Zeke had asked Jenny about the weather the night before, and she’d reported the next day was expecting rain, with more on the following day. I set myself for 2 days of downtime, but the weather was clear Monday morning when we woke. As we were up for our included continental breakfast, I asked Jenny about Caracol, she phoned someone and reported that the military caravan left at 9:30, and you wouldn’t be allowed in without that escort due to the bad roads. She said if we left by 8:30, we should reach the caravan in time. We casually finished our breakfast, making Jenny and Mike nervous, and departed at 8:35. The roads were bad, but not as bad as I’d expected given the 3 weeks of rain. We didn’t need 4wd. We crossed a couple smaller rivers via cement bridges, and arrived at the first checkpoint by 8:57. The guard had us sign in and explained we were in good time to reach the caravan just 22 miles further down the road, he raised the gate for us and sent us on. This stretch of road was no worse than the first half. We continued to drive at what I thought was a pretty good clip, but the clock was quickly approaching 9:30. 9:30 passed and still no sign of the check-in as we turned corner after corner only to see more road. Finally at 9:37 we reached an area that seemed to be kept, and soon caught 2 more vehicles in front us, but no sign of the caravan. They pulled over at a small covered shed and I followed them to the hut. With the sense of urgency over the caravan, I truly felt like I was in the Amazing Race. And this would’ve made a great leg. The men inside had 2 books that I signed into. I asked about the caravan, they said it had just left 5 minutes ago, but no problem we should be able to catch it. Whew, I’d heard they’d turn us back if we didn’t leave with the caravan. So I was quite relieved. I followed the 2 other vehicles. The drivers wore official tour guide shirts, which assured me they probably knew where they were heading and how to drive these roads.
At Caracol, we climbed the 2nd highest Mayan temple in the entire Mayan world. the highest being at Tikal in Guatemala. The climb up didn’t seem far, until we realized that we couldn’t see the entire height of the temple from the floor. Each set of stairs would reveal themselves only after you cleared the previous set of stairs. Sylvan, our guide, said that he ran the stairs each morning for exercise. I noticed many of the other guides waited at the bottom, or climbed only the first set of stairs. I pointed this out to Sylvan, who called them lazy. All the Sebastians made it all the way up and were rewarded with a grand view over the jungle.
This is Zeke sitting on the top of the highest temple, looking down on another temple built on the 2nd plaza. We climbed that temple too, just to see the howler monkeys that were feeding in the trees. Sylvan said these guys often kept him up at night as they often got loud right around 10 pm.
My camera began failing me (I found out later it was just low on battery), so I couldn’t get shots of the rest of Caracol. This was one of my last shots, an original decorations found on the king’s temple.
Just to the right of the king’s temple Sylvan showed us the ball court. It was 3 large circular flat stones about 3 to 4’ in diameter, set in a straight line each about 30’ apart. The game was played with a heavy rubber ball. The participants wore heavy padding. They weren’t allowed to touch the ball with their hands but used sticks to scoop it up and shoot it through goals, in many ways similar to native american LaCrosse. hmmmm… could LaCrosse, in some form, have travelled this far south, or vice-versa?? I was reminded of the playing fields surrounded by stone walls, that we’d seen in Arizona. Where it was reported that these same fields were found all throughout Central America and Southern States, evidently tribes would travel and play against each other. Sylvan said similar events happened between neighboring communities here. He also said that the winner of the game was sacrificed, but I read later it was the loser that was sacrificed. Later we walked to another temple area. This had many lose stones in the courtyard, and Sylvan said this was their calendar area. The stones being indicators of the seasons. And the largest temple in that area had once been the king’s temple, but one of the king’s had wanted something larger, and mostly through slave labor, had built the temple we’d climbed earlier. Sylvan walked us back past the water reservoir and to 2 more major areas of the area, each looking similar to the last. Earlier I’d asked if they had Mahogany or Cedar in the area. He said, it had all been harvested, and they didn’t plant any more for safety, as Guatemalans would come looking for it and take it by force. Guatemala was, after all, only 4 miles away. A large Mahogany tree can fetch a lot of money. The proximity of Guatemala was evidently the reason for the armed guards we’d seen spattered throughout the park. We then entered the area where current archeologists were housed when they were on site in February and March. In that area were about 10 of the large Stellas they’d found and puzzled back together. Each depicting a king or prince, or commemorating a victory over Tikal (the only documented victory was by Caracol), or listing the Mayan calendar, etc. Sylvan walked us back through a shortcut, which emphasized how close the jungle was. He’d said that the entire area was clear, and archeologists believe that much of the surrounding 5 kim had been converted to terraced fields. Impressive work to clear such deep jungle and keep it at bay. Gotta wonder how quickly things were reclaimed by the jungle. Unlike ATM, which was never truly lost, i.e it was always known to the local peoples, it’s easy to see that Caracol, being so remote from any current village or peoples, could have been completely lost. It was discovered in 1947 when a British logger searching for Mahogany stumbled upon it and noticed the many small hills in that area, and reported it to local authorities.
We arrived back at the entrance area and grabbed a seat at the picnic tables under the cover of a large thatch shelter, eating some of the snack food we’d carried in. I had just enough time to circle through the small museum before Zeke came running with the message it was time to leave. Kate noticed a few cars beginning to leave, and not wanting to get caught behind the passenger vans, we decided to leave with them. They kept a good pace, and sure enough, also turned into Rio on the pools, a swimming area Jenny had told us about that ‘everyone stops at’. It was a short walk down to the swimming hole which reminded me a lot of the rock slide in Arizona, though the water wasn’t melted snow from further up the mountain, and therefore was much warmer. We goofed in the pools for awhile, jumping in where the current was strong and allowing it to float us downstream, then it was time to move on. Mike and Jenny had told us of a nice restaurant on the way out that wasn’t too expensive, they didn’t know the new name, but it used to be called Five Sisters. We found a place called Gaia in the same vicinity and followed the off road for at least 3 miles before getting there. Unfortunately they didn’t start serving supper until 6:30, and with the condition of the roads, we didn’t want to stay that late and have to drive all of it in the dark. So we ordered off their snack menu, which was expensive enough, and enjoyd the aroma of fresh pines and the sounds of the five sisters falls 400 feet below our dining deck. Beautiful scene, but no camera. Found this on the web:
Theo, Jane and I headed up to the car to drive it down and save us some daylight, Kate took longer than expected. One of the help, Holly, made small talk with her and explained that Cesar from Tranquility Bay was a good friend of hers who had visited her recently. And that we should say hi for her. Funny how the hospitality community is all tied together. We cleared the Gaia side road before it got too dark. The drive back to Gumbo wasn’t all that bad in the dark either. We’d told Jenny that we weren’t dining at Gumbo that night, but our small snack at Gaia had left our kids still hungry. We didn’t want to impose on her staff, but she insisted so we sat down to a proper meal of beef and potatoes finished off with cheese cake for desert. Yum. Yet another great adventure day.
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