Posts Tagged ‘ruins’
Find Us If You Can
Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Every time we reach this stage, an end to yet another chapter of the trip, I have mixed feelings. They are so mixed; I don’t know what they are. I don’t want to leave, but it’s time to move on.
On our last day with Byron and Rachel, we took canoes through the Crooked Tree reserve and hunted, cameras in hand, for herons and orange iguanas. It was our last excursion together. Later that afternoon, we dropped them off at a bus stop and drove out of Belize, into Mexico. The usual border formalities headache finally helped me find the answer to my doubts when I had to use my “feminine charms” to avoid potential complications. The mean woman in customs was about to close and we didn’t have copies of all the necessary documents. So I’ve ran to the all-male staff of the immigration office, my shirt strategically unbuttoned, and “Me no know what do! Señor help, por favor,” did the trick. Is it bad I’ve even enjoyed it a little?
Tags: ruins
Posted in Places»North America»Mexico, wildlife | No Comments »
Sunday, December 23rd, 2007
My skin is all wrinkly – time to get out of the water I guess. Besides, Belize just got interesting on mainland. Yes, thank you, you know-it-alls, I know that technically you can’t even spit in Belize and not hit a National Park or a reserve. Those though, are all so high on price and low on wildlife and adventure, we mostly stuck to the archaeological sites where if you walk patiently, quietly, and carefully, you just might not step on something poisonous and interesting like this guy here:
Having visited over twenty ruins already, we now drag ourselves through familiar sites and pyramids noting that it seems like none of the Belizean ones will make it to our top five list. At least at one site we got ourselves a good laugh: as we were about to leave a tiny camera crew showed up and for half an hour shot a cheesy singer rapped to the backdrop of confused visitors and ancient structures.
( a few shots of Atun Ha and Lamenai )
Tags: ruins
Posted in Places»Central America»Belize, wildlife | No Comments »
Copan
Friday, December 7th, 2007
A month break and we are back to exploring indigenous sites where time left almost no stone unturned. It is home to the longest Maya text found yet carved into the steps of a very tall and wide staircase. Unfortunately, the “manuscript” was found in pieces all over the place and some blocks badly eroded, so the text is jumbled and its full meaning is unknown. Following the usual border formalities where we were told by uniformed officials that we must “just leave with them” the customs fees for the car, since it’s the weekend, and they will file them with the bank “for us” on the next business day, we, frustrated but tolerant as usual after such blunt scamming attempts, just paid whatever they could logically enough get away with, and proceeded for the ruins of Copan. Now in Honduras, we were warned by Don Salvador about police checkpoints and the unavoidable bribe or two, but to our surprise it never came to that. We did get stopped something like eight times in three days, but in contrast to the border fees, it was a small price to pay.
( Happy Tiger, a Parakeet, and one mean looking Eagle )
Tags: ruins
Posted in Places»Central America»Honduras | No Comments »
Head to head
Thursday, October 25th, 2007
No gates, no guards, or fancy signs. Just a one tree hill and a huge stone head peering out the charred ground. The head itself is black with soot – the locals have been coming to pray along its side and burned fires under its now chipped-off nose. There are candle remains and pieces of garbage on the ground. If it wasn’t so, I wouldn’t have believed this place is authentic. The air smells like sweet garlic, and I must admit that not having anybody’s permission to be here is a little exciting. This is somebody’s privsate property, probably the only reason this incredible relic is still here and not stuck behind glass in some museum where you are never sure if you are looking at a replica or the real thing. I prefer it here much better. Maybe because we actually had to hike up to this place, or for the fact that it is under the open sky, but one thing I am certain off: this one, to me, is the greatest, quietly exhilarating, experience I have had in Mundo Maya
Tags: ruins
Posted in Places»Central America»Guatemala | No Comments »
Quirigua – A Site for Sore Eyes
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
To make it easier to explain, a hot waterfall is, in many ways, a lot like a hot shower. For one, getting out is just as hard – you want to stay as long as time allows and just stand there under the pressure of the water, watching your skin wrinkle and feel your mind going a bit foggy from the heat. One way this hot waterfall was not like a hot shower, was that usually when we are in a shower, separately or together, we are not accustomed for a middle-aged Guatemalan man to sit there and watch us. At first, we hoped he is just going to see us to the falls, even though the trail was clearly marked, and leave, but he stayed “to guard our stuff” that needed no guarding as we took the camera into the water with us, and to “make sure we wouldn’t drown”. I thought about asking him to leave, and made sure he understands we were in no need of the above listed “services”, but nonetheless the man stayed, gawked, and finally, when his stare burned a deep enough hole in the backs of our heads, we decided to leave this marvel of nature with its relentless guard and continue for the Stellas of Quirigua.
