Conquest

Sunday 31st January

After Chichi market I wanted to visit two nearby places which were – are – central in the Spanish conquest of this part of the Americas, the subjugation of the Mayas and the preservation of the Mayan creation myth.

In 1524, Pedro de Alvarado was sent by Hernán Cortés to conquer the southern highlands of what would become Guatemala. This area was home to a number of different Mayan tribes, dominant among them being the K'ichee' who had themselves conquered neighbouring tribes and had their capital on a ridge. The capital was a medium-sized Mayan city called K'umarcaaj and now known by the Nahuatl name of Utatlan. Not as grand as Tikal or Copan but still comprising stone stepped pyramids, open plazas, a ball court and elite residences. It was a flourishing city at the time of the Spanish conquest. It had only been settled about 1400 on a ridge surrounded on three sides by steep, pine-clad ravines. The Spanish knew they would have to bring the K'ichee' under their domination if the conquest of this area was to be successful.

The Spanish enlisted the help of a neighbouring tribe and attacked the K'ichee' who they defeated in battle. The K'ichee' kings then invited them to the capital under truce. The Spanish arrived, kidnapped the two K'ichee' kings and burnt them alive at the stake in the central plaza, beneath the three temples dedicated to the gods credited with creating the world and the Mayan people - Tohil, Avilix and K'ucumatz.


Utatlan today with the remains of ceremonial fires

I wanted to see K'umarcaaj. Today it is a small, unrestored archaeological site open to the public. My reaction was one of deep sadness. Much of this the result of the barbarous killings enacted here. Part was also to do with the feel of the site today. It has little money to fund its care and it appears as a cross between a neglected park and a neglected recreation ground. Stubby grass, a bare concrete or limestone stucco floor to the central plaza, electricity poles and burning fires reek of desolation. Mayan people coming to the site to hold ceremonies in a place still sacred to them, and perhaps to commemorate the acts that happened here, make the fires along with burning incense and candles.


Shrine carved into the crumbling remains of the temple dedicated to Tohil

Another reason for the bare appearance of the city is that the Spaniards robbed most of the stone from Utatlan to build the Catholic church in the nearby ‘new town’ of Santa Cruz de Quiche. The white-painted church towers over the town.


The church of Santa Cruz de Quiche, built of stone robbed from Utatlan

Back to Chichi where a significant event occurred in 1702 that was to help preserve a significant aspect of K'ichee', and Mayan, culture. A group of K'ichee' bravely showed Friar Francisco Ximénez of the convent at Chichi a copy of the K'ichee' Popol Vuh, or tribal council book, in 1702. I say bravely because the Catholic priests burnt nearly all Mayan books or codexes as anti-Christian. Instead of following the inquisitional orthodoxy, Ximénez copied the original he was shown from the Mayan hieroglyphs to Latin script. The Popol Vuh recorded the K'ichee' creation myth featuring hero twins and a history of the K'ichee' tribe. Without the friar’s act of academic interest all of this would have been lost to the flames. The Popol Vuh is now the key document for understanding Mayan cosmology, creation mythology and the immediately pre-Colombian history of the Guatemalan highlands.


Mayans and tourists mingle in the cloisters of the convent in Chichi

Getting There
From Chichicastenango get a chicken bus to Santa Cruz. It is only about 30 minutes. The bus arrives at the Santa Cruz bus terminal. Minibuses to Utatlan - signed Las Ruinas on their front - leave from the central park. Either take a tuk tuk and the driver will drop-you off at the correct spot or walk north for four blocks and west for two. It is about 10 minutes by minibus to Utatlan. They take you right to the entrance. To return to Santa Cruz go down to the main road, about a five minute walk, and wait. The minibuses are frequent and it is easy to visit Utatlan and return to Chichi in an afternoon.

Chichicastenango

Sunday 26th January

The place with the unpronounceable name. Well almost, it has taken me nearly 4 months and a visit to the place itself to learn to pronounce it correctly. It was always that 'cas' in the middle that threw me each time. Now I'm fluent and ready to take on saying town names such as Chimaltenango and Quetzeltenango - no problem!


