Monday, March 3rd, Copan

Greetings!

 As Pat remarked at dinner tonight, "Today was a perfect day for Gregory".  After breakfast, we spent the morning at Copan, walking the grounds of one of the finest Mayan ruins in the world.  After lunch, we went zip-lining (yes, Pat did it too) from atop Macaw Mountain.  Returning to the hotel, we had a swim in the pool, and then went to a great dinner at a restaurant owned by a Canadian.  She was right.  This was a great exploration day.  But I do have to thank her for tagging along on the zip-line portion of the afternoon.  What a brave lady.

The first ruler of Copan was named after the gorgeous birds (Great Sun, First Quetzal Macaw) flying all around the grounds. Later in the day, we visited the bird park where there being nurtured back to a health wild population.  It's next to the base of the zip-lining camp.  There are lots more photos of them in today's album.

Our guide, Juan Carlos Caderon, did a magnificent job of helping our group understand the reign of the 18 rulers of Copan from 426 AD to 822 AD, the significance of Copan in the Mayan world, and of the Mayan civilization.

In summary, the Olmecs arrived from Vera Cruz, Mexico about 1400 BC, but left only pottery and jewelry.  First of 18 Mayan kings invaded from Tikal in 426 AD, evidence does exist that he had ties to Teotihuacan in Mexico, and the ruling elite lasted 400 years.  Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans wee the great American civilizations, but only the Mayans had writing, astronomy, base 20 number system, and knowledge of zero.  They had solar, lunar, Venus, and Mars calendars.

Their main calendar (Long Count) reset itself when the lunar and solar calendars coincided every 52 years, and the reigning king buried the temples in new temples.  When the 13th King (18 Rabbit) was captured and beheaded by a former vassal state chief, it put an end to the myth of ruling deities, and resulted in a serious blow to the family dynasty.  It may have provided the impetus for a peasant revolt which contributed to the decline of the site in the next 100 years.

 The ball court at Copan was one of the first constructed in the Mayan world, and contains changing rooms for the visitor and home teams,  Winning or losing team captains were sacrificed, and were rewarded with virgins in the afterlife.

 The canopy is there to keep the stairway, the hieroglyphics on each of the 2,200 pieces of the stairs - a precious part of a remarkable library of information - from deteriorating from acid rain.

Inside the structure was a three-story building, housing the burial of a king whose queen had been kidnapped and never returned.

Quarried stone were transported from a mountain two miles away.  By the early 9th century, most of the Mayan civilization had disappeared,

The Copan Museum contains a very well designed collection of sculptures from the facades and grounds of Copan.

This sculpture, dedicated in 776 AD,  contains profiles of 16 rulers.  On the main frieze, the first ruler is handing off the scepter power stick to the 16th ruler, and is meant to legitimize his descendency from the gods.

The integration of bats, and turtles, and snakes, and birds, and lots of mythical creatures can be seen in many of their sculptures.

Finally, not enough tribute can be given to Linda Schele, who pioneered the work deciphering Mayan hieroglyphics.  A huge memorial is dedicated to her in the museum, and it was her writings (Blood of Kings) which inspired me to pursue the love of the Mayans.  The Mayan meetings at the University of Texas at Austin which she organized, and the meeting notes compiled by Merle Robertson Greene, proved invaluable to advancing our knowledge of this important culture.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on Monday, March 3rd, Copan.

Sunday, March 1st, Copan

Greetings!

 I can't recall being in three countries in one day.  

We left the Hilton Princess this morning, and drove north to the El Salvador Mayan ruins at San Andres.

 This site is estimated to have been occupied for over a thousand years beginning in 900 BC.  The early establishment was vacated in 250 AD by the eruption of the caldera of Lago llopango.  Three centuries later, after the ash had settled into a fertile plain, it was again occupied for another thousand years, until the Playon volcano covered it up for yet another three hundred years.

A political-ceremonial center, one of a few in close contact with major Mayan sites in the Mayan highlands in Guatemala and Mexico, its transformation at the end of the 9th century AD to residential use was completed after the Spanish conquest when it became an important indigo plantation and cattle farm.

After lunch at a Kentucky Fried Chicken meets Burger King, we crossed into Guatemala,   An hour later, we crossed into Honduras.

A mile from the city of Copan, we transferred our luggage into a truck, and ourselves into Tuk-Tuks, and made our way up to our hillside village hotel.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on: Sunday, March 1st, Copan.

Saturday, March 1st, San Salvador

Greetings!

 Celebrating my first day as a 66-year old, our tour took us to an indigo plantation (Los Nacimientos).  Rhina Rehmann and her husband own 110 acres of farmland in the highlands on which they grow several crops.  One of those is one of the highest quality organic indigo in the world.  If you've bought indigo-colored jeans from Levi Strauss, Beneton, or the Gap lately, you probably are wearing her dyes.

And the story of how she almost single-handedly brought back indigo to a country which for 300 years sold only that crop - is amazing.  Responding to a call from a French company long ago when she headed a project to re-employ guerrilla fighters after the civil war, she decided to use her inherited farm to test out what she calls "weapons of love".  Pushing back against sexism, a culture of subservience and low self-esteem, and an industry dominated by synthetic India-based product, she helped found a rigorous process which made her one of the only two certified indigo producers in the world.

