The fall of the Mayans

Many people say that the Mayan empire just eventually disappeared without much reason, but we learned of 3 very good reasons as to why the Mayans moved on. The key here is that the Mayan culture died, but the Mayan people did not die out. More than half of the population of Guatemala is still of Mayan heritage, so obviously, they did not die out. In addition, the Mayans had two major collapses, one at the end of the pre-classic period and the larger collapse after which the Mayan culture began to die out at the end of the classic period (~800 AD).
Theory 1: Overpopulation
Proof shows that families were having up to 20 kids per couple. I think the range was about 10-20, but in any case, there were a LOT of kids being born into the Tikal area, particularly during the classical period. It is highly likely that there was just not enough food, water, and land for all of the people that eventually inhabited this area. In fact, deforestation and slash and burn agriculture (Mayans continuously planted the same crops in the same locations, the land was eventually worn out and they were not able to grow their crops any longer) badly damaged the land.
Theory 2: Drought
They relied on collected and pooled rain water; not rivers or lakes, to water crops, cook, and drink. Several periods of short drought occurred, but a long drought of more than two years would have been devastating to the already crowded area. Many believe that in the late 8th century a large drought occurred which may have lasted more than 5 years.
Theory 3: War
As was mentioned previously, the lower class consisted of 80% of the population. Eventually, as they had more and more children and were treated poorly, they revolted against the upper class in order to take over the land. In particular, the king made promises of rain and food and when times got tough, the people revolted against the king. In addition, neighboring tribes often invaded to acquire resources. The arrival of the Spanish also led to a huge amount of people leaving the area.

The Mayan people live on today, but unfortunately many of the languages and beliefs are quickly dissipating. This was a very educational trip for us, not to mention completely fascinating.





Although the Mayan empire is no longer at Tikal, there is a lot of life still here. For just a few examples: a huge beetle, a monkey playing on one of the temples, and the most colorful, beautiful turkeys I´ve ever seen.

We also went to a closeby museum that had a few artifacts that have not been taken to other museums. Some of the coolest things were these teeny tiny paintings on bone or other materials. I was not able to get a good picture of the small paintings, but they are what the larger paintings were based upon. Incredible how they could paint this on such small objects.

During the Mayan empire, there was a lot of jade in the area. Because of this, tons of jade has been found in the graves of the great rulers. A lot of it has been taken away to other museums, but a little bit remained here.

Many of these large stone carvings have been taken away from the Tikal structures so that they can be kept safe. This was one of the best ones that we saw. You can see the front and part of the back in these two pictures. There were also carvings on the sides of the stones. The symbols on the back were their form of writing.

Mayan Religion

We also learned a lot about the Mayan religion while we were at Tikal. The first thing our guide told us is that they believed there were 13 levels above the earth which reprsented different levels of heaven. There were 9 levels below the earth which comprised the underworld. Their religion seems most similar to Buddism, but instead of reincarnation, they believed a bit differently. Once a person dies, their soul would go to one of the levels of the underworld or one of the levels in heaven, depending on how they lived their life. If they went to the underworld they may be able to suffer a punishment then be sent to heaven or their soul may come back in an animal. If the soul went to the heavens, it would become recycled and eventually enter Earth as a whole and the the cycle would start over again. Everything that they believed was very cyclical. Their heaven was in the constellation of Orion and the 13 levels basically made their way up to Orion. Much of their beliefs revolved around the suns and the earths. One interesting thing here is that they believed that the sun was turning and not the Earth. They had some of their buildings and temples set up, such that they could read the equinoxes from the way the sun shone on these structures. At the days of the equinoxes, in December, March and June, the sun would shine perfectly to cast a shadow from one structure onto another. They used this to be able to tell what time of the year it was so that they would know when to plant their crops. It took a lot of time for them to build the structures just perfectly, but over many years they were able to do this. Ingenious!

This was part of the Southern Acropolis. We walked around all inside of these structures and were able to see all sorts of rooms and podiums, etc. Scott laughed at me when I made a comment about how small the rooms were. :D



In the Northern Acropolis, there were a few different faces, but this one was in the best condition. I was amazed at how long this detail has lasted in time! The next pictures show some more amazing detail on the side of a couple of the temples.

