Archive
Category Archives for "Maya, Ancient & Today"Information on the ancient Maya, their philosophies and prophecies, as well as the modern-day Maya and their cultural traditions.
Information on the ancient Maya, their philosophies and prophecies, as well as the modern-day Maya and their cultural traditions.
TULUM CABANAS
Our guidebook tells us that there are cabanas on the beach in Tulum with a beautiful view of the ocean and gorgeous white sand beaches, so we decided to check them out for possible future lodging.
We found the beaches to be superb. However, the cabanas are not our style. For the most part, there is no electricity, therefore, after dark, generators roar and most places are totally dark after about 11 pm.
They’re also very pricey. We did find one place advertised as $39 USD per night that had small sand-floored bungalows made of sticks, like a typical Mayan home. The sticks let the cool breezes blow through the building.
None of us liked the shared bathrooms. At the Winter Star Party, which is located at a girl scout camp in the Florida Keyes, there is a girls and a boys shower house, so we don’t mind sharing. But these bathrooms afforded very little privacy at all.
EXPLORING AN UNEXCAVATED RUIN
Today, we went with our friend and host at the Flycatcher Inn bed and breakfast in Santa Elena, Santiago Dominges, on an exploration of an unexcavated ruin next to Uxmal.
San drove us into the site which is on farmland where San personally helped his uncle plant corn during San’s younger years. I am so glad we drove in instead of walked in, even though San had to drive very slow over the rocky parts of the tire-track dirt road through the jungle because Miriam had to sit in the cab of the truck. It was a very long way to walk!
Nohpat is one of the many ruins on the Puuc Route, of which Uxmal is the main one. Because Kabah, Labna and Sayil, also on the Puuc route, are not especially large sites, I expected Nohpat to be a relatively small pile of rocks with trees growing out of it.
To my surprise, the site is huge and contains one large pyramid, which is a huge pile of rocks with trees growing out of it, and many smaller piles of rocks with trees growing out of them that look like they are temples.
We felt like Stevens and Catherwood, who had been in Nohpat in the late 1800s, because little has changed since that time. We walked and walked hoping not to get too many ticks on us or to get too many mosquito bites.
Santiago is very excited about Nohpat because this whole area consists of his ancestral lands. We wanted to show us first one pile of rocks then another pile of rocks, cutting through the overgrown path with his machete.
Finally, dragging my video camera and its tripod plus a walking stick to keep my balance over the rocks, I thanked him and told him that we had seen enough.
He would have been glad to take us to many more ruins. He knows them all very well and, even though there are trees in the way, can see in his mind’s eye where the central square would have been.
We took many photographs and a lot of footage. This site is supposed to be the site of the witch that hatched the sorcerer dwarf out of an egg.
Carol Chapman
Coyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading
When we arrived for breakfast at the Lol He Beach Club resaurant, where we usually have our morning meal in Akumal, I noticed that there was a three-foot hole in the top of the huge paplapas roof that covers this seaside restaurant.
Shortly after we finished our meal, while we sipped on coffees and discussed the day’s itinerary, our waiter asked us to move to a table in another section of the restaurant. He said the hole in the top of the palapas roof had occurred overnight. It looked as if the wind had ripped off a palm frond and hurled it into the roof to rip open the hole.
A number of Maya men, dressed in overalls, arrived with pipes and put together scaffolding that reached up to the roof. Two men climbed to the top, another dragged in a bunch of palm leaf fronds and attached them to a yellow rope the men on top of the scaffolding threw down to him.
I felt delighted to watch and record the repair of the hole in the palapas roof. Watching the men climb the scaffolding brought back to me my years as a photojournalist at NASA when I, too, climbed scaffolding, but, in my case, for the purpose of photographing aircraft below.
With the wind blowing so fiercely off the ocean, I was reminded of one experience on the top of a “cherry picker” when the head of NASA Langley’s Photo Lab and I photographed our fleet of experimental aircraft below. We were so high above the ground to get all of the planes that the truck below us looked like a child’s toy.
