Canto LXXIX

Okay, this post is going to predominately be about our Belize trip, but first I just need to point everyone to The Daily Show from last week, September 3rd. This may be the finest Daily show I have seen in a long time. The opening is ridiculous, the middle bit is perfect, and the interview with Newt is pretty damn good. Election time always brings out the best material for them, but this really was something special.

All photos taken with my Canon PowerShot SD850. Cute little point-and-shoot thing. I got it especially for this trip, it worked great, and I'm looking forward to it serving me for a long time.

All the pictures can be found here.

We had a wedding to attend on Sunday in Eugene, drove up to Portland, and Ben came by to say hi for a couple hours. After something like 2 hours of sleep, we flew out Monday morning, August 25th at 6 AM. Not a lot of fun. Slept a lot on the plane. And Steph hates traveling enough as it is. But everything was on time, and we landed in Belize without a hitch, and our luggage made it as well. We did an all-inclusive package with a nice lodge in the Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve, The Five Sisters Lodge. So they picked us up and after almost 7 hours in two planes and a layover in Dallas/Ft Worth, we started a 2 1/2 hour car ride to the place. I can't say this was the best part. And the last hour or so was on a dirt road that was not all that level. When we finally got out, I stretched my back and I think every single one of my vertebrae cracked. But we found our room, and enjoyed a nice dinner.

Here's the pictures.

The next morning was our first day to tour Belize. We went to Caracol, which is the largest Mayan site in Belize. During their hay-day, there were between 100,000-150,000 people in this city. Belize City, the largest city now, has about 75,000 people to give some perspective. So times have changed a little bit. The Central Mayans (as opposed to the Northern Mayans with Chichen Itza and the Southern Mayans on the Pacific) were essentially divided between 2 principle powers, Tikal in Guatemala (which we visited and you'll hear more about) and Calakmul 150 miles to the north in Mexico (which apparently doesn't have much of a web presence). After a defeat at the hands of Tikal in the early 6th century AD, Caracol allied with Calakmul and defeated Tikal in 562 AD, so the Belizeans can rub it in Guatemala's face a little bit. But Caracol follows along the usual Mayan collapse along with Tikal, Calakmul and a host of others. The various major settlements have been inhabited since pre-1000 BC. Starting in the first few centuries AD, they began to really rise and became "cities", especially with the growth of agriculture suited to the jungle - slash and burn along with extensive irrigation terraces. The height of the classical Mayan period is from about 400-900 AD, where many temples were built, they kept lots of records of wars and kings and such, and even had a symbol for zero. And then... nothing. No further temples were built, no more records, and the cities began to be abandoned. And no one knows exactly what caused this. It's kinda creepy that a civilization with dozens of cities with hundreds of thousands of people just kind of vanished. Not entirely, the remnants are still around, and there are plenty of modern Maya around, but it's not exactly the same is it?

Again, check the pictures.

So Caracol. The name means 'snail shell' in spanish, after all the snail shells that were found in the initial excavation. The original Mayan name is Oxhuitza. It has a large plaza with the largest man-made building in Belize, the Caana which means Sky-Place. This was pretty incredible to climb, with very steep steps and just an amazing view of the plaza and surrounding jungle. Walking around, our guide pointed out a lot of the natural things to be found at the site like the various plants and insects. He showed us what they would have used for the various dyes from the different plants and which ones had medicinal bark, leaves or roots. It's pretty cool to hear about how much all the different plants were used and are still being used. The various temples and buildings I tried to annotate in the pictures, so that should help. For more on the ball game, try this link. Well, it was really cool. After it was all done and we were sufficiently sweaty, we got to swim around in a place called Rio on Pools. When we finally got back to the Lodge, not tired enough from the days exploits we did a little nature hike around the grounds. It was getting dark and Steph was afraid we would be swallowed by the jungle, but we managed to get back on time for dinner before it got too dark. Ah, and the nights there were spectacular for star gazing, but no pictures to show for it.

Canto LXXVIII

Okay, so we made it back from Belize, mostly safe and sound. Steph slipped on a rock while we were hiking to a waterfall and got a cut on her knee, and our last day there she got a little burned while we were snorkeling. But other than that, nothing but good times. We both need to go through our pictures and make some notes about everything. But I think that's a weekend project. For now, here's a little taste of what it was like.