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.

Age old festival in El Salvador

    
      When I was in El Salvador with La Ruta Inka I had the chance to witness a magnificent festival.  This festival has been going on between two towns since El Salvador was a colony of Spain.  All the people of one town get the statue of thier saint, San Christobal and hike up a montant to a cave where they camp over night.  The next day the mayor or town leader  puts San Christobal on their back and the whole group hikes back down to the other town.

    At the other town the town's people are lined up waiting with a statue of their saint, San Lucas, for San Christobal to arrive with his people.  Once the two saints get closer a group of people from both towns are dressed up in costumes that represent their Indian and Spanish ancestors start to dance with machetea in the middle of the main street as San Christobal comes into town. 

      The saints are carried buy town leaders and are brought little by little toward each other.  This represents when both the saints met for the very first time to unite both towns.  As they are carried toward each other they stop three times and are tilted forward signifying the three times they greeted each other on their first meeting.

  

      At the last tilt or greeting the crowd that is made up of people from both towns cheer and trow confetti.  After all the cheering, all the people line up in two lines and greet each other, one at a time like two high school teams would do after a game here in the states.  This greet consists of both participants holding each others right hands like a hand shake and raising them up to their foreheads.

     Once every one has greeted each other they walk together to the center of the town and dance traditional dances, celebrate their union, and eat typical foods.

Day full of knowledge in El Salvador

                       After having to sleep in the highest point of El Salvador Ministerio de Turismo de El Salvador or the department of tourism took us to La Palma where we went to a museum to seen the history of the Salvadoran currency, from the coffee bean  to the US dollar.  After the museum they had a a huge dinner set up for us that included fireworks.  Once we were done with the awesome dinner they took us to a military base where we were going to camp for the night.  The next day we were woken up by the base's military band, they played while we ate breakfast and pack our things to get ready for a long day.

             The first place the department of tourism took us was to a small town that is one of the largest exporters of balsamo.  As soon as we got off the buses we were greeted by the children of the town and another band playing for us.   Next they had a demandstrtion on how the get the balsamo oil.  Balsamo is the main ingredient in conditioner and is also used for medicines, I will post the whole proses in a later posting(Click here to read about balsamo).  After the demonstration we went to a balsamo farm and showed us how they extract the oils from the trees and some of us had a chance to try it for our selfs.

     

             We had learned a ton about balsamo and we were on the rode again.  The next stop was a small town where we had the honer to be a part and witness a great festival that the locals they have had since when the Spaniards had colonized El Salvador.  To read about this festival click here.

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.

Living around Volcanos

The next day that we were in Nicaragua we went to Leon Viejo(Old Leon). Leon Viejo was founded in 1524 and was the country's first capital until 1610 when the people that live there moved to the new Leon. At Leon Viejo there are only ruins now, all you can see is the bases of the house that once stood there. But you can see clearly see the lay out of were the streets, houses, stores, churches, monasteries, and schools used to stand. We waked to the top of hill were the fort that was the defense of Leon Viejo. It was clear why they would build a fort there, from the top of this hill you are able to see all round you clearly. The view is so great you could see the lake of Managua as well as five volcanos that surround this area.

After learning about old Leon we went to the new Leon. There we ate honered by the mayor of the city and then had free time to relax, go site seeing, buy food or what we need, use the internet, or make international phone calls our live ones. Some thing that really caught my eye was that in between the buildings you could see the volcanos poking out, I had never seen a volcano even more them so close to a city.

Durning the free time I went to used the internet to get in touch with my family and did some site seeing. As I walked out of a church I seen this little boy riding a statue of this leon, reminded me of a Greek or Roman myth and I just had to get a shot of him.