At the top of the “cherry picker” the wind made it sway back and forth. I felt afraid but did not want to show it because weakness can be jeered at among the rough and ready photographers. Fortunately, the head of Photo Lab was a kind man.
We stood side by side in the basket on top of the “cherry picker’s” tall arm.
I asked him, “Do you mind if I put my little finger over yours?” He knew I was afraid as the basket swayed this way and that.
“It’s OK, Carol,” he said, “and I won’t tell anyone.”
Bless that man!
Our photos looked great and were published (in my case as the press photographer) and used in scientists’ paper (in his case) the way they should be.
Today, I thought how these Maya men were the descendents of the men who made the pyramids. They are also the same men who have built the huge hotels in Cancun. They are unafraid of heights.
As John say, “The men have incredible balance!”
They climbed up and down the scaffolding in wind off the ocean that made the tarps along the restaurant walls billow so stronly that earlier, little children eating breakfast at a nearby table, had bounced off the billowing tarps.
In the past, I have seen construction workers at night lit by a single incandescent light lounging in hammocks a number of stories up in a building they are constructing and had wished that I would have photographed them.
Today, I got my chance.
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading
You might be thinking, as a certain reader wrote to be yesterday in reference to the stela with the carving of the 41.9 billion billion billion Long Count Calendar date on a stela in Coba, “What does your intuition say?”
I replied: My intuition is soooo confused and I was sooooo exhausted tramping around that huge Coba ruin. OK, I know that there’s something really important about Coba. Not sure if this is it or not. And, still not really sure if this is the correct stela since the carvings are so weathered that my conscious mind says, “You’ve got to be kidding. How could anyone see anything on these stelae?” Actually, the guidebook says that when the sun is at certain angles the weathered carvings pop out. I can believe that since it happened to me when I was in Chichen Itza this last time and, for the first time, saw and photographed a certain bas relief carving of an ancient warrior that one guide told me was Itzamna. When I visited Chichen Itza a year ago, I could hardly see the details of the carving. However, this time, the sun was in the exactly correct place and the image almost leaped off the rock! It looked as if it was outlined in black.
We had a rest-from-filming day today. However, at breakfast, while relaxing with the wind blowing off the beautiful turquoise water of the Caribbean, a young man and father at the next restaurant table leaned back and asked us, “Been here before?”
When we answered in the affirmative, he then asked, “Know anywhere cheaper to eat?”
“Sure,” we replied, “You won’t believe it, because you’re going to expect that everything at the ruins is so much more expensive, but our favorite and cheapest restaurant around here is at the Tulum ruins . . . the Argentinian restaurant. It also has the best coffee in the whole of the Yucatan!”
“Wait a minute,” the young man said, “Are you saying there are restaurants at the ruins?”
Obviously, this affable young man had never been to a ruin before.
“Yeah, sure, there is often at least one restaurant and also usually many craft stalls. Actually, Tulum, being about a 2 hour drive from Cancun, is inundated with tourists. It has a little train pulled by a tractor that takes you to the entrance of the ruins, many restaurants, tons of craft shops . . . it’s like a circus.”
The young man looked over at his lovely young wife and their two elementary-school aged sons. “Are you saying that the kids would find it interesting at an ancient Mayan ruin?”
I could see Miriam, who was sitting across the plata de fruta from me, started to roll her eyes because I knew she knew what was coming. Her mom and step-dad where about to wax eloquent about the ruins at Tulum and they might just go on and on and on.
“Heck,” I said, “The kids will love it! There’s a guy dressed up with feathers along his arms and a very realistic- looking imitation hawk’s head over his head. He spreads his wings and poses for tourist pictures. There’s also these amazing acrobats from some indigenous tradition who, dressed in their native costumes, climb a long pole while one of them plays a flute. Once they get to the top, they drop backwards tethered by a rope and slowly circle upside down until they are low enough to the ground to summersault onto their feet.”