A sight for sore eyes, the Stellas were magnificent and we would have thoroughly enjoyed them if only somebody, I will not point fingers (Shurik!), hadn’t neglected his contact lenses for months and then used them at the waterfall, where his right eye became a throbbing pink mass laced with alarming thin red veins. A site for sore eyes indeed…
Now, Shurik was in pain and I was faced with a dilemma: let my one-eyed hubby drive through the sunset on an, obviously, unfamiliar road, or take the wheel myself like our unwritten laws of emergency dictate? With all due respect, I was leaning towards letting Shurik keep driving. What? Have you ever driven our green monster? On Guatemalan roads? Aha, that’s what I thought. Shurik barely let me drive beforehand anyway, with excuses like: “Shurik, can I drive now?”-”What? In the mountains?! No, that’s way too hard.”-”Now?”-”In the city?! No, did you see that car swerve?!” So, to say the least, I was scared. To be entirely honest, I don’t even have the stature to drive GreenGo. Only to brake, I would have to practically stand with my whole weight on the pedal. And there are so many things to do, and with such force too! Left hand driving, right hand shifting, Left leg on the clutch, right leg motor. People should take a course in “rub your belly while patting yourself on the head” first, before being allowed to purchase stick-shift operated vehicles. Ah… (back of the hand on forehead). Now did any of you buy the “useless wife” routine? No? Good. Because, of course, I took the driver seat and did a pretty good job driving, going from “Yeeeeee! Mamachka!” when passing by trucks would send GreenGo into convulsions, to “Where is the fifth gear on this thing!” Yes, a great job up until the point I almost drove GreenGo off a cliff. In my defense, it was a small cliff, and who in their right mind builds a hotel parking on the edge of a cliff anyway?
Tags: ruins
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Yaxchilan & Bonampak
Friday, October 5th, 2007
To understand why we went to Bonampak, I must first tell you about Luis. He came as a package deal with the Tikal sunrise-tour, which was the only way into the site at that hour. He was a good guide, at least this is what we thought at the time, though a little pretentious repeatedly telling us what page we could find his name on in the Lonely Planet guidebook, and how indispensable he was to the producers of Survivor-Guatemala. However, he seemed to know where to find monkeys, tarantulas, and the best angles for the shot. I even felt bad for the other guide (who in his turn seemed to loathe Luis when his back was turned). “Monkeys Ricardo?” Luis would ask, purposefully in English, with his whole group in tow. “No?” he sighed loudly. “Tarantulas? No?! Eh Ricardo, Ricardo…” and Luis would turn back to us, his group, flawlessly reciting the next chapter of his speech.
As part of the narration, Luis told us about Tikal’s frescoes. Blindingly beautiful, they were no longer open for public view as people kept writing their names on the antique paint or, better yet, scratching in it phrases like “Juan + Maria = Amor”. Understandably enough, I only shook my head in resentment of the vandals, and, when the tour was over, approached Luis who has just finished his “And if you would like to tip thank the guide, I’ll be right here” speech. “May I help you with anything else?” asked Luis as he kept receiving bill after bill and nodding in thanks, his left eye counting the loot, his right fixed now on me. “I only wanted to say thanks. It was great,” and I shook his outstretched hand. “I only wish we could see those frescoes.” I was sincere, and, as I often do, simply verbalized my thought out loud, but to my surprise Luis jumped at the opportunity. “It is possible,” he said in a low voice that was not exactly a whisper. “Come. Let’s talk. Let me see… I will find out.” And he set out for the site’s gates with us four trotting behind, all giddy and excited.
( more… )
Tags: pretrip, ruins
Posted in Places»North America»Mexico | No Comments »
La Blanca & Yaxha
Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007
Hate to sound redundant, but today’s forecast doesn’t yield anything new other than more problems with the car. We were having the worst luck! Everything that could break – broke, and anything that could have gone wrong – went. Even as simple task of ordering a part to be delivered from Guat City (we gave them the part number and everything), resulted yet in another day of delays when instead of a generator they sent us a starter.
I could see how this was getting to the guys. ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
gadikus and Rita were having to shave day after day out of their six week vacation and there were no signs of exhaust clouds on the horizon.
Frustrated and bored, we turned to Deter. Unfortunately, the German architect and owner of Café Yaxha knew nothing about cars (even German ones), but he did give us a number of a driver who took us not only to the ruins of Yaxha with monkeys swinging on jungle vines from tree to tree and the pyramids that made you understand what were the spaceships in films like Star-Gate based on, but also to the seldom visited, still in a stage of excavations, site of La Blanca where Spanish archeologists worked on uncovering something they call “graffiti” – ancient line drawings scratched in soft stone or stucco.
