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Hi everyone, Just a quick note to say that we are headed off early on Wednesday morning on our inland trip. We plan to be gone a month or more. Our first stop will be at the Copan Ruins in Honduras, then we will cross back into Guatemala to visit Esquipulus, Guatemala City, Antigua, Lake Atitlan, Chichicastenango and anything else of interest along the way. If we haven't dawdled too much we will go up into Chiapas in Mexico to visit San Cristobal de las Casas, the Palenque ruins and Villahermosa. Then it will be across Mexico to the East Coast, down to Belize and back to the Rio Dulce. We will be glad to take a break from doing boat chores. We have made only two excursions since our arrival here, both one day trips. The first was to a hot spring that gushed out of a rock and cascaded about 30 feet in a waterfall into a river. It is about an hour away from here by "chicken bus" then a fifteen minute walk on a trail into the jungle. The water is really hot, almost too hot to stand for very long, and there is a strong sulfur smell. The river water is cool, so one can alternately warm up and cool off. Quite delightful. The second trip was to a Mayan site about two hours away called Quirigua. It was built in the late classic period in 725 AD. It was a small settlement ruled by a lesser king, but is remarkable for having the largest stellae of any Mayan site. Stelae are vertical stones with carvings on all four sides. Normally they are up to five or six feet tall, but at Quirigua the largest sticks about 30 feet out of the ground. The stelae are elaborately carved, mostly with images of the king, animals, writing and numbers. The exact date is written on each stela. The Mayans had an elaborate and very accurate calendar and used a number system to base 20. Unlike the Greeks and Romans, the Mayans had the concept of zero. The weather here has been unusual for this time of year. We have had thunderstorms accompanied by torrential rain most days since we got back, although there have been some sunny days. The rain mostly occurs a night and the days have been cooler that is the norm. Today was really cool, the temperature reached only 76 degrees. The well at the marina has been broken, so we have been collecting rain water for our water tanks. It tastes much better than the well water and our consumption has not exceeded the supply. We will check e-mail as we can on our travels. We will not lug the laptop along this time, but rely on Internet Cafes for access. We look forward to hearing news from you but, as always, please no attachments. Also, if you reply to any of our e-mails, please be sure not to include a copy of what we sent to you. Colin and Patricia |
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