“The best thing is the iguana,” John said.
“What?” asked the young man. His sons were definitely interested in what we were saying now.
“The iguana,” John repeated. “This guy carries around a huge ignuana. It’s tail is so long, it touches the ground when the man carries the reptile against his shoulder. The iguana’s body is almost three feet long and about 6 inches thick. You can come up to it and pet it or, for a small fee, the guy will put it across your shoulders with the tail draped down your front.”
The little boys’ eyes opened wide.
“Face it,” Miriam piped in, “if you get bored with the ruins – but my Mom and Dad never seem to – you can always go swimming . . . ”
“In a ruin?” the young man quipped.
“In the Tulum ruin,” Miriam replied. “Tulum has a fantastic beach and a beautiful protected cove. Many people come to Tulum just to swim. Forget about the ruins.”
“You mean, the water is less choppy and the wind less intense than it is here in Akumal?” the lovely young mother asked.
“Tulum beaches are some of the best in the world,” Miriam answered. “Your kids will love it. You will love it.”
The rest of the morning, Miriam and I lay on beach beds on the sand between our hotel and Half Moon Bay in Akumal. We enjoyed the sound of the surf, the refreshing breeze, and conversations about many things both about the movie we were making and anything else that came to mind. John swam and snorkeled past the pounding surf over the coral at the foot of the sand bar.
We ate Fritos with lime (Fritos also come with chile and lime flavoring here) for lunch and then headed out to Yal-Ku, a lovely snorkelling area where the salt water flows inland and is protected by limestone headlands. The water here was smooth and calm. The howling wind was a breeze.
We saw many beautiful parrot fish, some kind of turquoise fish, and the funniest, strangest fish I’ve ever seen in the wild. It was only about 3 inches long, had big protruding eyes like a frog, was reddish-brown colored, had a big head compared to the rest of its body and tapered to a small point of a flat tail. It liked to hide under the limestone rocks that hung over the water.
It looked so unusual that Miriam and I wanted to give it a name. Because it looked so unique, we named it Hermoine (after our beloved Harry Potter character), the slug fish.
It’s a good life.
Blessings,
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading
Hi again,
Today, we are in Akumal, an area known as the most Americanized part of the Riviera Maya.
Strangely, as we entered the well-manicured yards, tiled sidewalks, and area of luxurious condos, my gut felt tight and I realized I felt afraid. Of what, I don’t know – that I’m not wealthy enough, cool enough, or that I couldn’t compete well enough . .. . something like that.
In the modest Mayan villages there was more of a feeling of people helping each other out.
I was unable to write yesterday because my mini laptop/netbook developed a connection problem at the more Americanized hotel where we are staying. Ironic, isn’t it?
Today, I’m in a noisy internet cafe with kids playing on a pinball machine and a slightly sticky mouse. That’s OK, at least I can communicate with you today.
Yesterday, we scourged the huge Coba ruin, to find something I could not find last year – the stela with the Long Count Calendar Date of 41.9 billion billion billion years into the future. I think we found it.
This is an important stela because it proves that the Mayan Long Count Calendar does not end on December 21, 2012, if the ancient Maya carved a date 41.9 billion billion billion years into the future. Furthermore, it proves that the ancient Maya did not believe the world would end in 2012.
Today, we were in Tulum, the gorgeous Caribbean seaside ruin, to find and videotape images of Itzamna. This time, I’m sure these are actual images of the son of the creator god, Hunab K’u. Many Tulum guides brought tourists to the place that Victor Olalde our Chichen Itza friend and guide, had told us would be there.
I am feeling pretty good. At last, I know for sure, that I have an image of Itzamna, the old wise prophet.
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading
Last night, we visited our friend Victor Olalde. He had been our guide in Chichen Itza a year ago. He always knows a lot and shares with us.
