Copan & Guatemala City

After the first night in Copan Ruinas without a real window (just a screen) and we had to smell smoke from the neighbor burning stuff in his yard, Mom woke up with a really sore throat and coughing. So, we got to move to a really nice one. We had a pool, it was 4 blocks away from the hotel (: But it was nice.

These are macaws, very colorful birds that are by the ruins in Copan. They had a special relationship with the Maya, but have been overhunted for their feathers and for pets so they are endangered now.

Pics of the ruins in Copán.

That is, I think the largest temple in Copan is the hieroglyphic stairway which has 72 steps. This stairway contains over 2,500 glyphs and is the longest inscription found in North, Central and South America.  It was built to give the history of past Mayan rulers.  Most of the hieroglyphics are not in their original order because; in 1925, archeologists reconstructed the stairway and placed many of the stones in the wrong order.  

Below is where they played "the ball game." Contestants used there hips, elbows, shoulders and knees, to try to hit a bird head (like in the picture at the middle-right) with a hard rubber ball made from the rubber tree. "Players would wear tree rings around their hips and throw an eight-pound rubber ball across the court without the use of their hands or feet.  The captain of the winning or losing team, depending on the time period of the game, was then sacrificed on an altar in the Great plaza.  They first cut off the player's head with an axe made of obsidian and removed his heart.  The heart was then placed on top of the altar and the blood flowed down groves in the stone, to both the east and west. This was in accordance with the rising and setting of the sun.  They then burned the heart so the smoke would reach the Gods in the heavens.  The Mayans did this to insure good crops for the upcoming year.  They believed, by killing their best player, he would be able to fight the ruling Gods of the underworld in honor of two ball playing heroes, the sun and the moon.  This was true until the rule of 18 Rabbit.  It is believed that during his rule he decided that it was not right to sacrifice the best player so he decided to sacrifice the loser of the game."

The tree below has roots above the ground that are at least 6 feet tall. It is called a Ceiba and is a sacred tree for the Mayan people... 

Here are some more, growing out of a pyramid, but you can see they are 'ruining' the ruins - ha ha.

These are two people from Germany that we shared a guide with. Their names are Constance and I cant remember his name. Anyway, they were really nice.

This is a depiction of the Mayan sun god emerging from the mouth of a jaguar. This is located in the ampitheator.

This is the leaf-nosed bat, it is the ancient symbol of Copan, sort of like their flag.

This is the head of what used to be one of the two largest statues in all of Copan. They believed the world was the back of a crocodile and this god and one other like it was holding the world up above a pond. 

The ancient Mayan statues (at Copan at least) were carved in seperate peices and then assembled because they were so big.

I dont know what this flower is, do you?

This is the view from the deck of one of our hotels, the flat topped hill was a quarry - a source of stones for the Mayans to build Copán. 

We went to the Macaw Mountin bird sanctuary and nature reserve. It was really spectacular, if you want to check out their project, Guaras en Libertad (Macaws in Freedom) go to the web site in the picture below.

This bird flew up to us when we walked up to the fence and went "hola." It was pretty cute.  

This plant is called "lobster claw" AKA Heliconia wagneriana Peterson (nomenclature).

This is for all the spider lovers, if you can see there is a 3 inch long spider in the middle of the picture. 

Here is a picture of me with a macaw...

    Here is a picture of me with 3 macaws, one of them trying to take my sun glasses. 

These macaws are tame because they were raised as pets elsewhere and could not be kept and can never be released into the wilde again. But... their offspring are being released to join the few remaining macaws in the valley and they hope that with time and education, the birds will flourish again.

This bird could say "hello."

Here is a toucan.

GUATEMALA CITY -

After Macaw Mountin we took a bus to Guatemala City to see museums.

These are the natural dyes and material that went into the origanal mayan clothing.

This is now the modern style for girls - which is true  because this is what Angela looked like when she went to school in the morning. (Angela is my homestay sister in San Pedro la laguna).  Its hard to see, but they have added sparkly threads to their hair pieces and into the clothing... and you can see they have added modern backpacks and purses. The men have added baseball hats.