Chichi market

Thousands of Mayans from the surrounding area and dozens of tourists shipped in from Antigua and Pana come to Chichi every Thursday and Sunday for the massive market. It is a riot of colour as most of the women and some of the men still wear traditional handwoven clothes, with designs differing from one village to the next. The market fills the main square and church steps and comes in four parts - the covered fruit and vegetable market, the main part of the square and surrounding streets selling everything from ceremonial incense to cheap clothes via hardware and live turkeys, the flower market on the church steps and finally the market for the tourists selling textiles, masks and woodcarvings. The first three are almost solely for Mayans and the core of the square are a group of cheap eating places.


Chichi Textiles

We tourists really only drift around the edges of this temporary village even though it is one of the main tourist destinations in Guate. It never felt like a zoo when I was there as there are just so many Mayan people doing what they are there to do. And with the place being so packed they don't hold much quarter trying to get around static tourists looking confused or taking photos.

The whole market is extremely exciting and dynamic and if you can find a spot to one side to watch it, it is mesmerising.


Better than Tesco anyday.

One of the main events of Sunday is morning mass in the Catholic church. Except this church integrates traditional Mayan rituals with Catholicism. Elders from the town and surrounding area attend on mass, the priest reminds them all that whatever way they worship it is Christ they come for, then after he finishes people light candles and murmur on 12 square altars laid along the aisle from the front to the back of the church. Many people also burn incense before entering the church to bless the spirit of the church itself.

Getting There
I went to Chichi by chicken bus from Antigua. You get the buses from behind the market. You first take a bus to Chimeltenango, then a bus to Los Encuentros and then the final bus to Chichi. There was no wait at any of the changes and the buses are quick! The final stretch is a half-hour ride up and down steep roads with tight zig-zag bends that the drivers take at speeds Michael Schumacher would find difficult to match while the conductors lean out of the door shouting at every other vehicle to get out of their way. The bus ride is an experience in itself.

Accommodation
I stayed in the basic and cheap Posada Belen on one side of town. The balconies overlook a wooded ravine on one side and the town on the other. It is nothing fancy but rooms are large. The shared shower had hot water two days out of three.


Mayan elders attending mass


Blessing the spirit of the church. Note the Harley Davidson jacket!

Antigua

View through the Arch to Volcano Agua

Antigua is a fantastic old historic Spanish colonial city. Low buildings, flat, bright colours, cobbled streets, big doors, looming cathedrals, grid lay-out. Plus plenty of abandoned churches and buildings left unrepaired from the earthquake in the 1770s.


A typically impressive Antiguan door

Plus a plethora of cafes, restaurants and bars - many set in delightful courtyards fringed with arched cloisters and brimming with flowering plants. It is a food and drink delight set in stylish surroundings. I made the most of the great numbers of delicious cakes on offer. It is a place to wander from old building to old building, a tea, coffee or hot chocolate in a cafe and to drop in to a gallery or museum. We stopped by one art exhibition opening, found a great open air courtyard restaurant/bar with a great band, and explored the ruined cathedral which is Escher like in the way its surviving arches and their shadows intersect. It is like Barcelona without the modern bits.


A typical Antiguan street

Add to this three volcanoes looming overhead, one still active and periodically emitting smoke, for a very special town indeed.



We stayed in a beautiful room in a casa which was way over our budget but we can save a bit later. It was worth it for the rooftop terrace - great views and yoga space - nice rooms and quiet. No drunken backpackers talking rubbish in an adjacent courtyard until late into the night. My we're getting old!


La Merced

We were very close to the awesomely ornate La Merced church who's bells rang out for mass at 6 - both in the morning and at night. Outside was a great place to buy pupusas at the weekend - cheese filled maize tortillas with salad, refried beans, guacamole and chilli.


Taking your bicycle to mass

The other main standing church is the cathedral by the park.


Cathedral Traffic Lights


Cathedral Saint and Door

There are also well-used public pilas in the city. These are washing stations for clothes. Most villages and towns have, or had them, though more and more people have their own at home. Even the Antigua pilas are stylish!



