MY TRAVEL JOURNAL

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=110 BGCOLOR="#0000FF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="096006e0egayea.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>GLENN HARDING'S WEBSITE</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="GLENN HARDINGS WEBSITE"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id55.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BELIZE"><U>BELIZE</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id56.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ALTUN HA"><U>ALTUN HA</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id57.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="LAMANAI"><U>LAMANAI</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id59.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ZOO"><U>ZOO</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="XUNANTUNICH"><U>XUNANTUNICH</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id61.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TIKAL"><U>TIKAL</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id62.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="COPAN"><U>COPAN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id63.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="SPECIAL SOUVENIRS"><U>SPECIAL SOUVENIRS</U></A>   |   <B>MY TRAVEL JOURNAL</B>   |   <A HREF="id66.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BELIZE ZOO WEBSITE"><U>BELIZE ZOO WEBSITE</U></A></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>CLICK ON THE LINKS ABOVE  TO GO TO OTHER PAGES</B></div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>MY TRAVEL JOURNAL</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>MAYAN ADVENTURE FEBRUARY 2001</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I went to Belize, Guatemala and Honduras by flying Continental Airlines from McAllen to Houston to Belize City on 1 February.  I went a day early to have a little time before the trip started.  The weather was clear, sunny and 80 degrees.  I hired a car and driver to show me the city and to try to purchase a conch pearl.  The first place the driver took me, a man came down from upstairs.  After introductions he took three pearls from his mouth to show me.  As a dealer he knew that saliva gives pearls an extra luster.   As a Graduate Gemologist I know that the easiest way to tell a pearl is to rub it against the upper teeth to feel the gritty aragonite platelets of the nacre laid down by the mollusk.  Here I am, wondering if it is OK to take the pearl from his mouth and put to my mouth.  I used the theory used in the Catholic Church during communion drinking from a common cup.  The priest rubs the rim of the cup with a napkin and that kills any germs the coughing and sneezing parishioners may have left on the chalice.  I took out my clean handkerchief and wiped the pearl dry, rubbed it against my upper teeth and got a positive rough feeling.  I felt safe because I always travel with 20 different kinds of pills for all emergencies.  He asked the world for the 10.5mm peach colored pearl, so I contributed liberally to the local economy.   Belize has a large population of the descendents of African slaves brought to bring the hard wood out of the jungle.  There is now 30% unemployment, which is even higher than the Rio Grande Valley.  The driver showed me his city and I found out he had been a </B><B><U>transmigrante</U></B><B> for several years, driving used cars from U.S.A. though Mexico into Belize to sell, and he knew Brownsville and Matamoras and generally where I lived.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The next day I wanted to go snorkeling and began negotiating for the trip.  The minimum was two divers and I was the only one who wanted to go.  I had to be back to go with the rest of the arriving adventurers about 1:00PM.  I agreed to pay the 2-passenger minimum and contributed once again to the local economy, and was feeling very good about the whole operation.  I had a good time after a full throttle ride across the waves for 9 miles to get to Goff's Cay.  On the way out we passed a boat riding high in the water with barges along side.  There were dredges on board lifting raw sugar into the hold of the ship.  We could smell the sweet aroma of the brown sugar across the water as we neared the boat.  The sugar was on its way to the U.S.  At the cay I snorkeled and enjoyed the clear warm water.  Hurricane Keith of 2000 severely damaged the reef and there was a lot of broken coral lying about on the floor of the Caribbean.  I did get to see brain coral, red starfish, pretty tropical fish and I picked up a very small piece of star coral.  My Portuguese guide told me I was not to take anything, but I thought it was an awful small souvenir for the $150.00 half-day trip.  I ask if he would turn me in and he promised he would not expose me. I really did very little damage compared to Keith.