The whole thing was embroidered by hand!

If you can see the pots handles were made to look like cacao pods.

This is a piece of a mesoamerican throne.

This is a diorama of Copán a few thousand years ago.

The white ware in this shape was commonly used for cacao drinks.

This is a Mayan incense holder.

This is a diorama of Tikal a few thousand years ago.

This is a dog shaped vase.

Obsidian tools and bases.

These are obsidian tools shaped as scorpions, others have been carved to depict other animals.

These are actually copper tools found in a Mayan site.

This is how the Mayans wrote their books, like one long pamphlet.  They would pound the tree bark and then cover each sseparate sheet with a thin layer of stucco, that way, they would fold really easily.

This is a Colonial Era painting from the 1750s depicting the Holy Trinity.

Had a great time heading and now we are heading to Tikal tomorrow at 4:30 AM tomorrow.

Keep in touch on FB!

E.D. & Antigua

             So there was a bit I did not say about my birthday...

At Xocomil while showering I accidentally swallowed some of the shower water, which unless chlorinated, is a bad idea in many countries due to bacteria.

So on the way home I had some bad gas to say the least. And by the time I got home i was not feeling great. So I got in bed feeling nauseas and then threw up (projectile vomit) in to the garbage can. Then for the rest of the night I was tossing cookies and was visited multiple times by ED (explosive diarrhea) and slept off and on through out the night for periods of 20 minutes to 1 hour - constantly waking up in my own - well, you know... then vomiting until I could not vomit any more and there were only dry heaves. 

So after 12 hours, the next morning I went to a clinic recommend by the Cooperativa Spanish School and thank goodness the doctor was a good one. I got 2 bags of IV fluid with antibiotics. I was only there about two hours, but it felt like all day and the whole time I did not want to move. On the other hand, I was extremely restless and shaky which was miserable. They left the IV needle in my arm over night just in case they needed it the next day, which sucked because I could not use my left arm for anything. 

The next morning they put more antibiotics in through the IV they left in my arm and gave me a shot in the butt for good luck. I pretty much stayed in bed for the the next 2 days then on the 3rd day I ate some meat (which I never should have done) and got bad indigestion and an upset stomach since I was still too weak to digest it. But then I took what I ate slow and got a lot better from there. 

Having been sick most of the week and only having one class left at the spanish school we decided it would not be worth it and left for Antigua. I have been in Antigua for a good part of 3 days now and I'm leaving tomorrow at 4:00AM for Copan, Honduras. 

Antigua iis very different from San Pedro, I have barely seen any tin or plastic roofs and everything is nice and fixed up. There is much more money here than in San Pedro and the only Mayans that are here, are the ones who travel from the highlands to sell things. The rest are the desendants of the spanish or mixed blood (ladinos). But, Antigua has more tourists than anyone else, same thing as NYC - it seems like there are more visitors there than actual New Yorkers. 

Constantly while sitting in cafes Indians come in and go up to each person trying to get them to buy something, but if you look at any of the nicer restaurants that turists would go to there are gaurds with guns at the door to keep all the solicitors out.  

            This is Mt. Pacaya a vocano over looking antigua which actually just erupted that day, according to the news. I thought the news said you could see plumes of smoke 3 miles high, but we just thought this was a cloud at the top... so I dont know what it is, really.

Maria (my homestay mother) surprised me and made me some traditional shorts for my birthday. How do I look? (:

 

I went to a chocolate museum that told about the plant and that cacao (not cocoa) was consumed by the Mayans as a bitter drink and is now used to make a type of chocolate.  

Here I am grinding cacao beans in the chocolate museum.

This is a cacao pod, each one containes 20-60 beans.

Breakfast at our hostel in Antigua. - Posada de Don Quijote

Relaxing at our new hotel in Copan, Honduras after a day of travel. Its a lot hotter here. Im going to bed earlier tonight.  I think we are going to the ruins tomorrow - yipee!