then stole all the people’s money and jewelry.  Then they noticed an especially beautiful young girl, maybe 15 years old, and took her back onto the bus where they proceeded to take turns raping her for 45 minutes.  Then they let everyone back on the bus and let them go.

I was fine with the heat.

Yaxha was really cool, although in many ways unimpressive after Tikal.  The actual ruins are much closer together and more localized than Tikal, which was nice, and they are all located in fairly dense rainforest, so it was shadier and cooler than the day before.  It was also a lot more rustic and secluded.  The entire city was up on top of a hill over a lake, so the views from the top of the various towers were absolutely incredible.  
It was totally worth 2 hours of hiking.  Yaxha also had a much better excavated ball court than Tikal, which was interesting because it made it easier to understand how the game was played, from a visual standpoint.  
The ball was made of rubber from one of the trees, but was dense and heavy.  Players were trying to get the ball through one of two hoops on opposing side of the court.  The hoops were like sideways basketball hoops, with the hole facing side to side rather than straight up and down.  Players used their hips to bounce the ball up through the hoops.

All the architecture in general was pretty cool.
There was also a P.E. class hiking through Yaxha.  They were kind of funny- they kept teasing each other to talk to me, saying rote English phrases and telling me their names, then giggling and running away.

When I got to the border it was easy to get back to San Ignacio, but I forgot my Nikes at the bus station.  When I got to my new hostel, (The Old House Hostel, which I highly recommend) I asked if I could call about them, but the guy who ran the hostel said, “Forget it.  They’re already gone.”


 I met a British couple named Alice and James and booked the ATM tour with them, and then we got food and cooked some dinner.  I also met Jan, and Swiss man, Angelica (a Croatian woman), and Julia, and 21 year old from Arizona that I spent most of the rest of the trip with.

We spent a day in the ATM caves (which I already wrote about) and then the next day got back to seeing temples.  Julia and I took the local bus to the path for Xunantunich, a much more easily accessible set of ruins.  You walk down a short path to a ferry across a river.  It was pretty funny- the ferry could carry cars, which made it about half as long as the river was wide.  It took maybe two minutes to chug all the way across, which they did using a hand crank.  
Then we had to hike up hill in the sun for about 20 minutes until we reached the museum.  It was a little tough in the heat if I’m being honest, but the taxi ride there would have been $30 and it wasn’t worth spending that.

James and Alice told us they had met a man who was going to start excavating some of the ruins soon, and said that talking to this archaeologist in the museum was one of the highlights for them.  He wasn’t in the museum when we walked through, which was a little disappointing.  The museum itself was very interesting and informative though, and we were excited to see the ruins, which were only a little further up the hill.

Xunantunich is particularly known for a stele on one side of one of the temples.  Archaeologists were worried about the stele being destroyed by the elements and by people coming in, so they built a replica stele right on top of the ancient one.  
I had brought my Blazer jersey so I could take some photos for “Wear in the World” a segment they do during games where they show people wearing their Blazer gear all over the world.  As we walked down from the main temple, we noticed a bunch of people on a hill that looked like an unexcavated temple.  We headed over that direction and some yelled my name and then said “There’s someone from Oregon here!”  I got confused until I met the other girl from Oregon, who was from Eugene, and who has the same name as me.  She told us all about the excacation they had just begun that morning, and we got to watch for a little while, as well as speak to the lead archaeologist.  It was super informative and interesting.  

The rest of Xunantunich is really more for looking than for climbing, as there are only a few more small temples and a small acropolis, but it was still very interesting.

The walk back was easy, and we kept seeing grey iguanas climbing over the rocks.  We went back and grabbed lunch.  I got Escabeche, a Belizean chicken and onion soup made of pure deliciousness.  I want it always and forever.  It would actually be an even better chicken soup for when you’re sick because it’s a little spicy and would probably clear out your sinuses.  Mmmmmm.

After that I left to catch a bus to Orange Walk, a city up toward Belize City, so that I could see Lamanai the next day.  Julia wasn’t interested, so she stayed in San Ignacio and went to Caye Caulker, the beach, the next afternoon.  I met up with her there after I finished at Lamanai (I caught a bus to Belize city really awkwardly, just made it stop along the road between Orange Walk and Belize city right after I got off the boat the end of my tour.  Then I ran from the bus station to the water taxi and caught the last one to Caye Caulker and thank GOD because you do not want to stay in Belize City). 

The bus to Orange Walk was nice.  It wasn’t the local painted school bus kind, but the air conditioned long distance type buses we’re more accustomed to in the states.  And it was still only $8 for a two hour ride.  The town of Orange Walk itself, however, was terrible.  There was nothing around, everything was dirty and there was tons of traffic.  My hotel was grimy and the owner was a total Negative Nancy with a sour face and a bad attitude, who talked about how much he hated Belize and how much better Taiwan was.  There weren’t really many other budget options though, so I stayed. 