This is a good example of how many of the temples are still completely covered with the forest that they have lived amongst for so many generations. The top of this one has been uncovered, but some of them have nothing but trees on the top and look like hills in the middle of a forest.

Tikal

We took a quick 2-day trip up to Tikal by plane and were absolutely amazed by everything we saw. This is one of the most spectacular Mayan ruins anywhere and is covered by jungle now. The time period when this land was settled and used was around 800 BC to 900 AD. Around 750 AD, the nucleus of the city was about 65 square Km! Tikal was ´rediscovered´in 1848, though not much could be seen because everything had been grown over by jungle life. Most of the work for excavation has been done since the 1950´s. Many of the structures have been rebuilt to an extent and so I think a lot of what we saw is some guesswork as to what the original structures looked like. The original structures also had a lot of color on them, but of course this is hard to imagine now. It would be awesome to see just a second in time from that time period. Part of the early work done on excavations was done by foreignors and unfortunately, they took a lot of what they found. One of the first explorers in this region was Bernoli from Basel, Switzerland. There was an agreement that for the work he did on the site, he would be free to take whatever he wanted. Due to this, a lot of what he found is back in a museum in Basel. Similar people followed suit after this. There was a time period where the University of Pennsylvania did a lot of excavation work, but fortunately, they left everything they found for the Guatemalan people. After 1986, the site was turned over to the Guatemalan government and they continue to do work here and probably will for many years.



Temple 1, shown here is the most famous of structures at Tikal and is the one shown on all advertisements, postcards, etc. This temple is also know as the Big Jaguar. It is 47m in height and was built in the year 700 AD by the ruler at the time whose tomb was discovered underneath the temple (unlike Egypt, these pyramids are solid and chambers are dug below the structure after construction). The next picture is next to the temple and is part of the Gran Plaza, specifically this area is called Acropolis del Norte. This area has been damaged and built back up numerous times, typically corresponding with a change in the ruling dynasty. As a consequence, this area chronicles the history of some of the rulers of the area. From atop this area, we could see out onto the rest of the Gran Plaza, including Temple I on the left, Temple II on the right (built for the wife of ruler under Temple I) and Acropolis Central in the back. This was the central area for people at the time of the Mayans.

This was the first structure that we saw and there are another probably 20 just like it, but most are still covered up by earth. It is a lot of work to uncover these structures from dirt, trees, roots and all of the life that has grown over in the last 1000 years, so they have not all been uncovered and hopefully most will remain uncovered.

On top of one of the structures in the Lost World (from the pre-classic Mayan era), we could see this image. This is a good picture to show how the entire Tikal area is in the middle of a vast forest. The farthest building that you can see is Temple IV, or the two-headed snake temple. It is the tallest temple in Tikal and in all Mesoamerica. It was built in 740 AD (during the end of the classic Mayan era) by the son or grandson of the first ruler whom built Temple I. Temple IV is 64.6m tall from the base (which is below ground level).

The Mayans probably settled on this spot because it was the highest elevation in all of the lowlands. Probably several reasons they choose this spot, they were above swampland, could spot potential invaders, and many archaeologists suspect a religious motivation...to be closer to the gods. The site is not located near enough to any lake or streams, so they created large quarries to collect rainwater (limestone is rather pourous, so they dug out the soil and patched the limestone with plaster). They also got all of the limestone that they used for these buildings in closeby quarries. Some of these structures were bigger than you can imagine and the tallest one took about 35 or so years to build. They made tools with flint to be able to extract this limestone.


In the population at Tikal, only about 20% of the people were the high class and about 80% were of a much lower class. There was a lot of turnover in rulers due to fighting within the group and between cities. When one ruler would take over, he would often times destroy the tops of temples and build a new layer for himself. Because of this, many of the temples have as many as 25 levels.

Temples I and II were built such that on March 21st and September 21st, the sun casts a shadow from Temple I to cover Temple II completely. These two temples were built for a ruler and his wife to show that they would always be together. This is a great example of how highly the Mayan people thought of women. They were very important in the Mayan society, mainly because of their childbearing abilities.

Italy Wins the World Cup!!

