I'm staying at a hostel called Yellow House. It's just great - a mellow place with nice people and great breakfasts! The city is absolutely beautiful and very easy to navigate - which is a good thing because there are virtually no street names posted so I take out my map and count blocks as I walk! Cobblestone streets with colourful buildings run all over town and I quickly checked out the HUGE market that sells just about everything and the central park where it all happens.
Mountains circle the town and there is a live volcano in the distance. You can see the smoke rising from it in the photo
This morning I went on a fabuous walking tour given by a guy who grew up in Guatemala City. His mother, Elizabeth Bell, has written extensively on Guatemala. He has a masters in cultural anthropology and knew a lot. He took the time to explain about the culture, history, politics and the Mayan calendar. He was really up on the latest anthropological discoveries. He told us that a stelae was just discovered six months ago that has the first few pages from the Popol Vuh carved on it (the Maya's creation story/bible). This book was destroyed by the Spanish hundreds of years ago and all that survived was a translation by a Spanish guy. It was always thought to be inaccurate - because it is so similar to the Christian creation story. But now they've discovered this stone it seems that the translation is totally accurate! Very cool.
He also talked about the "disappearance" of the classic Maya. This has been considered somewhat of a mystery. There were millions of them occupying huge cities. Then one day it's as if they just left. No one has been able to explain why. He feels that it's not that mysterious. He thinks it involves their aquaducts. OK, some of you might find this a bit too much information, but for those of you as interested as I am...They built their cities in super inhospitable places. We now know there are huge cities still uncovered because they are so deep in the jungle (e.g. El Mirador on the northern border of Guatemala is one day's drive then two days' hike through the jungle - there are hundreds of uncovered structures that reveal the biggest Mayan city yet and no facilities or amenities apart from what can be carried in). Anyhow, with regard to the aquaducts and the water - basically in El Peten (the northernmost region in Guatemala) the ground water was toxic, so they built these intricate fresh water systems, among other cool things. But then there were wars between various "tribes," one main one lasting more than 150 years. And basically they were destroying each others' aquaducts - which are super labour intensive to build - and, kind of undoing each other. He says a lot of the northern Maya ended up escaping into the Highland mountains in souther Gua and are still there today.
In addition, he says the Spanish were given way too much credit for a lot of things. For example, they didn't have huge armies wiping people out (though they certainly did plenty of that). But they would recruit one group of Mayans who were warring with another group, and then have them finish each other off. The point being that small Spanish armies didn't go through every town butchering thousands in their wake, as has been portrayed. A lot less work for them...
The coolest part about the Spanish/Mayan interaction is the religion. Catholocism has been modified to accommodate the Popol Vuh traditions, so at the church altars you'll see all kinds of symbolism that stem from Maya creation stories. Mary, for example, is symbolized by the moon, and Jesus by the sun.
This morning I went on a fabuous walking tour given by a guy who grew up in Guatemala City. His mother, Elizabeth Bell, has written extensively on Guatemala. He has a masters in cultural anthropology and knew a lot. He took the time to explain about the culture, history, politics and the Mayan calendar. He was really up on the latest anthropological discoveries. He told us that a stelae was just discovered six months ago that has the first few pages from the Popol Vuh carved on it (the Maya's creation story/bible). This book was destroyed by the Spanish hundreds of years ago and all that survived was a translation by a Spanish guy. It was always thought to be inaccurate - because it is so similar to the Christian creation story. But now they've discovered this stone it seems that the translation is totally accurate! Very cool.
He also talked about the "disappearance" of the classic Maya. This has been considered somewhat of a mystery. There were millions of them occupying huge cities. Then one day it's as if they just left. No one has been able to explain why. He feels that it's not that mysterious. He thinks it involves their aquaducts. OK, some of you might find this a bit too much information, but for those of you as interested as I am...They built their cities in super inhospitable places. We now know there are huge cities still uncovered because they are so deep in the jungle (e.g. El Mirador on the northern border of Guatemala is one day's drive then two days' hike through the jungle - there are hundreds of uncovered structures that reveal the biggest Mayan city yet and no facilities or amenities apart from what can be carried in). Anyhow, with regard to the aquaducts and the water - basically in El Peten (the northernmost region in Guatemala) the ground water was toxic, so they built these intricate fresh water systems, among other cool things. But then there were wars between various "tribes," one main one lasting more than 150 years. And basically they were destroying each others' aquaducts - which are super labour intensive to build - and, kind of undoing each other. He says a lot of the northern Maya ended up escaping into the Highland mountains in souther Gua and are still there today.
In addition, he says the Spanish were given way too much credit for a lot of things. For example, they didn't have huge armies wiping people out (though they certainly did plenty of that). But they would recruit one group of Mayans who were warring with another group, and then have them finish each other off. The point being that small Spanish armies didn't go through every town butchering thousands in their wake, as has been portrayed. A lot less work for them...
The coolest part about the Spanish/Mayan interaction is the religion. Catholocism has been modified to accommodate the Popol Vuh traditions, so at the church altars you'll see all kinds of symbolism that stem from Maya creation stories. Mary, for example, is symbolized by the moon, and Jesus by the sun.
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