I walked down the street and sat on a stool in front of a hut, where I bought two rounds of 3 taquitos for a dollar.  The old woman at the shop only had frozen water to give me, but I said it was okay because it would still be cold in the morning, and she laughed really hard.  Then I went back to the hotel and took a cold shower.  The water was warm by the time I went to bed, only an hour later, because it was so hot there. 

Lamanai the next morning, however, was amazing.  The day trip including lunch, transport by van and boat, and a tour guide only cost $50, so I had no problem doing that.  It was me and two other families, both American, with our main tour guide and a trainee that he was helping pass her exams.  The boat ride was around an hour and a half, and we saw a lot of wildlife along the way.  There was a crocodile, tons of birds, lizards, snakes, and a spider monkey we got to feed.



When we got there, it also had a museum that was highly informative.  We started walking around the grounds, and our guide showed us obsidian that he picked up right off the ground in front of us.  Even back when the Mayans still lived in that city, obsidian had to be brought in and traded for from other places, just like the jade they had found in the city.  The first temple, the Jaguar temple, had a body in it that archaeologists discovered wearing a jade mask, a sign that the person buried was considered a living god.  It also had two steles on either side of the stairs, smaller than the one at Xunantunich, but still very cool.


There was also a ball court where they had discovered liquid mercury buried, a product that they have no idea how the Mayans either made or discovered it.  
Across from the ball court was the tallest temple at the complex, which had a great view from the top.  
There was a Stele temple that had a huge rock with a stele of a Mayan god on it (the original was in the museum, but there was a replica at the site as well).  
That temple also had a body interred there, which was of someone they think was a king.  The final temple we visited was the Mask Temple, which was my favorite.  It had two large masks on either side of the steps, with faces coming out of jaguar mouths.  
While we sat there my guide and I were talking and he stopped and asked if I heard something.  We sat in silence and then I heard this deep vibration noise that sounded far away.  He asked if I’d heard it, and when I said I had he told me it was a jaguar.  I said I’d heard that there were only 15 in the wild in Guatemala.  He shook his head and said, “That’s Guatemala.  The preserve here estimates that they have 200 jaguars there, and more in the rest of Belize, too.”  We heard the jaguar again and it was definitely amazing.

The Mask Temple, our guide told us, is a site of some contention, according to him.  For most of archaeological history, it has been contended that human sacrifice never occurred among the Maya of Belize.  However, ATM has caused some controversy on that point, as has the Mask Temple, where archaeologists uncovered the bodies of five children.  None of their bones were broken, so it was assumed that they had not been sacrificed.

However.

Belize has a special tree that the Mayans called the “Give and Take” tree.  It has spines all over the trunk.  Scratching yourself on one of these spines will give you instant searing pain and fever.  The only way to stop the pain and cure the fever is to rub the scratch with cotton covered in sap, found inside the tree.  So the tree gives the pain and fever, and it takes it away.

This tree was used in human sacrifices.  There are spots on the body that, when all are cut, will cause a person to bleed to death relatively quickly.  However, that was not quick enough for the Mayan sacrifices.  So they would take some spines and put them in the person’s tongue and genitals before cutting them, so that the pain would cause them to flail around in agony, which would cause them to bleed out faster.  BRUTAL.  However, this form of sacrifice would leave no evidence on the skeleton, and would certainly leave no broken bones.  It has been hypothesized that perhaps the children found in the Mask Temple were sacrificed in this way.

On the way back to the entrance we walked through the royal chambers, and saw Mayan beds, which were stone that was covered in straw to make it more comfortable.  The rooms were all small because they were used only for sleeping, as the Mayan people spent most of their time outside.

Lamanai was also an interesting site because of its history.  It lasted much longer than other cities because of its access to fresh water from the river.  It has long been hypothesized that the Mayan civilization met its end in part because of drought.  Lamanai would not have been as heavily hit by a drought as other cities.  It was also an ancient city, with evidence of people as far back at 1600 B.C.  The last people left in the 1600s, when white people came to build a sugar plantation and brought diseases.  The Mayas there thought the diseases were a sign from their gods that it was time to abandon the city.
The ruins of Belize and Guatemala were truly spectacular.  A short guide for those who would like to know:

Best: Tikal, Lamanai, Yaxha, Xunantunich

Easiest to Walk Around: Xunantunich, Yaxha, Lamanai, Tikal

Easiest to Get To: Xunantunich, Tikal, Lamanai, Yaxha


Most Photogenic: Lamanai, Tikal, Xunantunich, Yaxha

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