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>My group gathered and went to see Altun Ha, a Mayan site near Belize City.  This was the first of 5 sites we visited.  The name means, “stone water” for it's ancient reservoir.  From the excavation it is believed to be a trading center for the coastal people with the people in the interior.  There are as many as 275 structures with a population of maybe 8-10,000 people.  Only a very few temples have been explored and cleared for the public to view.  Seven tombs have been excavated and in one the largest jade artifacts ever found so far in Mayaland was found here.  It is a sun god, six inches in diameter and weighs 10 pounds and is of a very good green color.  It is truly a treasure in its day and priceless in our time.  When we approached the largest temple over half of our group started to climb the difficult high-rise steps.  I did not think I could manage the awkward stairs, so in envy I hollered up at them, “You have been warned that this is a holy place and you unbelievers have sacrileged it.  Proceed to the top as your beating hearts will be required of you this very day as a sacrifice to the rain God.  Only priests of the temple are allowed to ascend to the shrine”.  That evening we gathered for drinks and welcomes and we each introduced ourselves to the group to start the bonding process for the trip.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The next day we drove out of the city about 40 miles north and boarded a boat for a 30-mile ride on the New River to Lamanai (Submerged Crocodile).   Our young boatman was reared on the river and took great pride in showing it to us.  We stopped to see every bird, a spider monkey, rum factory, sugar mill, fruit bats, mullet and black crocodiles and howler monkeys.  Our exasperated day guide grouched, “ Well we took the whole bloody day looking at the birds when I wanted to show you the Mayan ruins”.  After a picnic lunch made by the boatman's mother we set off for a fast paced tour of the ruins.  The centerpiece of the site is El Castillo, a huge structure only partially restored.  In a corner of one of the temples a building under the outer shell of the present temple has been removed exposing a 13-foot tall mask.  The small and unpretentious museum contains a beautiful collection of pottery and a large collection of big eccentric flint carvings.  They are chipped out of flint in the manner of arrowheads, but are on a grand scale of 14-16 inches long or 12 inches across.  There were flints of starfish, neck yokes, knives, ceremonial objects, daggers, oddities of all kinds numbering more than 50 lapidary pieces of the highest quality.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>It was here I lost an argument.  I thought I had learned on a trip to the Amazon River that in the old world (Africa) there are crocodiles, but in the new world there are alligators and caiman.  Here in Central America that is untrue and here there are crocodiles.  I will have to pay closer attention to the programs on the Discovery channel to see if there is a difference in the categories of salt water and fresh water reptiles.  That night we gathered for the first of a series of lectures by Dr. John Carlson about the Mayan language and the glyph interpretation.  Most all this went over my head or beyond my interest in seeing the Mayan World.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The next day we left Belize City headed for the Guatemala border.  On our way we drove around Belmopan.  This new city was formed to protect the government from frequent hurricanes.   All government offices are here in new buildings and many officials commute daily.  The buildings are of concrete in a plain and undecorated manner, and also serve as refugee centers when most of the coastal cities evacuate and move to higher ground away from the storm surge, as Belize City is one foot below sea level.  Another stop was at a small and very interesting zoo containing animals brought in for veterinary needs.  We were able to see very close: jaguars, black jaguar, jagaurundi, coatimundi, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, military macaw, ocelot, turkeys, jabiru stork, margay, iguana and 3 kinds of peccaries.   Some of the peccaries smelled so bad you could smell them before you could see them.  In the jungle I noticed that same odor and knew there must be one very close.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>After lunch at a delightful restaurant with open sides and a thatched roof we crossed the Mopan River on a hand cranked small ferry to ascend a road to Xunantunich (Stone Lady).   Perched on a hill it has a view of the river valley over the top of the jungle.  Early archaeologists used the dynamite method of excavation creating much damage; fortunately this practice is no longer fashionable.  The largest pyramid here also carries the Spanish name of El Castillo and has a beautiful stucco frieze.  A new coat of stucco has been layered over the ancient one in an effort to prevent further erosion.  