I would happily return to Antigua to live for a few months and spend plenty of time walking around the streets taking photographs, going to see live bands and putting on weight from eating too many cakes.

Ceramics and Glass, Saints and Drugs

Santo Domingo, Antigua, Guatemala

The 5 star Santo Domingo hotel occupies the site of a former 16C monastery and college complex, ruined elegantly in the 1700s by the vast earthquake that brought Antigua to its
World Heritage Site status.

The hotel buildings are worth exploring for their loveliness, quite apart form the several museums and art exhibitions scattered among the ruins and displays of sculptural and architectural items discovered in the excavations and partial restorations of the compex.

Go for a day, and plan to take lunch and several tea beaks, as well as time to sit amongst the various gardens, contemplating said items, or resting your eyes and legs, while listening to the quiet ecclesiastical music that adds to the overall aesthetic of the place.

Highlights?
I really loved the strikingly creative permanent exhibition of PreColombian ceramics juxtaposed with contemporary glass art. Literally juxtaposed. Each well-lit display case houses 1-3 PreColombian pieces alongside 1-3 modern glass pieces in close thematic associations, so the pieces speak to each other aesthetically and sometimes humourously, sometimes in a rather aweful way. I lingered there 3 times, and each time saw aspects in fresh ways. It’s an innovative concept (as far as I know) and it works.

The venue itself. It is a magnificent venue, tastefully attended to and dressed.

The music. Nice.

Other things to see and do there:
I’m always a sucker for historic pharmacies. Something rather nice about all those alchemical bottles and jars. We saw a photographic exhibition: Yo-Yo of portraits and self-portraits; an archaeological museum that had 2 stone pieces and a number of painted cartoons and caricatures (????); a great little exhibition of regional crafts and arts; various crypts, some housing friars’ bones and another a well-preserved Colonial altar triptych from the monastery’s founder period; and chose to forego the Colonial art museum, it being a rather grey rainy day on which to expose ourselves to yet more tortured piety!

So tonight
Looking forward to dinner with Cuban jazz by musicians who look as though they should be old enough to be pretty well-seasoned experts... let’s hope so!

Antigua is endless. And yet...

I go a bit fed up with Antigua earlier this week. As we took a fume filled journey towards an active volcano we climbed, and lived to tell the tale, I had a surprise yearning for a day out in the Peak District. The Peak District is BEAUTIFUL, clean, clear, relatively quiet with good clear air and huge views. In the Peaks, there are many terrains, but characteristically one can be among boulders in sheep-nibbled grasses with trees and probably streams or a reservoir somewhere around.

I realised that apart from our afternoon adventure to the hot waterfall a couple of weeks ago it was before New Year we were last in a rural place, rising, walking all day and going to bed with no transport involved - a pure Day Out in the Country. That’s unheard of for green spaces girl and even this extraordinarily wonderful cultural town where one is astounded by fineness at every turn of the head could not quite make up that hole in the soul.

Hole repaired by an amble up a volcano to the red hot molten lava flows, disconcertingly warm clinker underfoot, with occasional blasts of heat from cracks in the ground. Back to Antigua with renewed relish for the juicy treats on offer.

Thursday: a reccie of Santo Domingo reveals more than a day’s worth of museums, art and 16C remains and rebuilt hotel complex to explore. I enjoy a taster, then meet Bill for the Escheresque remains of the 3rd cathedral, destroyed by the 1700s earthquake; spend a couple of hours in a garden centre cafe (ring church bell for service) tidying up our image and text files for Child Aid, the charity for whom Bill’s been doing photography shoots with me taking interviews with beneficiaries and staff of all ages and backgrounds; move on to a massage with a young young 70 year old with respectful manners and good strong hands, nice massage Deet; wander awhile, and return in time to go to dinner with John, the country director of Child Aid, his righthand woman, Kristen, plus Nancy McGirr, ex Reuters staff photojournalist who’s been running fotokids here for 16 years and Sidney late teens daughter of a US Child Aid director, she’s newly moved to Antigua to make a life here as musician, artist and non-profit sector worker.

www.fotokids.org check it out!