I’m looking for an image of Izamna, the Maya equivalent of Christ – son of the creator god, Hunab K’u. Victor said we would find the image carved on the east wall of the Nunnery building beyond the Observatory at the Chichen Itza ruins.
We woke early, checked out of the hotel and headed to the ruins. it was strange to walk along the entrance path and NOT see any craft vendors. Some were setting their stalls up but none approached us to buy their wares. It felt good.
We knew, from our Moon handbook, that the Nunnery Building would be a long walk on this huge site, which is traditionally known as Itzamna’s ceremonial center.
We finally got to the building and saw the carving over the doorway just as Victor had said. Only a couple of German tourists shared the space with us. I set up my video camera on its tripod so I would be sure to get the image without any camera movement.
After a couple of minutes, an ancient Mayan guard turned up and told me I could not use a tripod. So, I took the camera off the tripod, telescoped the tripod legs and took the rest of my footage. The old guard also said the image was not Itzamna. I don’t know who to believe – Victor or the old guard.
We also quickly took footage to illustrate information I’d learned in the archives of Hacienda Chichen yesterday – that August Le Plongeon had excavated the Platforma de Venus. We also photographed and videotaped the chac mool that I believe Alice Le Plongeon, his wife, found with her psychic powers. Did I tell you that Alice also had memories of Atlantis and that was one of the reasons the Le Plongeons were in Chichen Itza . . . because they thought the site had an association with the lost continent.
At 10, we had an appointment with Jose at Hacienda Chichen. Miriam is considering being a volunteer with local Maya people for a month or so, which the Hacienda arranges. Jose is not only an elder-in-training, but also the head of their volunteer program.
He told us that he is presently too young to be consider as an elder. You can only be an elder after the age of 52.
Jose took us to his village where we saw children in the local school, the room where they ate and the infirmary associated with the school. The school meal area has been improved by Belisa Barancache, the “keeper” of Hacienda Chichen.
I loved the beautiful children’s inquisitive eyes. The little ones crowded around the back of the video camera to see the moving image being recorded.
My favorite part of the tour with Jose was a visit to a very traditionally Maya village in which women, in a business cooperative, were making the beautifully embroidered traditional white dresses called huiptil on sewing machines outside under the protection of a roof of a building in the village center. They spoke in Mayan. I asked to take their “photographia . . . OK?” They nodded.
I got some great pictures of some lovely women. I feel so happy to have seen the women – about a dozen of them – drawing the patterns on the cloth and then embroidering the design in bright colors on their sewing machines.
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading
I sit tapping on the keyboard beide the beautifully lighted pool at Dolores Alba Chichen Itza hotel after a very fulfilling day.
Today, I met and interviewed on videotape the owner of the Hacienda Chichen. Belisa Barancanche, who calls herself the “keeper” of the 300 hectare ecologically preserved area, described her respect of the Maya and all they have to offer us.
Her family have owned the Hacienda Chichen for three generations. The Hacienda was originally built with stones from Mayan temples by the Spanish in the 1500s. During the 1800s, it housed such impressive Chichen Itza explorers as the Le Plongeons. In the 1920s, the Carnegie Institute made the Hacienda their home.
I had read that Alice Le Plongeon had told workers where to dig in the dirt to find a certain chac moll statue. I did not know, but learned today from Belisa, that Alice Le Plongeon was a talented psychic. She remembered having been in Chichen Itza during its heyday, which is why she could tell workers exactly where to dig for certain artifacts.
One of my personal heroines, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, a wonderful artist who drew sketches of what the ruins looked like while the ancient Maya lived in them, also lived at the Hacienda. Tatiana also made important breakthroughs in deciphering the meaning of the mysterious Mayan glyphs.
Belisa had many wonderful stories to tell. Her husband, Bruce, who is an American, is devoted to making the lands ecologically sustainable, for example, purifying the waste water of the hotel to be used on fields growing animal feed.