Every where we saw soft lime stone being used as the outside fascia of a rubble filled mound containing a tomb or smaller temple.  Unfortunately, limestone's porosity and moisture holding ability attracts a black sooty mold that rots the stone and ruins the carvings.  The X beginning the name is feminine and comes from some discovery made at Xunantunich.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>We traveled further west to San Ignacio to its Resort Hotel for the night.  The owner, Mariam Roberson, told about her conservation project to protect the iguana, which is a protein in the diet of the local people, and is called bamboo chicken.  She has a staff, children volunteers, incubator, screened cages and program to breed iguanas and raise the young to return to the jungle.  I contributed to the local economy by adopting an iguana for two of my grandchildren.  I guess I will receive an annual bill for its upkeep. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The next morning we crossed the Guatemalan border in a downpour.  We all got out of the bus and went inside customs facility and walked across the border and re-boarded the bus.  Even with rain gear we were all a little bit steamy and damp.  A government pick-up with three armed guards escorted us through the jungle to our hotel at Tikal.  We traveled through bandit territory in an area devastated by civil war, leaving farms ruined and homes destroyed.  This past tragedy left robbery as a main source of survival.  We toured the museum with two guides and lots of glyph interpretation and illustrations of the numbering system.  It was hard for me to stand for the long lecture.  There was a large plan of the site complete with all the pyramids in miniature all in white, which was inaccurate, because in reality they all had brilliant colors, which can be seen under some of the grime. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>For some reason not explained there was not one single bench or seat in the entire modern building.  However, outside there was a wide stone railing circling the entire building.  I left the glyph talk and took a nap on the hard stone railing.  Luckily for me a friend I made in the explorers woke me up when they finally moved off into the Tikal archeological area.   We had to go up an incline to get to the plateau on which Tikal is constructed above the </B><B><U>aguadas</U></B><B> (reservoirs).  It is from these large ponds that the construction material was quarried.  That night we had more information about the glyphs and numbers, and information about the God leaders and their cruel leadership.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Tikal is huge.  Unbelievably enormous!  There are 4000 identifiable mound structures in an area that may have supported a population of 60,000 people.  On the main plaza, the North Acropolis has been occupied for 1500 years with remodeling and expansions and additions on at least 12 levels.  It is a real jumble of buildings.  On the south side of the plaza there are 45 buildings 2 & 3 stories high that are probably residences for the nobility and their extended families.  On the east and west side of the plaza are Temples I & II.  Beginning in 700 AD and continuing, adding new structures over old structures, they now tower over the plaza floor 145 feet high.  They face each other in an imposing governmental or religious aura that is breath taking.  How could so much stone be quarried, hauled, lifted, carved, attached, stacked and held together.  How could a society support such grandioso edifices, feed the workers, and conceive such a large city without modern construction equipment.  There is another adjoining complex called </B><B><U>Mundo Perdido</U></B><B> (lost world).  I struck a deal to catch a ride into the building complex the next morning so I could arrive fresh and be able to climb Temple II.  The rest of the group walked in and I never did find them until I ran into them at 2:00 eating lunch at the hotel.  So I was by myself for the whole day wandering about with a map and armed with the information gleaned from the books I read before the trip.  The almost tame coatimundies were tempting to feed, but signs warned us to not feed them.  There was a small trail leading from the Main Plaza to </B><B><U>Mundo Perdido,</U></B><B> but I could not find it when I wanted to exit and return to the plaza.  So I wandered around lost for an hour admiring temple upon temple after temple, there are 38 temples here, until I finally asked a grounds keeper how to get out of the lost world.  While in this pickle I watched one of the guides showing a small group how to lure a tarantula out of his hole in the ground.  Take a fine leaf stem, a long one, and twitch it around in the opening of the hole.  This imitates an insect entering the trap and the tarantula will surface to see what's for dinner.  The guide did get four hairy legs to come out, but we never did get to see the whole big arachnid.  