We leave dinner fairly early. John and Kristen have a 4.30 am start to lead a training day in another part of the country. They have spent the day unloading more of a consignment of several thousand Spanish language children’s books to distribute among their schools and libraries and making up handouts and book packs to distribute to the trainees, who will be learning more about how to share books with children, as part of Child Aid’s successful and carefully structured training package. After the day’s training, John flies directly to Mexico for another work assignment.

After dinner, we go with Sidney to some of her favourite music venues, checking in with various sets of her musical friends, from young men playing Latino protest movement influenced sets in the Rainbow bookshop and cafe, to a fantastic outfit of high-energy happy-vibe expert musicians making people happy happy happy in the delightful courtyard restaurant of La Pena.

A good day out in Antigua.

Books are Life: day 1 with child aid

Sitting in the early morning sun overlooking the roofscape of Antigua de Guatemala, a cobbled celebration of the aesthetic drive, I am overlooked by volcanoes on every side, occasional spurts of smoke from one, forest covering the dormant remains of others, and third so high, it is only some days we see the picture perfect classic dipped cone of the crown.

Below,the town is waking, the market filling with Mayan women in traditional dress come to sell fruits, vegetables and fresh flowers, alongside the nearly branded clothes, steaming bread and tamales and stalls full of exercise books and plastic containers. Within the historic town, the sun is creeping down the many many remains of conquistadorial architecture that punctuate in their more or less elegantly dishevelled forms the lines of colour washed streets, castillion doors and ironwork the norm among Antigua’s houses.

And within the buildings a townful of people dedicated to doing things beautifully and enjoying all that is good in cafe society, the arts, fine foods and the pleasures of friends and family is getting underway.

Yesterday was a landmark day for the privilege of being involved in some truly useful and specialist volunteering for a project (or set of projects) buzzing with life and enthusiasm , rightly proud of a great track record, and clearly focused on strategising and implementing well-planned developments in the future.

Bill and I are working as a team to take photographs and interviews with beneficiaries of Child Aid’s involvement in books and education programmes in Guatemala. These will then go as a slideshow of personal stories on the revamped charity web site, to inform web readers and hopefully inspire donors and volunteers. Want a good story? One of their fairly low paid ex-office workers inherited some money and gave $100,000 to the organisation on the basis of what she had seen of their work, with a promise of the same amount next year if it seemed to be well spent. That feels quite a testimony.

The day: it was a huge privilege to spend a day at a Montessori style preschool in a dusty local brick making town on the Pan American highway, interviewing teachers, students, the school director, parents and other staff, including an ex student now becoming a teacher herself. We were told lots about how the school and an associated grant scheme benefits local families and create hope for the future. Most of these children will not have to make bricks in cottage industries at $200 a month, or work in vast textiles sweatshops producing expensive clothes very cheaply without toilets, meal breaks, or security in an industry where contraception is compulsory for women workers and rape is frequent.

These children, we heard over and over again, enter their schooling with already enquiring minds, a love of learning and the self motivation and self sufficiency to thrive educationally, even when the schools themselves may be struggling with lack of resources , or the illiterate parents, who want so much for their children to pursue their studies, become professionals and escape the poverty trap, are perhaps unable to support them in their hours of home work with much more than encouragement and simple basic meals.

Getting photos and interviews with 3 to 6 years olds was quite a challenge! But we both found our way in and gradually came to ways of sensing how the other was doing and therefore which people to focus on. Kristen, Child Aid’s superlatively friendly and lively volunteer-turned-employed worker, got into doing a double act with me, so that between us we were able to keep reasonably natural conversations going, and take notes on the interviews. We heard some fabulous stories, and as I’ll be spending plenty of the weekend writing those up for Child Aid, I’ll not go into them deeply here.

