9. Indiana Jones for a Day (Craig, 6/9/07)

Today was absolutely amazing. Today we saw what to me were the second most beautiful ruins I've ever seen (after Machu Picchu). It was right out of Raiders of the Lost Ark and I expected to see Indy in one of the ruins.

We took a day long tour, being picked up at 6am from the hotel. We drove about 150 kilometers to Frontera Corozal, a small shanty town on the Ucumacinta river, which is the border between Mexico and Guatamala. We had a really nice group, including a couple of Mexican newlyweds, five Mexican students from Mexico City, a nice young German guy, Andre, and a very cute Mexican couple who live in L.A., Luz and Harim. From Frontera Corozal, we took a small outboard boat downriver about 45 minutes. Yaxchilan is located in a big bend of the river, a natural place for a town. We got off the boat, walked up the riverbank, and down a dirt path about 1/4 mile. All of a sudden, we were in the Grand Plaza, a huge grassy area surrounded by many small temples. Out of the plaza grew huge Ceiba trees. These trees were very sacred to the Maya and were reported to grow up to 300 feet tall. There were several in the plaza and one especially was very tall. They have a huge base with the root base spreading out into the ground.

From the plaza, you look up and there is a stairway of stone going up about 50 feet to the first temple. Trees are growing out of the stairs, but it is fairly easy to walk up it. A little further down is a giant staircase, reaching about 150 feet up to another temple. We walked up this one and found that inside the temple were a couple of statues with the heads broken off.

Behind this temple was a path that led another 150 up to another temple. Thank goodness Amy had downloaded a great map of Yaxchilan back home, as there wasn't any guides or maps around. We were followed by our friends Luz and Harim, who are around our age and Luz was climbing in her bare feet. Said it was really easy. This is up a steep stone staircase with big tree roots growing all through them. And it was really, really hot. The last 50 feet or so we took a wrong turn and went up the hard way with barely a path at all. But finally we were rewarded at the top with three beautiful temples and a view of the jungle below. It was a pretty wide hilltop they had carved for the temples (all were built in the 700s AD). By now, the howler monkeys were really starting to make a lot of noise. You could hear them all over the jungle.

After awhile up here, we headed back down to the Grand Plaza, where we kind of wandered around. By now, there was a big group of loud Italians (the same big group of loud Italians that, it seems, have followed us for the last three days) as until now we had had the ruins pretty much to ourselves. After two amazing hours touring this place, we caught our little boat and headed back to Frontera Corozal for lunch.

BONAMPAK

The ruins of Bonampak was 'discovered' in 1944 by a World War II consciencous objector, named Giles Healy. He was hanging out with the Lacandon indians (the people of this area) making a film documentary for an American fruit company. Some local indians told him about these ruins, which they took him to. What he found totally changed the way people think about the Mayans. Until then, the thinking was that the Maya were a bunch of peace loving star gazers that knew no war.

Half way up the temple of Bonampak are three rooms that contain some of the most amazing murals of the ancient world. They are frescoes of events that happened around 760 AD. They show court life in Bonampak, but they also show how the king of Bonampak brutally treated his prisoners of war. It shows decapitation and mutilation of prisoners. The detail is quite real and vivid. So much for the peace loving Mayas. Of course, since then we know that you wouldn't want to be on Mayan king's bad side. The murals are amazing and very vivid for being 1300 years old. At the time, there was nothing in Europe that would even come close and it would be 700 years before the Europeans were doing art like this. Other scenes show the king and his court standing around, doing something or other with the king's son. The people look like they are standing around and just chatting. It is quite a unique bit of art and I will put some pictures on this blog when I can. Tonight, however, I'm on the hotel's computer and can't seem to download any pictures.

At the site of Bonampak, which is run by the local Lacandon indians, there were a few of them selling t shirts and hand made trinkets. Amy bought a nice t shirt of a quetzal bird. Coke was being sold at a premium, but who cares it was so darned hot.

When we got back to the hotel, it started to rain REALLY hard. It hasn't rained at all down here for the last three days, even though it's the rainy season A local guy told us that the weather here is changing and he thinks it's because much of the jungle is being cut down for farms. It is a very sad sight to see, along the road, very little jungle and a lot of slash and burn. They destroy the jungle, but after about 5 years all the top soil is washed away and you have just a lot of rocks and bad soil left. It's a real problem here and throughout this part of the world.

For our last dinner at our wonderful hotel, I had a whole Mojarra, which is a kind of local fish, fried with lots of garlic. Fantastic. Tomorrow we'll head back to San Cristobal, but may have time for a short visit back to Palenque.