Don't loose your head over a game of football son
Hello again, I think I'm starting to spoil you all with the frequency of reports these days, But I had "The Force" with me on this one.
I arrived at Tikal at 4am to catch the incredible view of the ruins as the sun rose on it, unfortunately the mosquitoes had the same idea and bang, didn't they just love it - I must have been the Mosquito version of the lottery jackpot. Despite feeling like a pin cushion, the trek through the jungle was a very enjoyable and interesting one with lots of unusual creatures of the night and an extremely knowledgeable guide, BUT - and don't you just know there is usually a BUT attached to my adventures, things rarely go to plan - as the evenings veil of darkness rolled back to reveal the glory of a new day dawning, all I could see was MIST! The morning sun burned off most of the mist fairly quickly but not quickly enough to afford me the pleasure of seeing the ruins in all their magnificent splendour, illuminated by a spectacular Guatemalan sunrise. As far as I'm concerned you can keep the Pyramids of Egypt, they all look the same to me
and although they are undoubtedly a tremendous fete of engineering construction, once you've seen one you've seen them all. Mayans on the other hand, built their practical Pyramid type structures in inaccessible places and lived in them, whole cities and communities of aristocrats, artists, scholars, tradesmen and farmers lived and worked here in a variety of different buildings. The most spectacular buildings are as you would expect, places of worship, some of which tower so high that they protrude out above the jungle canopy and the panoramic views from the summit are breathtaking, breathtaking that is, if the flipping climb up there hasn't already left you breathless. The Mayan culture is a fascinating one with many complexities to it but you are going to have to read up on it for yourself if you're interested as I would be stuck at this bloody computer for hours on end if I started. I will however wet your appetite with one or two goodies to arouse your interest.
Many of the Mayan carvings depict rulers, generals and holy men and it is not unusual to note that they often had six fingers or toes on one hand or foot and four or even five on the other. The official guide books tell you that this was not a mistake on behalf of the stonemasons but that interbreeding was so common that many Mayans often had strange deformities - it's no wonder that they played flutes and not pianos! It may have been an advantage though in the local football matches - I kid you not, every Mayan city has a ball park and played each other in a strange form of football on a regular basis. The pitch is only about the size of a tennis court and has walls down either side sloping in at a forty five degree angle. Don't expect me to even attempt an explanation of the rules - it would be easier trying to explain the offside rule in our football game to a group of footy hating women. I don't think the F.A. would approve of the rewards for the winning team either - they got to cut off the heads of the loosing team as a sacrificial thank you to the Gods? Don't loose you heads over a silly game lads! Offering blood to the Gods played a huge part in the everyday lives of the Mayans but all isn't as it seems, it was not within the power of ordinary Mayans to order a human sacrifice to the Gods so they had to make do with a sort of do it yourself version. Every household had a small, freestanding type of sacrificial alter, not dissimilar to the ornamental bird baths that you would have in your garden at home, into which they would pour human blood and set it on fire somehow, wafting the smoke around with their hands to spread it out amongst the Gods. All well and good so far but it's where they got the blood from that is enough to make your toes curl. To get enough human blood to satisfy the Gods the women would cut their own faces or other parts of their bodies or stick thorns through their tongues and the men would even go to the ultimate eye watering extremity of giving themselves - wait for it - a sort of incomplete circumcision - ouch!
Enough, enough I hear you cry, so I'll leave you with one last little bit of info about Tikal before heading of for my next country, Belize. I haven't seen the Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, but I am reliably informed that Tikal was the location for the filming of the Ewok planet of Endor????? so maybe some of you out there know exactly what this place looks like.
On to Belize now - another country but the same old story on the buses, peddle to the metal, Bob Marley on the radio, a slogan about Jesus obscuring half the windscreen and an apparent death wish to visit him early in every drivers heart. None the less, I arrived at my first destination in Belize safe and sound although one guy nearly didn't make it when the back door that he was leaning against, suddenly flew open and he just managed to hold on and pull himself back into the bus.
The first destination in question was the Trek Stop Eco Friendly hostel just outside San Ignacio from where I could easily reach the Ruins of Xunantunich and Caracol.
San Ignacio is a lovely little place with friendly locals and some nice bars and eating places. Having said that, there is not a lot to do in terms of a buzzing night life or even late bars but as I said, the locals were friendly and made the effort to come and introduce themselves to me as soon as they realised I was not a septic tank (Yank), so it was very pleasant and welcoming, especially because Creole was once again widely spoken. Trying to learn to speak a little bit of Creole was an absolute hoot as it is so hard to miss big chunks of a sentence out, it's a bit like trying to speak like Norman Collier used to do on his supposedly broken microphone. An example of this would be "Me han no chuch maan" which is a way of telling someone that if they are aggressive towards you you will fight back; It literally means "my hand doesn't go to church". Even the hostel I stayed in was pleasant and laid back although it was an hours walk from the pub, but that didn't really matter as the locals would always stop and pick you up if they saw you on the road late at night.
The Mayan ruins of Xunantunich and Caracol were not as spectacular as Tikal but they were still very interesting and different, and they did have the most informative well presented Mayan museum that I had seen so far. Back at the hostel there was the added bonus of a free butterfly farm where rarer species were bred to be released into the wild by the hostel owner, who incidentally also had the unusual hobby of collecting Tarantulas for the guests to see and hold before releasing them back into the wild - all in all a totally relaxing place to spend a few days. With my batteries charged to the full, lead in my pencil and armed with some mouth watering information about a great Island to visit, I was off on my wanderings again with a Falderee Falderah and a knapsack on my back.