We also narrowly missed photoing the unloading of a shipment of 25,000 new books in Spanish for the various libraries Child Aid supports here, all brought in by arrangement with publishers remaindering books in Spanish, so that library stock can be planned and of good quality.

Copan Ancient Mayan City

Copan

I visited the ruins of Copan on 8 days during our stay at Copan Ruinas. Somewhat confusingly the modern town is known as Copan Ruinas, though its real name is San Jose de Copan, rather than the archaeological site which is known as Las Ruinas. I’ll just use Copan for the archaeological site and ‘the Town’ for, well, the town from now on.


Stella H

Copan is the municipal park of Mayan cities compared to Tikal’s jungle fastness. The site is compact and the main area comprises a beautifully kept level lawn surrounded by trees that are reached by low yet very, very long flights of stone steps. This is the Gran Plaza that stretches north of the Acropolis. Perhaps the biggest comparison with anything in Britain is with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.


Stella N

For it is across this lawn that Copan’s biggest contribution to world culture or tourist attraction, depending on how you view these monuments, are arranged. These are ten massive stone sculptures of the Kings of Copan. Such sculptures, known as stelae, are a feature of Mayan religious and socio-political art. A stela depicts a king or major city event and is inscribed with Mayan hieroglyphs that convey the important person or event the stela was made and erected for. There is always an altar in front.


Stella H

The stelae of Copan are one of the biggest and best-surviving Mayan groups anywhere. Their real importance is that deep relief carving was not taken to such a high artform anywhere else in the Mayan world. This is in part due to the volcanic stone that is hard when first quarried then hardens on exposure to air to create a very long-lasting rock. Nearly all other Mayan cities are on limestone and the carving never reached the same depth of relief or survived the elements for long.


Is that a rabbit?

There are stelae throughout the whole of Copan but it is in the Gran Plaza that they are closely arranged. Seven of the ten were erected and so depict one king – known as 18 Rabbit because of the lupine resemblance of one hieroglyph. Over a number of years he created a procession route for public ceremonies that is now the de facto ancient sculpture park. Each is about twice the height of a person and bare the king dressed in religious costumes tailored full of cosmological meanings. It looks like he is tweaking his nipples while blessed out on a Class A drug. In fact he is holding a staff across his chest from the ends of which exit the sun deity in various anthropomorphic forms. His face is below a mask, which on each stelae represents a different god, and is surrounded by other deities. One has two stylised macaw beaks, which some earlier ‘scholar’s took for elephant trunks and evidence for cross-Pacific communication.


Ball Court

The other two main features of the plaza are the ball court and Hieroglyphic Stairway. The ball game was played throughout ancient MesoAmerica and involved teams using their hips, chests and shoulders to throw a solid rubber ball onto sloping stone sides with the aim of scoring through a hoop while watched from above by the nobility. The game re-enacted Mayan cosmology such as the passage of the sun through the Underworld and winning or losing teams either forfeited jewellery or their lives in sacrifice to the gods. The Stairway comprises glyphs written on the individual blocks of the steps and is the longest piece of ancient Mayan text.

South of the Plaza des Estella rises the stone Acropolis, an artificial mountain aligned on the cardinal points. Here is the heart of kingship and government in Copan. Two raised plazas hosted more private ceremonies for nobility and the nine governors of the regions commanded by the city. All nine governors and the king would meet regularly in the Popol Nah, or Mat House, Copan’s town hall. It is called a Mat House because it was were leaders brought their mats to sit on in front of the person who had the right to sit on the very front mat. This form of council was the basic elder-led administration in any community and was replicated in Copan’s Popol Nah at the city-state level.


Macaws on a King

One of the delights of Copan is the group of ten or more semi-tame macaws that hang out near the ticker office and occasionally erupt into the plaza in a riot of colour and calls. They did this twice while I was there, once sitting on top of a stelae to search around and preen each other.

My week of photography at Copan was greatly enabled by Rene Viel, a French archaeologist who lives in Copan, and Oscar Cruz, the manager of the archaeological park. Oscar granted me a week's free access to the site and two museums as a result of Rene requesting access for me. Thank you to you both.

