It was great fun! I’m only just getting to know Gordon, but we’re quickly learning that we share a lot of the same interests – sushi (makes me miss Reji and Café East!)… coffee (makes me miss A.D. and Prince St. Café!)… and (for Abi!) taking pictures that create illusions of being something we’re not…. like DEAD! [shameless plug: www.deaddani.blogspot.com]
The first one we got right off the bat… or should I say, right off the boat! The Veendam is required to anchor way off shore in Belize (the continental shelf is just really long here, and only the smaller tender boats can get into the shallow waters of the pier). So Gordon and I took the opportunity to enjoy the sun on the back deck of the tender boat while riding to shore. And as the Veendam disappeared into the distance, Gordon’s first idea was brilliant – jet skiing!
Brilliant and fun! And I didn’t even have to get wet! Ha ha! …Ok, on to the Ruins!
I’ve been to two other Mayan Ruins excavation sites, Tulum and Muyil, both in Mexico. Altun Ha is a little bit further south along the Mayan Coast in Belize, but it’s definitely the most prolific that I’ve seen so far. There were at least eight major temples/burial pyramids, just in the two “elite class” plazas we got to wander around, and an adjoining 6-mile path leads down to a pond surrounded by a smaller village, where the lower classes lived. When Dr. James Pendergraff discovered these ruins a few hundred years ago, they were piles of rocks and stones overgrown with vegetation. So he named the place for what he found: “Stone-Rock Pond” or in the Mayan language: “Altun Ha.”
This is plaza A, one of two major areas in which it is believed the elite-class of priests and royalty lived, and commerce was traded. This is “downtown.” It is believed that the earliest generations lived on the foundations of these temples, and as each generation died, they would be buried right on site, with all their belongings, and that block would then become the foundation for the next generation, who would rebuild a new level on top, and so on and so forth.
This is the cornerstone of a smaller temple, in which you can see the depiction of a “beautiful” Mayan face. The forehead is large and flat, and the nose is low, wide, and painted red to draw the eyes to be crossed. The earlobes are huge, and the lips protrude like a pucker. The entire head is about 3 ½ feet high, which is about how tall the tallest men of the time were.
The picture on the right is the tallest of the temples in plaza B, known as B4 or the Temple of Masonry Altars. In the huge stair block at the top was the tomb of an elderly priest along with the largest carved jade artifact ever recovered in the Mayan area, called the “Jade Head”. (Belize is still the world’s most popular place to get great quantities of good quality jade.) The Jade Head was elaborately carved to depict the Sun God, and weighed almost 10 pounds! It’s very intricately carved to look like a Mayan face, with curving fangs, crossed eyes, a large flat forehead and giant earlobes, sticking his tongue out. Ok… so maybe not a contemporary idea of “beautiful” but the jade it’s carved in lends an eerie green luster that actually makes it stunning to admire.
So what else to do with this Mayan religious arena now that we’re fully aware of its sacred symbolism? Climb all over it, of course!
I got to the top of B4 first (in the picture at right, that little speck at the top is me!), then Gordon joined me. Let me tell ya – that’s not an easy climb! There were about 50 stairs that took us up about five stories, and each stair, carved from the stones the temple is built with, was 18 to 20 inches high! Yet it is said that for their religious ceremonies, the Mayans would crawl to the top on their knees with their heads bowed forward, to show reverence. That can’t be easy in the blazing hot sun for a man less than 4 feet tall!
But once we got there, it was quite a rush to look down from the edge. Gordon had the bright idea that this would be a brilliant place for a BASE jump!
See for yourself in the video...
Ok, ok…. So I only jumped from the uppermost level to the top of the tomb – about a 2 foot drop. But still, you gotta admit that’s funny!
Back on the ground, we encountered a few kids holding baby alligators for a photo op. Apparently they’re abundant in that pond at the end of the 6-mile road. Hey Andrea: how do you like my new purse?
The ruins were great, so beautiful to see. But after a few hours in the blazing sun, it was time to get back on the air-conditioned bus and head home. Hooray for Altun Ha!
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