2006 World Cup Experience in Central America

Alas, the 2006 World Cup is over and Italy triumphed over France. Italy´s victory was undoubtedly aided by Zidane´s lapse of focus on futbol and a sudden interest in wrestling. Nonetheless, Italy is champion...and on the bright side for us, the United States is the only team which did not loose to Italy. While the USA had a disappointing showing, I had more fun watching this World Cup than any other. Tiffany even got into it and insisted on watching the games in the later rounds. In a way you can’t help but enjoy the World Cup when you are in a country with such passion for futbol (or soccer as us norteamericanos know it).


We watched the first game, Costa vs. Germany at a bar in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. At game time every single person in town was in front of a TV. After Costa Rica scored its first goal I witnessed an insane celebration. Everyone was jumping up and down, screaming, celebrating...none of this is unusual, the crazy thing is it lasted for nearly five minutes. The duration of the frenzy was certainly assisted by the owner providing free beers to everyone able to rush the bar, fight the crowd, and get a hand on one. Despite Costa Rica’s loss, everyone remained ultimately positive about the team’s performance and the chance to advance. Unfortunately, as many other teams only had one strong game in the first round (see USA vs. Italy), Costa Rica’s was against Germany.

Of course watching the World Cup down here means all the commentary is in Espanol. While my Spanish has improved considerably, I still cannot follow the fast paced commentary word for word. However, I can pick up some things and the announcers in Costa Rica were excellent. They were actually having fun announcing rather the typical mindless banter you get when watching US sports commentators on TV.

We managed to catch many of the first round games, nearly all the round of 16, and all games in the later stages of the cup. Probably the most exciting game we watched was Germany vs. Argentina. We watched this in Antigua, Guatemala at Cine 2000. This bar has a large screen projector for the game and is setup with a lounge style atmosphere, tables and couches spread out all over. On game day the place was definitely over capacity, contributing to this were three groups of diehard fans; two groups for Germany (30 people) and one for Argentina (15 people), plus all the other more moderate fans in the crowd. We sat next to a group of 15 all with custom Team Germany jerseys, liters of beer, and a raucous attitude. The team chants started slow, but by the end of regular time the cheers and beer consumption reached a frenzied pitch. When all was said and done, Germany won in penalty kicks and the crazy group of fans next to us sprayed beer all over the bar in celebration.

OK, now a little on soccer (futbol) itself. I am not going to try and convince everyone this is the most exciting sport. However, the excitement of a goal in soccer is unmatched. In no other sport is scoring so difficult (hockey comes close and it is also a great game) so when a team finally does score it’s a huge deal (not like the 100+ pts in NBA). Despite what many may think, soccer is physically demanding both in endurance and the physical level of play. However, I noticed a couple things during this World Cup that made me realize why soccer gets a bad rap in the USA. First, acting/diving has got to go! I am so sick of players going down as if some unforeseen phantom suddenly took out their legs. Yellow card this behavior and it will stop. Second, if a player is hurt and goes down, the other team should not have any obligation to kick the ball out and stop play. Name any other sport where this occurs. Several times a team was making a quick counter attack and a defensive player goes down behind the action so the attacking team has to kick the ball out of bounds so the trainers can go spray water on the guy’s ankle, 30 seconds later he is up and running around...give me a break. If a player goes down, that is an advantage for the other team. If play needs to stop the ref should stop it or the team with the hurt player should get the ball back. I know "its good sportsmanship," but it just gives soccer the rap as being a wimpy sport, when it’s really not.

All in all though, this will be the most memorable World Cup for Tiffany and I. We had so much fun watching games with fans and talking with people about the games. In fact, I think we’ll be in South Africa in 2010.

Volcan San Pedro

If you are thinking of ever climbing the San Pedro volcano, just take it from us - don´t. This was the hardest physical thing I have ever done, and I´ve freakin run a marathon and climbed the highest mountain in the continental US. Granted, I trained for those other things and not for this, but this was crazy. They don´t believe in switchbacks here, apparently because the entire hike was straight up. To give you an idea of what we did, we went from 1610m at the town of San Pedro to 3024m at the top of the volcano. In feet, imagine this - we traveled approximately 14,500 ft and had an evelation gain of about 4650 ft - in 4 hours!

