Travel Photograph Wednesday - Guatemala

Tikal, Guatemala.

Travel Photograph Wednesday - Honduras

Copan, Honduras.

Antigua, Guatemala

     When I was in Guatemala I had a chance to stay a few days in Antigua.  Antigua was on of the first cities in the Americas built by the Spanish.  I really didn't like it that much, it looked really old on the outside but when you really walked around you can seen it was kind of fake.  The buildings look really old on the outside but when you walk inside they look like boutiques you would see on south beach.  It felt like a movie set or like going to Disney Land but it does has tons of history and thats what makes it worth visit.
 

   Like I said there's tons of history in Antigua, you can just see it in the architecture.  There are tons of churches all around the city and the one below stood out to me.  The Spanish would have the Mayan people build the churches and at this church they had them make grapes for the outside design.  But instead of making grapes the Mayan they made the design look like corn, that is very important to the Mayan culture.

   Also in Antigua there is on of the top Jade factories in the world, La Casa del Jade.  Jade is a precious rock that is used for jewelry.  Jade was a very important item to the Mayans, that the kings wore all over their bodies and even placed them on their teeth to show their power.

Assimilation of Christianity and Mayan religion

     While in Guatemala I was extremely impressed how the Mayan culture is so alive threw out the whole country.  I've lived in New England most of my life and have been out west to Yellowstone, places that  share and teach the Native American culture but it's always has a feeling of being in the past like when you learning about the Romans or Egyptians.

     One of the place where the Mayan culture is very strong was in Chichicastenango.  Chichicastenango has a huge market and the amazing thing about this market is that threw out it there are three Christian churches that have been build on top of ancient Mayan temples.  In these temples the only people that are spouse to go inside of them are people of Mayan decent.  Here they practice a mix of both religions, also outside the temple/church they have Mayan ceremonies.

    Another place where the Mayan culture was really strong was in the towns around the lake of Atitlán. We stayed there in a gymnasia in Panajachel.  On a side note if you very go to Guatemala you should visit Panajachel, it's a big backpackers stop and very chill.  The 2010 NFL preseason had started, I was dieing to watch a game and I was able to go into a bar there and watch one, totally made my day.
    So around Atitlán there are towns that are fully populated by the Mayans and even have their own law separate the the government.  One of the days we were there we took a boat and visited a few of these towns.

     While getting on the boat a 7 year old little boy that made bracelets got on with us.  I asked him how many bracelets does he he make on a normal day and he told me about 7,  with us on the boat he ended up making 35.  He also knew how to make wallets, purses, and scarfs all by hand.

    While in one of the Mayan towns we had a chance to visit a shaman that was the host to the statue of a new age Mayan God.  People of the town visit the God, pray, and leave offerings of money, cigars, liquor, and many other things so the God will help them and grant wishes.

 
   They also have a shrine for the God right next to the towns Christian church.  This church was extremely interesting,  it displayed the assimilation of Christianity and Mayan the clearest I've seen any where.  The front steps look like an Mayan temple like the way the church/temples at Chichicastenango are.

  The quetzal bird is a huge spiritual symbol to the Mayans and the he altar has a quetzal engraved in it.

    The statues of the saints are made in the image of the Mayan people and are dressed in their typical clothing.

   They also have the God we vistit engraved on the altar.

     When we were on our way back from visiting all the towns we had a chance to jump off the boat and swim in the lake of Atitlán.

    Below are the great guilds we had from INGUAT that showed us just about every corner of Guatemala.

The Maya juego de la pelota or ballgame

      The Mayas had a ball game consisting of two teams where the team members had to get a very hard ball that was about 8 pounds threw a ring to score.  The trick was that the only way the players could touch the ball was with their forearm, chest, thigh, and they could not let the ball hit the ground.  But that wasn't the crazy part about the game, at the end of the game one of the teams was sacrificed.  Archaeologist don't know if it was the winning team or the loosing team that had to die. 

      Below is a field located in the ruins of Copan in El Salvador where the game was played .  If you look on the left just where the slanted wall meets the straight wall, there's a circle, that was the goal and if you look right across to the other side you can see the other goal. 

     When I was in Guatemala with La Ruta Inka we had the chance to watch a reenactment of the ceremony before the game and watch the game being played.  I found this cool site where you too can watch the game being played and find out more information about the game(click here).  In the video they show the ball rolling on the ground but every where I was told about the game I was told the ball couldn't hit the ground.  

     The image below is a painting by T. Rutledge the defeat of the Lords of the Underworld by the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque.  The scene is one of Creation: The head of the Hero Twins' father, the Sun God, must pass through the Goal Ring, which represents the Dart Rift in the Milk Way.  Once this occurs, the world comes into being.  The Maya saw Creation as an ongoing event that depends upon the interaction between men and Gods.  For the Maya, Creation was not a singular "event" that occurred in the past, and they held the belief that if men and Gods fail to keep the game going, the ball will stop rolling and this ongoing Creation will halt.

Welcome to beautiful Guatemala

     A lot of my friends are from Guatemala and have been asking me "when are you going to post about Guatmala?"  Well here it is, beautiful Guatemala.
     La Ruta Inka was ahead of schedule and got to Guatemala a day early so the tourisum department INGUAT(Instituto Guatemalteco de Turismo) wasn't ready for us and we had to stay in the community hall in a small town near Los Esclavos.  The next day INGUAT picked us up and took us streaght to the captale, Guatemale City, where we were to attend a ceremony for us in El Palacio Naciona.

     At the ceremony a musical group made of artist from different parts of Guatemala played la marimba for use.  La marimba is the national instrument and has been played by Guatemalans threw out their history.

     In the next part of the ceremony they demonstrated el jugo de la pelota. An ancient game played by the Mayans that is kind of a mix of basketball and soccer.  Read more about the game here.

    The last part of the ceremony was the changing of La Rosa de la Pas(the rose of peace).  The changing of  the rose is a ceremony that beening going on every day since 1996.  The ceremony consists of a white rose that is changed every 24 hours to symbloze the renewal of peace every day.  The rose is normaly change by an every day Guatemalan that has the honer to do it but this day they had honered La Ruta Inka by chouising one of the members of our group to change the rose.

     After the whole ceremony was over we had a chance to get a tour of El Palacio Naciona.  They had some much beautful art there, but here was a huge mural that caught my attention the most.  The mural is about 10 feet high and 30 feet wide and it symbolizes when the Spaniards came to the Americas and concered the Mayans.  It had to be one of the must beauitful things I have ever seen, I wanted it for my house.

The ancient Mayan city of Copan in Honduras

                    
                           The last days we were in Honduras we stayed in a little town out side of the ancient Mayan city of Copan.  Out of all the places we had been in all off Central America Copan has the best preserved pyramids and statues I had seen, you could just image what this great city looked like in its prime.