Tikal was abandoned about 900 AD, and UNESCO has declared it to be a World Heritage Site and is under its protection. so we will see no dynamite excavations in the immediate future.  The smaller museum at Tikal houses many treasures of the area.  Most notable is a complete burial chamber with all the jade beads and adornments, pottery and skeleton.  There is also a rope of tubular jade beads 6” long that form a monumental 12-foot long necklace.  Don't believe this because this is a guess as it was coiled back upon itself and I could not get to see the card of explanation with the group around the case.  It is how ever true that it is a masterpiece of the lapidary arts to drill that far through jade with WHAT?  The museum shop and the market place had beautiful hand woven textiles.  I wish I could have bailed them up to give as Christmas presents, but I could not figure a way to get them home without a porter to accompany me.   I hiked a long way by myself to see the North Group.  I was the only one there for a while so I rested comfortably on a long wooden bench listening to the jungle noises.  Including rifle fire?  What was that all about? Then I visited the twin pyramid group O, R and Q.  I later saw a man who spoke to me in the market and he was carrying a sawed-off antique rifle.  I guess he was hunting those really bad smelling peccaries in the jungle.  He did not get one, because he did not smell bad.  That evening there was another two-margarita lecture of numbers and glyphs and Man-God names.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The next day we departed early to the airport at Santa Elena, where after a very long wait for the fog to lift somewhere, we boarded an unusual plane that over the door inside a sign for exit was written </B><B><U>Bbixoa</U></B><B> in Russian.  I thought isn't that strange that it does not say </B><B><U>salida</U></B><B> in a Spanish speaking country.  With earplugs in my ears we roared over the jungle towards Ruinas de Copan in a twin-engine passenger/freight plane.  Through openings in the clouds we were allowed a few glimpses of the vastness of greenery, a lake and a well-eroded river valley.  We landed on a grass runway at a ranch.  There was a large thatched shed with 12 hammocks and 5 saddles and restroom facilities.  A veritable paradise. To those of you who don't know me well enough, you don't understand my appreciation for men's toilets. A van met our party and took us down to a bus that was waiting for us at a concrete barricade in the dirt road.  The barricade was a government post to prevent the smuggling of coffee.  On our bus we traveled a short way between tobacco and coffee fields.  When we got stuck every one got off and we pushed the bus to dry ground.  Then Gary, our guide announced that we were in Honduras and had entered the country illegally.  After thinking that over I told Gary “If we are illegals and we paid you to get us into the country you have to be our coyote.  Right”. And his sheepish reply was, “Yes”.  When we arrived at our hotel Gary took up all the Passports and took them to a proper place to be validated and returned them to us at dinner.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>That afternoon we rode to nearby Copan and viewed the small but very nice museum with a great miniature model of the archeological zone with all the buildings painted red as they were originally.  After a short level walk we were in a great plaza with a whole lot of stela.  Here we spent half a day visiting each one and translated the hundreds of glyphs carved on the collection.  They are mostly of 18Rabbit, which is surely a made up modern name.  Who would call their son that even in the name of male vanity of virility?  I did not see any rabbits at the zoo, but that is not to say that they did not have wild hares in the jungle.  There being no benches we stood all afternoon in the hot sun listening to the glyphs being translated by our local guide and by Dr. John Carlson.  My, they enjoyed their time together.  I got sunburned and very tired of standing.  However, everyone else seemed to enjoy the glyph talk.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Copan is also protected by UNESCO as a world site worthy of preservation because of its splendor.  Here there are 4500 structures in the valley with a population density of 20,000 off and on for 3500 years.  Found so far are 600 burials that have been studied.  Temples have been built upon temples as new rulers desired to memorialize themselves and their God like qualities.  Tunneling into Temple 16 a beautiful 4-story temple called Rosalila was discovered and is dated about 571 AD.  It is now covered by a massive structure, and in front there is an altar that has carved on its four sides 16 figures believed to be the chain of succession of rulers for hundreds of years, (including 18Rabbit).  Temple 26 has an unbelievable hieroglyphic stairway containing 1250 carved blocks or glyphs.  