On top of that, we had the craziest guide (guia loco). He was practically running up the volcano and never wanted to take a break. We were all dying until we got to the top. It wasn´t even an enjoyable experience walking up because it was SO HARD! Once we finally got to the top, which was supposed to have an amazing view... it was completely clouded out. This was not what we hoped to see after making that tough trek, as you can probably imagine.



In positive news, though, the clouds did move out for a couple of minutes and we were able to see a bit of a view. There were also gorgeous views on the way up with the sun rising and on the way down with everything in full sunlight. We met some cool people along the way, a couple of girls from San Diego and a couple from Boulder, so that definitely made it more worth it.


Hi guys if you are reading! You can leave your comments too about how much you loved the hike. :D There was the cutest dog that showed up at the office at 6AM before we left and he did the entire hike with us. He´s homeless and apparently, he shows up every morning to do that hike - he was in great shape!

Fairs and Markets

One night we went to the fair in town. There were thousands of people there of all ages. There are about 6,000 people who live in the town and half of them must have been at the fair! They had many ferris wheels and lots of rides for kids. They had many different things to sell - everything from food to household goods, like pots and pans, to clothes, CDs, etc. They sold these cookies that were very popular as they are only available during the fair. The cookies looked like little pretzel bagels, but tasted a lot like our animal cookies - I was hooked! All of the women were in their typical dress, which consists of beautiful and colorful skirts and blouses of all different colors. The men pretty much all wore jeans and t-shirts, but I was amazed to see brand names like Puma, Nike, Gap, Old Navy, Nautica, etc. There was a salsa band wearing full white suits and red shirts and dancing to their set dances. It was hysterical. Tons of people were dancing as well, but Scott and I didn´t make it up that close. I was hooked on watching the kids on their rides. They were so cute with huge smiles. There was one little girl on a ride who had a winter cap on (the kind that I call a tobogan) and she couldn´t have been more than 2 or 3. Everytime the ride came back around to where her family was, she would move her head down and back up really quickly and squint her eyes and make a huge smile. She was precious! I didn´t take any pictures because I didn´t want to be rude and we´ve read that it´s not smart to take pictures of local people here without their consent.


The next morning, we went to the market (mercado) in Santiago, which is the next town over on the lake. It was very much a traditional market for locals, where they sold absolutely everything. They had typical things like what we have at our markets, for example fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc. But they also had everything else you can imagine, like toiletries, clothes, shoes, raw meat hanging everywhere, hair things, and even animals! They sold chicks, chickens, rooster, and puppies all over. When a chick or other animal would run away, they would have to run after it and grab it, so they didn´t loose out on their profits. Scott told me he would love me more if I wrestled a rooster right then and there, but I decided the love he already has would have to be enough. There was a woman on our boatride back who had bought a rooster and had it tied up by the feet and laid it down at the base of the boat. When the poor rooster woke up, it started squawking like crazy - it didn´t know where it was! It was amazing to see all of the things that everyone carried around. All of the women would carry large amounts of things balanced on their heads - absolutely amazing! We saw young girls carrying things on their heads too, so they must learn this incredible balance from a very early age. We saw men coming off the boat after shopping at the market with tons of things strapped to their backs to carry home. These are some strong people!

We also went to see the local diety called Maximòn (mah-shee-mohn). It was a ridiculous looking thing with tons of expensive clothes, hats and a cigar hanging out of his mouth. People come in large numbers - tourists to see what he is all about and locals to give gifts up to this god. They believe that they will have very good luck if they give money, cigars, flowers and other offerings to Maximón. We had a cute little local boy take us to see him. I had a big bunch of flowers in my hands that I had bought for Vicenta, the mother in the house where we were staying. The guy that was in charge of Maximón thought I had brought them for the god and he tried to take them away from me! He was pretty upset when I grabbed them back from him.

We finished up with our lessons and had to say goodbye to Angelina and Letty. They were great and helped us so much to learn more Spanish. You can see the 4 of us here saying goodbye. I was finally able, too to get a picture of some of these skirts - amazing, eh!?