We observed the archeologists at work, putting transparencies to the walls and tracing the lines with different colored markers depending on the level of drawing clarity (doesn’t sound too exiting? Well, you just had to be there, I guess) and watched the locals dig into the soil to uncover step after step of once lost pyramids.
( Photos )
Tags: ruins
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Tikal
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
It never ceases to amaze me how every slice of Mayan culture, every relic, every ruin that we visit, is a new experience time after time. Maybe, the thing is, we never expect it. It being the thing we end up liking the most. It doesn’t have to be the ruin itself, but perhaps what we find inside aside from the structures themselves. For that reason, as a general rule, I do not enjoy being told what we will be seeing and, if at all possible, where we are going. The idea is if you don’t get your expectations too high, chances are you’ll end up surprised. I, for one, love being surprised.
3am. Flores – a tiny tourist town on an island from which we are to be picked up for the Tikal sun-rise tour, is asleep, but there is a feeling that every local knows they will be awaken in the middle of the night by groggy, impatient travelers, speaking too loudly, while waiting for their tour-vans.
It was supposed to be just yet another ruin. Then again, we’ve never gotten to a site this early, and soon sleepy eyes widened, not at the sight, but at the sound of the jungle waking up.
Tags: ruins
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San Cristobal the savior – tamer of hardware
Thursday, September 20th, 2007
San Cristobal, you are a saint! Yes, yes, I know San Cristobal is a saint, but I’m talking about the amazing town of San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico where we came back after almost a month journey in the Yucatan Peninsula and entered a magical zone where not only souls find peace and are able to unwind and relax, but harddrives as well succumb to the tranquil energy, stop giving error massages, and liberate, from their deathly digital grip, photos of Bassiliscus Vittatus that we have already considered dead and buried.
——-
Shurik came into the common area of Tata Inti hostel, where I was chatting up some Brits, with a victorious sparkle in his eyes. He took the computer from my lap and plugged in the card reader. “You…?!” I almost fell off the couch, but Shurik raised his hand in the air calling for complete silence and we held our breath as one by one the lost photos from Reserva Pantanos de Centla appeared unharmed on the screen.
Half an hour later I was done telling everybody and anybody in the hostel, who wouldn’t mind hearing, how much I love my husband and the genius man that he is. I came back to Shurik and demanded an explanation. After all, just an hour ago we were talking about how it sucked to lose these pictures, but sending the memory-card drive for recovery would cost thousands of dollars and was simply not an option.
-”I hit it,” said Shurik calmly
-”You did what?!”
-”I plugged it in, and when it started clicking again I just hit it until it stopped.”
And so, without further ado, the return of Uxmal and Reserva Pantanos de Centla which without these great visual aids, (this is me stroking my camera hand), would be unjustly unappreciated as I was lost in grief, and lost for words, in the time of their untimely death and implausible resurrection.
Toloque (Bassiliscus Vittatus).
A relative of a Parasaurolophus or a Charonosaurus perhaps?
Masks of the god Chac-Mol
Tip: if you go to Uxmal, buy bug repellent by the gallon and swim in it before the visit. Why? Well let’s just say that when I expressed to Shurik how I would like to take a photo of one of the suckers that were feeding on us, he said in all seriousness: “No problem, I’ll just step on its foot.”
( Three birds, two lizards, and a mystery reptile )
Tags: ruins
Posted in Places»North America»Mexico | No Comments »
Villahermosa
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
Unfortunate but true, just like the book said, Villahermosa was not living up to its name. It was by far not a villa anymore, but a big town, and the only hermoso thing around was supposed to be the Park-Museum La Venta, were the original giant Olmec heads were put on display after being dug out in the nearby La Venta.
Heavily covered with bug spray, just like the guard and the ticket checker advised, we went in. The park was nice and full of archeological finds, but it also happened to be a zoo, and we were sad to find the only ones free to leave and enter this place as placed were Coaties, which here were something like the local rat. Besides them were turtles who didn’t seem to care much about being confined, Birds forced to enjoy a dirty cement pond that they are not able to leave after what was done to their wings, and restless monkeys in a green pit without as much as a spec of vegetation.
I interviewed a few furry prisoners and found out how deluded they are about the length of the sentence they are given in this prison. One expecting mother was showing me four fingers when I asked her, not realizing that both she and her children’s children will have to learn to accept the green pit as their home. In fact, even if she meant four generations, I suspect she was sadly mistaken as well. Many have already given up hope, and sit motionlessly with their arms folded, others hang from their tails, catch some sun, or lucky enough to get a conjugal visit. Looking at it all, I realize how much I dislike zoos and how in the future I would like to be taking my interviews in a place without cages.
( Inside )
Tags: ruins
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