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We docked at 8 am this morning in Santo Tomas, Guatamala under gray skies and a touch of rain. We had breakfast in the room followed by my heading out for the trip to Quirigua Archeological National Park which is a UNESCO World Heritage site for having well preserved Mayan ruins. Margaret stayed “home” to work on RFP’s and conference calls. It was a 90 minute bus ride through town and then down Highway 9 which connects the East with the West. While you could see poverty throughout it was pretty clean and the people seemed pretty happy. Hard to take pictures going 50 mph (I need to figure this out…) and with the bus about six feet from a fuel truck in front of us half the time. Nice air conditioned coach with a water closet however.
We drove to the park and then walked for about an hour with the tour guide telling us about Mayan history. Inhabited since the 2nd century A.D., Quirigua had become during the reign of Cauac Sky (723–84) the capital of an autonomous and prosperous state. The ruins of Quirigua contain some outstanding 8th-century monuments and an impressive series of carved stelae and sculpted calendars that constitute an essential source for the study of Mayan civilization. In practical terms, it turns out this area was taken over about 700 AD by a guy who, after becoming their fearless leader, felt that he needed to reinforce that he really was a great leader. So he made a number of tall stone monuments that have pictographs covering them on all four sides. Each one tells a story but, in the end, it is one big political advertisement telling his followers that he is a great leader. “If you don’t believe me, just look at these stone billboards I put up all over town”.
There were interesting trees, a couple interesting birds and an upper area that you had to climb very tall and slippery steps to get to. I had to really watch my step coming down with my camera gear.
We walked back to the bus and took off for the 90 minute ride back to the ship. Just outside of the park there was a banana plantation. We heard about how the US fruit companies< such as United Fruit, came in and took over large parts of their economy, infiltrated the government and then instituted a CIA-backed coup when the government started to crack down on them in the 50’s. They had a metal contraption that they put across the road to mechanically transfer stalks of bananas from one side of the road (where they grow them) to the other side where they get them ready for distribution. They open it when cars line up, sort of like a drawbridge. Bananas and other fruits are a big export item for Guatemala with most going to the US.
The park had a number of well preserved examples of Mayan calendars which, as it turns out have become very controversial due to publications and movies about their predictions. Our tour guide, Princess Sandra (seems like everyone wants to be a princess these days!) told us that the story about the Mayan Calendar ending in December 21, 2012 causing lots of catastrophes is BS. It will just be the start of the next section of their calendar but it is misinterpreted that the world will be ending. So relax. Everything will be OK. The weather turned out to be nice with beautiful blue skies and puffy white clouds.
Back at the room Margaret is doing another conference call and I’m going to a Yoga class at 5. No plans for tonight so it will probably be Compass Rose. Tomorrow it is Honduras for the day and seeing the dolphins!
Santo Tomas, Guatemala Picture Gallery: http://travelwithdm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-America/Guatamala-Jan-14-2010/25152491_rH9MJZ#!i=2062537632&k=zhd9Wpz