Hacienda Chichen is adjacent to the official ruinas Chichen Itza. A private entrance leads from the hotel grounds, which used to be used by archeologists staying there. Although the Hacienda grounds are separated from the official ruins, there are also many ruins on the hotel property.
Belisa has made part of the grounds available to Mayan elders to perform their sacred ceremony. This is where I attended the Equinox ceremony yesterday. She said that the government will not also the Elders at the actual official ruin site.
I felt very happy to have the opportunity to meet and talk with Belisa and Bruce. Here is a link to the a site with information about the Hacienda, the Mayan Elders, archeologist, ecologicaly sustainability and much, much more . . . http://www.yucatanadventure.com.mx.
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading
I know I said we were going to the ruins at Chichen Itza today for the big March 21st event. However, this morning I had the opportunity to attend a traditional Spring Equinox ceremony presided over by Mayan elders.
I felt afraid that my video camera might provide an intrusion in the sacred ceremony. However, when the grey-haired elder saw me, he asked that I tape the ceremony. I felt so happy to be of use to him.
It involved a walk into nature where five ceiba trees were planted – one for each of the cardinal directions and one in the center. I wish I could convey the mystical fragrance of the copal that was burned throughout the ceremony.
After the elder ceremoniously planted the trees, he continued with the second half of the event by smudging all of us with the fragrant smoke and then we were brushed with a small branch of green leaves dipped in water. The water splashed against my face to my surprise. The elder also brushed our torso and limbs.
Finally, we were given liquids to drink in gourds. One liquid contained the bark of the ceiba tree, cinnamon, honey, and purified water. I did not get the second drink because they ran out of it but Miriam did. She said it was made out of corn and water. Corn is very important to the Maya.
When we returned to the hotel, and after lunch, we were so tired that we slept all afternoon. I assume we had received a healing and our bodies were processing the changes. It had been important that we were in the sun and heat so that we were sweating during the ceremony.
During the event, I felt so moved that at times I was almost in tears even though I could not understand a word that was said since the event was in Mayan. I felt so grateful and full of love for the elder who was the leader of the ceremonies. There was also one man who kept feeding the clay burner containing the copal. He also sang at various times. Two men blew on conch shells whenever a ceiba tree was planted. Another man played hypnotically on a hollow log drum.
After the ceremony, I asked, through a translator, if I could ask the elder about 2012. He graciously accepted and told me his understanding of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for all of us.
It wasn’t only the healing that kept us from the event at Chichen Itza. Most of the afternoon was overcast. Clouds filled most of the sky. In the end, we awoke from our afternoon sleep just as the sun broke through the clouds at 5 pm, the time of the light on the serpent. It lasted for five minutes and then it began to rain.
When we drove to the restaurant for dinner, we were amazed at the number of people pouring out of the Chichen Itza ruins. Not only were they walking three abreast on the shoulders of the road, but an overflow parking area had been created where over a dozen buses were parked. It must have been crazy in there, just as a tour guide had said when we saw the light on the serpent yesterday. We were fortunate to have seen the light pattern on the side of the serpent for over 30 minutes yesterday.
Love and blessings,
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading
We are in Merida. And, my, what an adventure John had to get here.
My experience was relatively simple. I simply got lost in the Mexico City airport, could not find anyone who could adequately understand my English to give me proper directions, ended up outside the airport, had to go through security again,almost missed immigration, and got to my gate just at EXACTLY the right time to walk straight onto the plane!
When I got to Merida, I found a Taxi stand outside the airport building – something new, you pay before you get in the taxi – remembered to get my “recebo,” was soooooo grateful that in the darkness of the early evening I had a taxi because I would have never otherwise found the hotel which was down a very narrow one-way street after a harrowing half hour drive through very crowded streets and cars and trucks jutting out into traffic and loads of pedestrians on the sidewalks and crossing the streets.