All-in-all, it was a very enjoyable week during which I got to know the personalities of Copan and hopefully have brought them out in the photographs.

Antigua

We are now in Antigua Guatemala, the third colonial Spanish capital of Guatemala before yet another earthquake forced a move to the capital´s present geologically stable location in the 1700s. The town is all single storey Hispanic colonial buildings and cobbled streets with views of two volcanoes.

We´re looking forward to exploring the historic buildings, cafe culture and volunteering for the PROBIGUA literacy project by taking photographs and doing interviews of people who have benefitted from their support for promotional use.

We´re also hiking up a live volcano on Saturday!

Hot hot hot!

Sunday began with yoga, moved into an adventure and ended in cocktails, via enormous ice creams... how lucky are we?!

Rumours of hot springs got us to the bus stop with friend Paco at the crack of 10.30, just in time to await the 11 o’clock bus to the hot springs, which may or may not exist... we shall never know, having believed the 11.10 bus people who took us as a special favour at a special rate on the outstanding hour or so’s journey up and up and up through the mountains beyond Copan to the Jaguar Resort spa... ah I hadn’t realised it was POSH!

Well it doesn’t have to be! A bit shocked to discover it was big quids for the lush forest spa, or mini Ps for the big paddling pools? small dunking pools? set in two concrete holes, we decided to think for a while and investigate....

Oh JOY! Unable to get through a locked gate to a wooden river bridge (to the posh bit... they’re no fools!), we investigated the river bed and were immediately struck by the clouds of steam coming off a nearby waterfall...could it be? YES it sure as heck WAS!

A scaldingly hot waterfall gushing into the shallow cold river and guided around by boulders and stones among natural cold pools, was our HOME for the next 3 hours or more. Bill and Paco as immovable as lizards basking in the heat, even as hunger called. Lucky for them I cannot stay still for so long and totally took to the concentration and natural reflexology treatment of walking barefoot across the stony river bed, hunting for prey, tickling fish and scaling the heights of coconut trees for their lunch (oh OK... I popped across to get the peach juice and picnic we’d brought). I saw the inner struggle betrayed in their faces as they balanced hunger against the recent arrival of a large group and their sheer dogged determination NOT to lose their prime places in the pool of perfection.

Getting home was a hoot. Following our Rough Guide’s once again dodgy advice, we were on the road to hitch a ride back to town no later than 3.30 (just as rather a lot of people were arriving... did we misunderstand?). Was he drunk or just very very old and possibly not too well? A guy passed us, muttered and waved. Within 10 minutes a perky gaucho with the look of a man who knows he can’t lose approached us asking, ‘what will you give me to take you back to Copan?’ Turns out he had his own sense of what we SHOULD give him and we were not in a strong position for negotiations! WHAT A FANASTIC RIDE!!!!! That along with some of the boat rides we did around Caye Caulker contribute to all time favourite days. In the back of dodgy red pickup, driven at Formula One speeds down and down and down and round and round and round the mostly existent (if wholly unpaved) mountain roads, never feeling unsafe and always courteously slowing for river crossings or unavoidable big holes. I had so much FUN! Looked as happy as the scrofulous dog we saw tearing into a used nappy from the bin the other night (she’s sadly not long for this world, I believe).

All this after a slow start, as plans were laid, deals were cut, notes changed hands and a party was set up with drop offs and pick ups carefully scheduled. Clearly the deal was: get these tourists into Copan ASA(bloody)P, LOAD the truck with booze from the proceeds, come back as fast as the hills will allow and the whole village can be drinking by 7. Everyone we passed got a toot and a wink and gave a knowing wave back and didn’t it just work out well for all parties involved!

(With possibly one exception... when the guy approached us about a lift, he was carrying a bag of vegetables and a cake. It came all the way to Copan with us and God only knows if it ever arrived back at his house. I imagine his Senora upon his return... ’I ask you to do just one simple job....’)