Experiences

We have had some great experiences here in San Pedro. The town is very loud and seems to never sleep, but we have somehow figured out how to finally get some sleep. There is a large festival going on now that only happens once a year and there are many very loud fireworks (bombas) going off all day long and into the late night. It is quite frightening to hear it in the middle of a deep sleep or while concentrating during Spanish class. People here seem to see only dollar signs on the gringos who come through here. Everywhere we go, the locals are trying to get us to buy some of their goods, whether materials, or drums, or bread (pan, which there is SO much of). The first day that we were here, we wanted to go to a hotel called Hotel San Francisco that we had read about in the Lonely Planet guidebook. Two guys who were standing by the dock when we landed and offered to take us there. The town has many steep hills and we were huffing and puffing trying to walk up the steep streets to the hotel (well, I was anyway). When we finally got there, there seemed to be more than one Hotel San Francisco. There were many people all trying to pull us into their hotels, which were all connected together anyway. We finally settled on one, but they were all pretty much the same. It was not very nice, but also only $6 per night for both of us! We only stayed there for one night. That day, we saw that someone had written in paint, ´Go home Gringos'. We didn't feel overly welcome and thought that maybe living with a family would help our views. More on the city - it is a highly religious town. Although all of the locals here are from Mayan descent, and in the last few hundred years, there have been many missionaries who have come here and brought their religions. The two religions in town now are Catholic (of which there is one church) and Protestant (of which there are 16 churches). You see signs written all over the town that say, for example 'Smile, God loves you' and similar phrases. The father in the family we are living with is a pastor at one of the Protestant churches. There are a lot of tourists here, but they are mostly all taking Spanish classes and many living with families, so it has a feel of a very local town. Only one small part of the town has toursity things and the rest is very residential. We have seen a resentment also to gringos owning restaurants here. There are signs that say to go to only locally owned restaurants so that the locals can profit from it.

We have enjoyed living with the family here. It is not the most comfortable place we have stayed and certainly not the most quiet, but it is giving us a great experience. Some things in particular that we have noticed are.... The hours that they stay awake here seem much different than in the US. For example, even the 8 year old girl stays up until midnight making plenty of noise and playing. They all stay awake until about midnight and seem to get up around 7 or 8. During meals, which is the main time that we spend with them, not everyone eats at the same time and there is not a lot of conversation happening. They have a TV and that is usually on during the meals. The house is a very simple accomodation made of painted brick walls and steel doors to the rooms. There is one open courtyard in the center where dishes, clothes and pretty much anything else that needs to be washed is done so. There is one bathroom for all of the family and any students staying there. The mother works all day from about 7 in the morning until midnight, without ever really resting. She is constantly cleaning the dishes or clothes or cooking or making things to sell to make more money. She is always in either the courtyard or the kitchen. I am amazed at her style of life - it seems terrible! But she seems happy enough and is very sweet to us. She does not have a dishwasher or even a washing machine for the clothes, so everything is done by hand. The husband definitely rules the house and everyone seems to do his chores for him. It is definitely not a lifestyle that I would want to live in. This family is very poor, but still appears to be more well off than many families around here. In our house, there are two sides. The mother on our side and her family and the mother's sister on the other side and her family. Their parents owned the house and the two children have stayed there and raised their families. The family on the other side is much more poor and does not have the amenities like at our side. For example, they do not have a refrigerator or oven and do not even have much clean water. It is very intersting to see the differences. The father on our side has a brother who has come over a lot in the last couple of days. He actually lived in San Diego for a while and talked to us a lot about it. He is even going to Washington DC next week. For the most part, though, I think it is very difficult to ever leave here. The younger generation seems to want to leave, but they do not see that it is a possibility at all. I am learning a lot about the lifestyle here from my Spanish teacher during the day. Keep in mind that any conversations here with locals, including the teachers are all in Spanish. I guess we ARE getting better!