Focusing on empowering workers, and keeping the means of production small and distributed, she began. to turn every opportunity to maximize revenue and minimize cost.

Today, she has expanded into several new product lines, including cashew wine and vinegar, snack treats, hibiscus tea, insect repellent (neem), and body oil from a "miracle tree" (moringa oleifera).

One of the highlights was being taken back to our hippie tie-dye days.  With some of the best dye available, our group made scarves using her indigo.

We all promised to stay in touch with her new adventures (Mayan Spa?), and I'm going to make sure her Google Map placemark has the best photos and a link to her website.

After lunch at restaurant on a historic hacienda, we drove to Joya de Ceren.  A Mayan ruin, referred to by UNESCO as the "Pompei of the Americas", it was buried about 630 AD in 17 feet of low temperature, wet ash, but not before the inhabitants has time to flee their evening meal.  Leaving pots on the stove, deer bones scattered, and utensils of the table, the villagers never returned.

Because the volcano erupted beneath a river, the ash was unusually wet and cool.  Over 1400 hundred years, extreme preservation was provided while the ash sank and was replaced by successive layers of subsequent soil and mudstone.

The latest revelation, by the original archeologist (Payson Sheets at the University of Colorado) who led the excavation work in the 1980s and 90s, is that these villagers had constructed a 7 foot wide road which they may have used to escape when the volcano blew.

He compared the Mayan villagers' plight when hit by a volcano with those of Louisiana residents hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — modern Americans who in many cases waited for and relied on federal authorities. Ceren residents, in contrast, may have been accustomed to responding rapidly on their own initiative to environmental change — inclined toward a 2-kilometer survival dash down the roadway to safety at the first sign of eruption.

The road, above, called a "sacbe," or "white way," was built with volcanic ash and had ditches alongside for water. It was found by a team led by CU professor Payson Sheets. (Photo courtesy of Payson Sheets, CU)

"Decision-making is with the family in a village," Sheets said. "If they got out, it means they decided on the spur of the moment what to do — and did not wait for the king or priests to tell them what to do."

Mayan scholars traditionally have focused on pyramids, temples and bloodletting ceremonies — activities run by tiny groups of elites.

"I'm not so interested in that stuff. I'm pretty anti-elite," Sheets said. "I want to know what the other 90 percent of the population was doing."

The traditional focus on kings and priests at sites such as Tikal, in Guatemala, led to an understanding that Mayan civilization was autocratic, with people depending on rulers to act.

CU professor Payson Sheets. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post)

Sheets contends Mayans likely were more democratic, citing evidence of town councils that suggested individual farmers had an ability to adapt on their own.

At Ceren, villagers' survival of the volcanic eruption may reflect that decentralized power structure, Sheets said.

Ancient villages "where Mayans had the shared government seemed to have been more stable," he said.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on: Saturday, March 1st, San Salvador.

Friday, February 28th, San Salvador, My Birthday

Greetings!

 I woke up to a beautiful birthday card from Pat, with a notice that a new (replacement) Garmin GPS device for our car was home awaiting our return.  A few weeks ago, I had dropped the one we use, and the glass cracked.  As Pat told some friends, it's not hard to buy for me because I inevitably break or lose things periodically.  I'm repaying her generosity by stealing greatly from her journal today.

Our tour took us by bus along the Ruta de las Flores today, along a new highway and then up a mountain with lush cloud-like forests.  This is coffee country, but most seems to be shade-grown so not as chewed up as we saw in Vietnam.

 Our first stop was Nahurzal, a town with many indigenous (not Mayans), but Nahautl-speaking.  We walk through the new market and a square festooned with hearts for Valentine's Day.

Further on, we stop at Garden de Celest, a lovely garden restaurant with orchids, mums, roses, lilies, passion vine, to name a few.  We had large portions of good food , plus Jamaica (!), good coffee, and a birthday cake for Gregory.

Next, we head further up to a coffee processing plant, TACO brand coffee.  We see beans being sorted, skin-removed, dried, milled, sorted, and some roasted (most are brought green to be roasted by the buyers).  They made a point of showing how beans from each source and quality are kept separate.  All are Arabica, but varietals include Bourbon, Paracas, and about three others.  Then, some are gourmet quality, or organic, or of a certain elevation.  We sampled at the end - really not as good as the coffee we had at lunch.

 Next, we visited TACO, a city with colorful murals on dozens of houses.  Originally a project of American artists and local artisans, it proved to be a tourist draw, and has been maintained at local expense by local artists.  Two of our group (Harry and Leonard) stopped to buy new Machetes!

We headed home, stopping in Jauyau, a town with a quaint square and a church with a black Jesus - but it was closed.  Home by 6:30pm.  As I write this, Gregory has gone over to the local Sheraton to visit the site of a 1981 assassination of Mark Pearlman and two others by the death squads for working on land reform.

To see all of the photos taken today, click on: Friday, February 28th, San Salvador.