Macaw Magic

Blue Macaw Veil

Copan has been characterized by unreliable bowels and lots of work in between rest times. Time for a bit of magic! The Macaw Mountain bird park is set in a beautiful river valley under a steep mountain just outside Copan town. It’s a steep scenic walk to get there and a great day out when you’re there.

At one point the owner came and chatted. He moved all 90 birds from Roatan in the Bay Islands a few years ago (they are up to 150 birds now). Apparently they just went to sleep as soon as the plane engines began and woke up upon landing... much like children, and not quite the Dr Doolittle ark I’d envisaged.

The Macaws, toucans, parrots, owls and lorikeets in the park are all donated by people who find them injured, who shoot or catapult them off their crops and then bring them in injured, or who no longer want them as pets, or, wonderful to hear, by people who visit the park, realise their own homes and tiny cages are just not right for their pet birds and then bring them in to be cared for better.


Keel Bill

Some are breeding, so they must be happy, and all seem to have great personalities. The open air area is a riot (quite literally) and it’s clear that macaws especially just LOVE to stay in touch. One reason people bring birds in is because they talk incessantly and drive their people potty. Another is that some species are so intelligent they make overdemanding pets (the mind boggles! Kant before seed?)

My favourite intelligent bird was the small red and yellow fronted toucan who played with us for a good 40 minutes through the mesh of his enclosure (or her? she was VERY bright). She seemed to have a driving curiosity to KNOW, just to explore these new aspects of her environment. There was no sense of stress or of her mistaking Bill’s bag straps for food... it was just something new to explore and understand.

The magnificent red and blue macaws so beloved of the ancient Mayan people and indeed all ancient Mesoamericans (there was a roaring long-distance trade in feathers for centuries) are clearly necessarily social. They communicate almost nonstop in their unlovely squawks, mate for life (up to 100 years in the safety of captivity... how cool that most of those will be remembering things when I am long dead) and LOVE a good mutual preen, one eyes closed in ecstasy under the other’s intimate attentions.


Birds of a Feather

Bath time then food in the open area. I got absorbed in watching each different bird choose. Each feathered person has her own favourites from the maiz, fruit and seeds mixes, and pickiness is de rigeur (all the leftovers are later made available to the wild birds of the valley). I was sniffy about holding the birds - childish and somehow ‘not quite nice’, for the serious appreciater of wildlife. GET OVER IT GIRL! It was great. Their heavy bodies and calming grooming (how they loved my dreads) and I didn’t get pooed upon once. And in any case, if any of these birds stood a chance in the wild they’d be up for gradual release, but most have lived all or most of their lives as pets, and are probably just glad for birdy company, space and a stimulating environment now.



Q How do know when your parrot is stressed?
A ... it’s not a joke... They self-harm and pull out their own feathers.

There’s a special rehabilitation space for birds suffering from stress. These social birds could not cope with the small spaces and loneliness of their previous lives and need time to adjust, lose their sadness and heal in the unaccustomed company of their fellows. A few sad looking macaws sat aloof from each other with bedraggled feathers, no glorious tails and, I swear it, sadness in their downcast eyes. Happily, one pair seemed to be on the up and hung out nearer each other, even had the odd chat, and were regrowing their tails. So how do you know if they’re better? They stop pulling out their feathers, of course, and then are ready to be happy in a wider company.

Other special treats? Well I would have liked to see the big owls killing live chickens, but they do that at night... more to the owls schedule and less upsetting to the squeamish. The little owls, however, are fluffy bundles of viciousness and look just like the kind of birds you buy from large bins outside service stations that make a noise if you squeeze their tummies. (These would probably eat your thumbs if you squeezed their tummies.) They have false eyes on the back of the head, making them even more like blobs indistinguishable front and back.

Everything about the park is beautifully done and it’s a joy to spend time somewhere put together with such love, care and attention to aesthetic detail... this is clearly someone who did it for the birds, and not as a touristic money spinner. You can even have a swim if you want in a natural pool within the river.

Macaw Majesty

Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

One of many splendid macaws that live in Copan archaeology park. They spend most of the day sitting on a shady fence near the ticket gate then erupt into the wooded and grassed park itself in a racket of calls and a shower of colours. Sometimes they even sit on the monuments.