I had a great time last night playing with the youngest girl in our house, Sara (called Sarita by the family since she is the youngest), who is 8. There are also two other children, an older daughter and son. Sarah took a liking to us when Scott kicked the soccer ball with her a couple of days ago. After dinner last night, I played with her with a basketball and then played hide and seek (escondite in Spanish). She loved the game as much as any other child I have seen. After I got tired of that, she just sat next to me. It seemed like she just wanted to be close to me. She kept just smiling up at me. I attempted to talk to her as much as I could in my broken Spanish. She drew me a picture and talked a little about what she liked to do. She started drumming on something and I asked her if she liked drums. She said no, but that she had another instrument. We went into her tiny hole in the wall room and she pulled out an instrument that looked a lot like a xylophone with all of the necessary notes. The first song she played was the famous French one that we have all heard called 'Frère Jacques', but she sang it in Spanish. She also played some others that I didn't know. I played 'Mary Had a Little Lamb', but she didn't know that song. I also played 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' and she knew the tune but not the words. I translated the words for her into Spanish and she was playing and singing it for me. She is a super cute little girl.

We are learning a lot about the people and their culture here. For example, they all speak not only Spanish, but also their indiginous languages. However, this is not taught in the schools and so the younger generation does not speak much of this other language. It seems that it will not last a lot longer here.

I am sure that there will be some culture shock for me when I return home, but I am very happy to have these experiences that I will keep with me always in my memory. We are amazingly lucky to be able to experience everything that we are. I hope you are all happy and healthy back home. Please be incredibly grateful for everything that you have in your daily lives, because most people in the world can not ever experience the livestyles of most of us. Yes, we work hard for what we have, but we are also amazingly fortunate to be born where we are and have the opportunities that we have.

Lake Atitlan

We arrived to Lake Atitlan in a very crowded bus and were absolutely amazed at the beauty of the view on the way down. The lake has many volcanos and mountain peaks around it and is the setting for more beauty than pictures can describe. We stayed a night in Panajachel, but found it much too busy and loud for our tastes.


We took a boat the next day over to San Pedro, which is our new home for a week. Though we've learned a bit of Spanish traveling through Costa Rica, we realized that we needed more help for Guatemala and the other countries we plan to visit. For this reason, we decided to take Spanish courses for a week. This, along with staying with a family is really helping us a lot to speak better Spanish. Let me give you an example of a story I wrote in my Spanish class one day. I am translating to English so that you can all understand, but keep in mind that I had to write a story using the 150 verbs that I had learned in one day. Scott and I laughed at it quite a lot later.

When I wake up in the morning, I start to get dressed. Then, I drive to my job. I remain there sometimes for many hours. I sleep later on Saturdays and Sundays. I return to work on Monday. I normally eat lunch at around 12 o'clock. When I sleep, I dream that I am flying. But, only when it is not raining. And also not when there is snow. My friends and I do not bicker at work. We dress very well in order to follow the rules. I smile when I can and I produce many things at work. When the day ends, I say goodbye to my friends and I return home.

Hopefully you get a kick out of that. As you can see, I am learning Spanish like a small child would learn any language. But at least I'm learning! Scott and I are doing much better and can carry on a good conversation in our conversation group during the afternoon. I have so much to say about this place and the family and the people, but it will have to wait for another day. Please stay tuned!

Volcan Pacaya

From Antigua, we took a trip to Volcan Pacaya and it was absolutely incredible. When hiking up, I assumed that it would be just like every other volcano we've seen... looking at it from a view and maybe seeing some activity from far away. Well, we got so much more! When we first started hiking up, we did see some amazing views. There are two other volcanos that are even higher and the peaks of each were seated perfectly out from our viewpoints. Our guide was a local man who only spoke Spanish and so it was great practice for trying to comprehend. I understood some of what he said, but even when I didn't understand, he just kept talking. He must have been in great shape walking up that volcano 6 days a week! He wanted to practically run up it, but had to wait for the rest of us tourists. We could see activity from the top of the volcano in the form of smoke coming out.




When we got closes to the top, we were what we thought to be incredibly close to the lava field. We walked down a bit to get to a point for good pictures and movies. Scott got a good movie of the lava and some rocks falling off. As the tour continued, our guide kept taking us closer and closer to the lava. An Argentinian guy and I kept calling him muy loco, but we continued on. We were literally walking on volcanic rock that had active lava right below us. We walked up within only a few feet of the lava and felt the intense heat from it. I even held a stick that was in the lava and on fire. I thought I was going to burn my hand before Scott snapped the picture! It was truely an amazing experience.