Fortunately we were forbidden to climb the stairs, so we were spared the torture of the translation of all the glyphs by our glyph-reading guides.  Several ball courts were pointed out to us on our trip.  One was no bigger than a bowling alley, so there obviously was more than one ball game.  Here in Copan there was a ball court as large as the one at Chichen Itza in Yucatan.  Here was a court big enough to have a team and score, and win the bet that the loser's captain would be decapitated.  What better way to cap off a ball tournament in your own hometown!  In a football stadium sized museum the Rosalila Temple has been created in its original size (four stories high) and painted bright red.  It is a three-tiered structure with four interior rooms and the outside has its scary, angry faces all painted bright red (as in cinnabar).  Those who have studied it say a white coat of plaster found covering the red paint indicates the temple “died”, as white is the color for death, then rubble was piled on top of it and a new design was created for the next Man-God for his glorification.   Ricardo Agurcia Fasquelle, an archeologist who has studied and dug at Copan and Tikal was working when we visited Copan.  He came inside Temple 16 and talked to us about Rosalila as we looked at it through the windows at the end of the tunnels that expose the buried red temple.  I bought his book  “Secrets of Two Maya Cities, Copan & Tikal”, which he autographed.  I told him he needed to open another case because I had bought the last copy at the museum shop.   He said,  “That is the last one.  There are no more”. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Copan is truly endangered as it sits on the Copan River bank and through the years high floods have eroded the zone exposing layers of structures, tunnels and plazas built over a period of several thousands of years.  There are men building repairs and attempting to contain the previous damage.  They were hard at work while I visited the site.   Copan's metropolitan magnetism could have led to over population, deforestation, soil erosion and over tilled fragile jungle soil.  A collapse of the food supply might have dispersed the people further away from the city to slash and burn new </B><B><U>milpas</U></B><B> and hunt in less poached territories.  Anyway the large construction projects stopped prior to the Spanish discoveries.  The people are still there.  From some source our guide stated that there are 6 million Mayans still living in the jungle.  It is a myth that they vanished.  But I think it is true that their will to build or their need to build and the skill to build has vanished.  The Man-God rulers with their knowledge and power have disappeared, as we see no new modern jungle structures.  Slavery must have ended and unanswered prayers to blood lusting Gods must have disillusioned an overworked people.  This last part I made up.  You don't have to believe all this.  It is true, though, that Mayans still exist.  We can see it in the faces of the descendents. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>This night the glyph lecture was replaced with a cocktail party on the patio of one of our National Geographic travel group and it was followed with a beautiful poolside buffet dinner under the stars on a lovely cool evening in Las Ruinas de Copan.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>It is over now.  The next day was a travel day.  We traveled by bus to San Pedro Sula with a three hour-long bus ride with no pit stops.  We passed three brand new Shell stations and never once checked out the men's restrooms.  When we got to the airport, without even grabbing my suitcase from the top of the bus, I raced into the modern airport to locate the restroom.  I flew home on Continental Airlines to Houston and on the McAllen.  Dale joined my flight in Houston and Kiki and Sister met us in McAllen.  The next day the Harding Foundation board meeting did take place.  I barely got home in time.   I really enjoyed the opportunity to see old things with a great group of inquisitive and durable travelers.  My favorite souvenirs are out of circulation silver coins from Guatemala and Honduras, star coral from Belize, two ancient stone cutting tools, small woven basket, round polished sphere sold to me as </B><B><U>ojo</U></B><B> </B><B><U>de tigre, </U></B><B>a bone scrimshaw. and copal.  Copal is incense made from the resin of the pine tree.  In Mayan times priests would burn the copal in the act of worshiping their Gods.  Copal incense smoke could be reinforced with drops of blood drawn with cuts made with the barb of a stingray on the foreskin.  This act of offering the most virile essence of the male body makes a powerful statement to the God.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>The conch pearl was one of my best souvenirs and it will be a gift to my wife, Kiki.  </B></div> <div> <B>  </B></div> <div> <B>This Web Page is TRAVEL JOURNAL</B></div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>