Caye Caulker here I come!
See you all there!
I arrived at Tikal at 4am to catch the incredible view of the ruins as the sun rose on it, unfortunately the mosquitoes had the same idea and bang, didn't they just love it - I must have been the Mosquito version of the lottery jackpot. Despite feeling like a pin cushion, the trek through the jungle was a very enjoyable and interesting one with lots of unusual creatures of the night and an extremely knowledgeable guide, BUT - and don't you just know there is usually a BUT attached to my adventures, things rarely go to plan - as the evenings veil of darkness rolled back to reveal the glory of a new day dawning, all I could see was MIST! The morning sun burned off most of the mist fairly quickly but not quickly enough to afford me the pleasure of seeing the ruins in all their magnificent splendour, illuminated by a spectacular Guatemalan sunrise. As far as I'm concerned you can keep the Pyramids of Egypt, they all look the same to me
and although they are undoubtedly a tremendous fete of engineering construction, once you've seen one you've seen them all. Mayans on the other hand, built their practical Pyramid type structures in inaccessible places and lived in them, whole cities and communities of aristocrats, artists, scholars, tradesmen and farmers lived and worked here in a variety of different buildings. The most spectacular buildings are as you would expect, places of worship, some of which tower so high that they protrude out above the jungle canopy and the panoramic views from the summit are breathtaking, breathtaking that is, if the flipping climb up there hasn't already left you breathless. The Mayan culture is a fascinating one with many complexities to it but you are going to have to read up on it for yourself if you're interested as I would be stuck at this bloody computer for hours on end if I started. I will however wet your appetite with one or two goodies to arouse your interest.
Many of the Mayan carvings depict rulers, generals and holy men and it is not unusual to note that they often had six fingers or toes on one hand or foot and four or even five on the other. The official guide books tell you that this was not a mistake on behalf of the stonemasons but that interbreeding was so common that many Mayans often had strange deformities - it's no wonder that they played flutes and not pianos! It may have been an advantage though in the local football matches - I kid you not, every Mayan city has a ball park and played each other in a strange form of football on a regular basis. The pitch is only about the size of a tennis court and has walls down either side sloping in at a forty five degree angle. Don't expect me to even attempt an explanation of the rules - it would be easier trying to explain the offside rule in our football game to a group of footy hating women. I don't think the F.A. would approve of the rewards for the winning team either - they got to cut off the heads of the loosing team as a sacrificial thank you to the Gods? Don't loose you heads over a silly game lads! Offering blood to the Gods played a huge part in the everyday lives of the Mayans but all isn't as it seems, it was not within the power of ordinary Mayans to order a human sacrifice to the Gods so they had to make do with a sort of do it yourself version. Every household had a small, freestanding type of sacrificial alter, not dissimilar to the ornamental bird baths that you would have in your garden at home, into which they would pour human blood and set it on fire somehow, wafting the smoke around with their hands to spread it out amongst the Gods. All well and good so far but it's where they got the blood from that is enough to make your toes curl. To get enough human blood to satisfy the Gods the women would cut their own faces or other parts of their bodies or stick thorns through their tongues and the men would even go to the ultimate eye watering extremity of giving themselves - wait for it - a sort of incomplete circumcision - ouch!
Enough, enough I hear you cry, so I'll leave you with one last little bit of info about Tikal before heading of for my next country, Belize. I haven't seen the Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, but I am reliably informed that Tikal was the location for the filming of the Ewok planet of Endor????? so maybe some of you out there know exactly what this place looks like.
On to Belize now - another country but the same old story on the buses, peddle to the metal, Bob Marley on the radio, a slogan about Jesus obscuring half the windscreen and an apparent death wish to visit him early in every drivers heart. None the less, I arrived at my first destination in Belize safe and sound although one guy nearly didn't make it when the back door that he was leaning against, suddenly flew open and he just managed to hold on and pull himself back into the bus.
The first destination in question was the Trek Stop Eco Friendly hostel just outside San Ignacio from where I could easily reach the Ruins of Xunantunich and Caracol.
San Ignacio is a lovely little place with friendly locals and some nice bars and eating places. Having said that, there is not a lot to do in terms of a buzzing night life or even late bars but as I said, the locals were friendly and made the effort to come and introduce themselves to me as soon as they realised I was not a septic tank (Yank), so it was very pleasant and welcoming, especially because Creole was once again widely spoken. Trying to learn to speak a little bit of Creole was an absolute hoot as it is so hard to miss big chunks of a sentence out, it's a bit like trying to speak like Norman Collier used to do on his supposedly broken microphone. An example of this would be "Me han no chuch maan" which is a way of telling someone that if they are aggressive towards you you will fight back; It literally means "my hand doesn't go to church". Even the hostel I stayed in was pleasant and laid back although it was an hours walk from the pub, but that didn't really matter as the locals would always stop and pick you up if they saw you on the road late at night.
The Mayan ruins of Xunantunich and Caracol were not as spectacular as Tikal but they were still very interesting and different, and they did have the most informative well presented Mayan museum that I had seen so far. Back at the hostel there was the added bonus of a free butterfly farm where rarer species were bred to be released into the wild by the hostel owner, who incidentally also had the unusual hobby of collecting Tarantulas for the guests to see and hold before releasing them back into the wild - all in all a totally relaxing place to spend a few days. With my batteries charged to the full, lead in my pencil and armed with some mouth watering information about a great Island to visit, I was off on my wanderings again with a Falderee Falderah and a knapsack on my back.
Caye Caulker here I come!
See you all there!
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8:53 AM
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