It has been 15 years since I last spent time visiting the Mayan sites of Central America - an eventful trip which ended up with me being shipwrecked off the reefs in Belize at almost 7 months pregnant. I was hoping that this trip would prove just as fascinating but a little less eventful! I spent months studying the Maya as part of my MA in Native American Studies 20 years ago and was surprised to find that I could still interpret some of the glyphs at the sites we visited and recall the names of the Mayan gods.
The first site I visited was Uxmal (pronounced Oosh-mahl) in the Yucatan area of Mexico. Uxmal was home to around 25,000 people at its height during the Late Classic period (600-950AD) and was the regional capital of the Puuc region. Uxmal means built three times and we saw evidence of this in our first few minutes of exploration. The site was almost deserted when we arrived, before the mid-morning influx of tour groups. After admiring the impressive 100 foot high House of the Magician, we clambered up the back of the pyramid into a very narrow, humid, dark raised corridor, probably unseen by the majority of tourist who visit the site. Inside the few foot wide corridor were magnificent carvings of serpents and latticework, illuminated only by the light of our mobile phones. The Maya would build a new temple on top of existing temples and this thin slit was a gap between one layer of the pyramid and the stage of construction.
The Governor's Palace, House of the Turtles and the Nunnery provide some of the most impressive Mayan stonework you will find, with sculptures mainly representing Chaac, the rain god, along with serpents, birds and turtles. There is also a large ball court around 100 foot long where fierce rivalry took place to become the winning team, with the leader of the winners having the 'privilege' of being sacrificed to the gods.
On to Lamanai in Belize, whose name means 'submerged crocodile' in Maya. On our boat trip to the ruins, we did indeed see a small crocodile who swam off his log as the was from the boat reached him. We arrived in Lamanai via an hour long minibus ride and then a further hour in a speedboat up the river, with the helmsman stopping at times to show us birds and animals on the riverbanks, such as the Jesus Christ bird which appears to walk on water, but actually walks on the waterlillies which spread along the banks.
There is evidence that Lamanai was occupied as an agricultural settlement as early as 1600BC, with building commencing around 700BC. The site rose to regional prominence in the pre-Classic period from around 4BC and remained in occupation until the 17th Century, even staging a successful rebellion and driving out the Spaniards who established churches there. Unlike many Mayan sites which were excavated by archeologists such as Stephens & Catherwood in the late 19th Century, work on Lamanai only began 35 years ago and it is estimated that only 5% of the buildings have been uncovered.
We climbed the main temple at Lamanai, a short, yet very steep climb to the highest point in the region with fantastic views over the jungle, accompanied by the constant noise of howler monkeys in the surrounding jungle.
Our last Mayan site was Copán in Honduras, a site I had visited previously but which was so impressive that I decided it was worth the 10 hour return bus trip to see again. Copán lies near to the Guatemalan border and my last trip was a two day bus ride over unpaved roads from the Guatemalan side. Copán was the Mayan capital of the region and was occupied for over 2000 years from Early pre-Classic to post-Classic periods, with around 25,000 inhabitants in the valley at its height. The city was abandoned when the Spaniards arrived there and it is presumed that exhaustion of resources in the region or disease were responsible for its decline.
We had barely long enough to climb the pyramids, explore the tunnels, visit the numerous stelae and marvel at the 2200 glyphs on the Hieroglyphic Stairway which forms the longest Mayan hieroglyphic text in existence. The sculpture museum had been built since my last visit so we decided that we hadn't come all this way to spend an hour eating lunch, so we left the rest of our tour and it was well worth spending the time to see the impressive collection of architecture housed in the museum, includinge a replica of the Rosalila temple with painted stucco exterior as it would have looked at the time. A short tuk-tuk ride to the restaurant and we even had time for a quick lunch of delicious tacos, chicken, guacamole and refried beans, before the long bus ride back to Puerto Cortez.
Visiting, and in some cases revisiting, these Mayan sites has undoubtedly been the highlight of my trip so far. It has reminded me of many of the reasons why I fell in love with this region so many years ago and decided to spend my life working to help preserve Latin America indigenous culture and skills.