On top of all that, you would have never even known there was a hotel at the spot where the taxi stopped. No neon lighted sign. No big painted sign. Only a very discreet awning with three inch high letters saying, “hotel” and engraved on the window glass, “Dolores Alba.”
As I entered the lobby, I first saw a striking reproduction of a self-portrait of Freida Kohla, the great Mexican artist. She looked gorgeous dressed in a red dress with her hand brushed tentatively on her neck with gorgeous red flower on her head. I have seen the movie about Frieda, loved it and felt instantly at home when I saw this painting.
However, Frieda was a strange internally distressed human being, fluttering between bi-sexuality, angry with the infidelities of her fellow-artists husband, and tortured by a tragic bus accident that left her crippled and in great pain for most of her life. Her self-portraits, with her black single eyebrows staring back at me, felt slightly disturbing.
My feelings were not unfounded because John should have been waiting for me at Dolores Alba and he was no where to be found. He was supposed to fly into Cancun at about 1:00 p.m., rent a car, and drive to Merida. We would meet at Dolores Alba in Merida and would be on the same schedule the rest of the trip. Where was he?
After I checked in and showered, he still had not arrived. I was very hungry but felt too tired to walk the “three block and one over or five blocks in the other direction” to find an open restaurant in the darkness. Furthermore, I felt that if I left the hotel, John might arrive and I could miss him.
I decided to buy a package of “japonais” flavored coated peanuts in the vending machine, buy a bottle of water – made the mistake of starting to brush my teeth before I remembered to use only bottled water – felt I was too tired to go out so, after standing outside the hotel for a while hoping John might drive the busy narrow street without obvious hotel markings and flag him down.
He did not drive by. I had half the package of peanuts in my room, drank some “agua purificado” from the bottle, brushed my teeth with the same water and decided that wherever John was, I needed to get my sleep to better look for him, if he did not turn up, the next morning.
I reminded myself that John is a very hardy individual and has survived retying ropes to his beloved sailboat during hurricane Isabel, was lost in Paris for five hours while I waited for him to pick me up and because my intuitiion was working at a full ability “knew” he was lost on the circular and triangular Parisian streets so left my luggage with the concierge and went for lunch at a nearby bistro.
The long and the short of it was that I turned the a/c on in my room and fell asleep.
A wakened to hear tapping sounds on the door. John’s voice whispered, “Carol, it’s me.”
He’d made it. I shuffled to the door. It was him!
My first thought was, “What time is it?” Isn’t it strange what you think of to say first. Not, “Thank God, you made it,” or “Darling, darling!” It was obvious he’d made it and obvious I missed him since we were hugging.
“3 AM,” he said.
He told me that his plane, out of Miami, had turned back after being one hour in the air. Later, the co-pilot explained that the windshield of the plane had developed a crack and they had to turn back.
In the end, he was delayed by seven hours arriving in Cancun.
I am really proud of myself that I did not go into a warp-drive panic. Maybe my intuition was working in spite of how tired and exhausted I felt from a day flying from Richmond to Dallas to Mexico City and finally to Merida.
More on John’s adventures driving here and finding the hotel later.
Carol Chapman
Copyright (c) 2009 Carol Chapman
Continue reading
This time, when I’m in the Yucatan, I plan to be at Chichen Itza during the amazing spring Equinox event when sunlight makes a diagonal pattern on the side of the stone serpent whose body rises up the side of the Pyramid of Kukulcan.
Continue reading
Since the December 21, 2012 date comes from a translation of Mayan glyphs, I believe it is important to find out what Maya people say about 2012. Here’s an excerpt of a letter from Mayan Elder Hunbatz Men of the Itza tradition in northern Yucatan:
We the Mayans who have not been cultured by the Western
Culture do not agree with all the negative things our sacred
calendars have been involved in.
Mayan Elders Speak about 2012 – Authors of Idiots Guide to 2012
Continue reading