After seeing these magnificent birds close up flying wild, rather than the sad-looking birds kept in people's restaruants, I can see why some of Copan's rulers took the word macaw as one of their names.

Copan Flat

Copan Flat
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

This is where we are staying in Copan, Honduras, for 2 weeks in January.
Copan Ruinas

The Ancient City

Copan for the New Year

We arrived in the small town of Copan, near to the ancient Mayan city if the same name on the 2nd January. A day of recovery with no public transport was needed on the 1st. Copan is very easy to get to by bus because of the numbers of tourists who visit for the archaeology. Though it rained through the day our first impressions were of a pleasant, small hill town set out on a grid pattern with a wooded park at its heart. The numbers of hotels, tourist restaurants, bars and gringos wandering the streets were a big change compared to Gracias.

A hotel tout took us to a great hotel near the bus station by the name of Hotel Carillo's. A series of rooms were set around a small courtyard with a tiled verandah running around its whole circuit. The room was very clean and the hot water in the shower was really hot. The owner was incredibly helpful and has also provided drinking water and an internet connection. At 200 lempiras a night we certainly recommend it to anyone going to Copan.

Our first missions were to find a place to stay for a couple of weeks (somewhere quiet with a kitchen, hot water and yoga space) and a new laptop for Georgia since the Vaio blew up in Guatemala. Within 3 hours we had found an apartment through the local language school which is where we are now staying and had looked at a second hand Dell laptop. We took the apartment but not the laptop as the next day we found a shop that could get a new Toshiba from nearby San Pedro Sula for the same price within 24 hours. Georgia is now back at work with a working, though much heftier, laptop.

We have also met up again with Paco, the Guatemalan archaeologist from Tilal who is now working at Copan. It is great to see him again because he is a great person and enjoyable to spend time with. Thankfully he shares my belief, discovered on Saturday night while out drinking with him, that anyone found playing Stairway To Heaven, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Brown Eyed Girl or House of the Rising Sun on pan pipe type flute, as well as those listening, need urgent therapy! The mini light show playing across the musician's display of pan pipes for sale really set the whole concert off splendidly.

We'll get some pictures up later. I'm now off the the archaeological park for a reco and first photography for the afternoon (Sunday).

2008 - In With A Bang!

31st Dec 2007 - 1st Jan 2008


The Old Year

We returned by minivan to Gracias on the 31st December hopeful that there would be some public celebration for New Year's Eve.

We were not to be disappointed. The first thing we saw was a massive sound system being unloaded from the back of a lorry and into the courtyard of the town hall. The rig would easily grace a small festival.


2007 gets burnt

We then heard that there would be the burning of the old year further out from the town centre. We wandered along the streets, passing groups of kids throwing firecrackers at each other and passing strangers though were lucky not to be targeted. In a square by a tree we found a 'guy' - the old year - waiting to be burnt. Another sound system was in full swing and locals were waiting around expectantly. A few 'lads' were wandering around with rockets and fireworks searching for places to set them off while another two laid out a barrier around the guy. Then, at Midnight, the guy and the fireworks all went up.


Firecrackers explode from the fire

The old year was aflame within seconds to the crescendo of bangers and under a hail of flowering rockets. It was 15 minutes of loud, bright spectacle. Some of the rockets didn't go straight up, heading just above the heads of the crowd. Kids threw bangers at anyone they could while others held roman candles aloft. The barrier caught fire in an explosion of whizzing fireworks, randomly flying up, sideways, downwards and sending the crowd springing backwards. How everyone laughed when the fireworks had sped past!


No Health & Safety programmes here


Another rocket just misses a family!

On our way home we bumped into a man with a bottle of wine and a plate of food who invited us to the bar he was going to. His name was Walter and he took us to the Kandli cafe, the cool sign of which I had photographed a few days earlier. It is a bar that would grace the streets of Barcelona and we talked and drank with Walter, the bar owner and friends until 2.45am.

Hello 2008!