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Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Copan. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Copan. Mostrar todas las entradas

lunes, 25 de julio de 2011

The meeting at Copan Ruins

Mayan glyphs is the writinglanguage of the people that once inhabitated this land, and they are thought to be one of the oldest known writingsystems, and highly developed. The writing of the Mayans consists of glyphs for words such as; bird, house, jaguar and so on, and glyphs for syllables enabeling them to express abstracts. Carving their glyphs into stone allowed them to make them 3D so that they could combine 2 or more glyphs to make a sentence or a word.
A stelae of a Jaguar. Jaguars are the highest ranking animals in Mayan beliefsystem.
                                                              Beautiful altar
Overview of the archeological site.
On saturday I visited the Mayan site here in Copan. From the beautiful and peaceful little town it is only 15 min. walk on a beautiful path through lush, green environment, where you can even see some coulorful birds and huge larvaes. The ruins themselves are situated in the middle of the lush, green valley, and though it is hot and humid, it has enough big trees to offer some reliefe from the middaysun. When I came there, some people where about to let loose 5 beautiful big red parrots from a cave where they had been rared to be let loose one day. It was marvelous too see the big georgious birds fly in a well of sparkeling red. They soared up to the tops of the nearest trees and setteled there calling each orher. Two of the birds obiously had formed a bond, and was flying together over our heads. Theese parrots will live for 60years and mate with the same mate through their lifes. When I went inside the archeological site I felt the tingel of excitment in me. The carved stelaes are so beautiful. I don`t think the pictures can do them justice at all, and they are of the best perserved carvings found on this continent. Coming here awakened again my curiosity and sense of adventure. I felt alive and ready to meet the world head on again. All of theese ancient sites do that to me. I feel a deep connection to the land, past and the people, both from the past and present. And I feel I can understand their view of life to some extent. They were surrounded by beautiful nature, dangerous animals and colourful birds. I spent hours at the site. One reason is because I met a young man from Japan who was on the same shuttlebus as me, and then I met him again at the site. We started out talking about Japan, Japaneese food and my favourite drink; green tea cream frappucchino! We ended up discussing 911, the mayans and the difference of the cultures, conspiracy, the power of the media. I asked him about how it is in Japan, and he told me that it is hard to know, because the media is lying a lot, and keeping a lot from the public eye, and also from the international eye. I told him a few mayan legends, stories and facts, which he appreciated, because I made the ruins and the ancients come alive to him, he said. And then we started talking about 2012. Since I started travelling here, I have found people who talk about spirituality and spirits, ancient knowledge, the forbidden, the unknown. People who have a feeling or know that there is something "else". Another conciousness, other dimentions, another knowledge. That there IS true knowledge and that we can access it if we want to. Something more than everything we have been thought through our cultures. We know so little because it is decided for us what is useful for us to know and not. Knowledge of the spiritworld or healing is frown upon, and even laughed at. When I meet a person like this, like this Japaneese, who listened to what I have to say, and who feels it, and respond with the deep knowledge that is burried deep within us all, my crown opens wide open, and I say things that I have no idea where they come from. I just know that it is important. This kind knowledge we far to often are willing to throw away as nonsense, because we want to be liked, we want to be accepted, we want to do the "right thing". And we never speak what we truly feel. I just know that it is the truth from the bottom of my being. I used to believe that there is no higher truth, and that it is different for different people and cultures. Yes, every one of us carry his or her own truth, and acting according to it can never be wrong. But there are also "higher truths". Like the people of Norway know now after the horrible events that took place. One higher truth is LOVE. Hatred and revenge belong to another catagory. Hatred and revenge will never be a higher truth, even if it might be true for some people. But how do they come to that? No one is born hateful and revengeful. No one is born angry or a terrorist. This is something a man or a woman learns. People might say that something is wrong in theese peoples minds when they kill someone. But who is to say what is normal or not when we all acctually can be a "victim" to the that kind of learning? Is claiming mental illness not a way to push away our responsebility to take a good look at what our culture has become. Full of lonely, frustrated and medicated people. Old people without proper care. People who goes from work, then home to their TV sets sending comercials every 5 min. Reminding you that you are nothing but a consumer, and that your value lies in how much you buy. In the meantime we are overstraining our planet, and creating tonns of toxic garbage. Do not forget that for the past 10 years we have been thought to hate and fear muslims, and islam after 9/11. We have learned to fear one little word; terrorism. I have heard it repeated so many times that I am sick of it. They never ever let us forget and live a normal life. Terrorism was /is used as an excuse for so many revengeful and fearful actions against certain groups. Subtle things, like banning the burka in some countries to bombing one of the poorest countries in the world. And now private amercian companies are earning tons of money rebuilding it. If you want to earn money theese days, you bomb a country and then rebuild it. You make the world an unsafe place to be, and then you sell security to the people. In the tradegy that happened in Norway maybe there is a big chance to make a change. We can show the world that we are special and pure. That we can respond with the higher truth of love and take a good look at our selves, and our culture and ask what can we do to teach people love and compassion in stead of hatred and fear? What is the part our media and goverment play? Do I have TIME for a friend in need, or am I too afraid to adress the needs of others and myslef? We live in a culture where people prefer spending time with their electronic toys, where men and women act as enemies causing a lot of stress and lonleyness. Where little children move back and forth between their mum and dad like a nomad and too many kids are diagnosed ADHD and medicated with speed. When I met this Japaneese and we had talked for a long time, and he turned out to be one of the truly wonderful people I met. Someone that I know intuitively and mentally makes sense of what I say and what I know and I know that there is HOPE for the planet. In spite of all the terrible things happening, like the events of Norway, there are marvellous people out there, who SPEAK the truth. Like the French man I met on the Xela - Atitlan trekk, who most "rightbelieving" people would laugh at. It turned out that one from the US also had some unusual points of view, and we all exchanged a lot of information. These are the people who walk this planet with their eyes open and fearless of knowing the truth in their own beeing. And I know theese are the people that in the end will connect the people of the world, when we all let go of fear. There are more of theese people in this part of the world. Maybe becuase where there is more suffering and mayhap people can not afford to be asleep? And I think also it is because they are the "maya". If not in pure blod, then in spirit and knowledge. Why do I say that? Because always, may that person be a tourist from Japan, Belgium or France, or a native to the country, it is always in the proximity of the Maya I meet them. And the Mexicans has indeed decleared me a Maya. And my Nauhal is the magician, the Jaguar. In Mexicali the Ozelotl. All symbols of the hidden and elusive, the magician playing with illutions. Meeting Mishiko at the ruins, and talking to him made me realize that if I had not been robbed and unable to go to Copan earlier I would not have met him, and in the end we found that we had been sitting among the ruins for several hours, oblivious to other people and the burning sun, just talking and talking. It was sad to say goodbye as he left for Utila on Sunday. And I am going to La Ceiba tomorrow to take the ferry over there. 

According to the Popul Vuh, the Maya bible, it took the goods 4 attempts to creat a beeing powerful enough to maintain the world. On the first attempt the gods made deers, ants, wolfs and other animals, but when the gods called upon the animals to make them speak the names of the gods, they just grunted and roared. The second attempt the gods made a human out of  mud, but the mudperson spoke without knowledge and understanding and soon he fell apart and dissolved back to mud, replaced by a human out of flesh. But the fleshbeings where wicked and evil, and the gods decided to wipe them out in a great flood. The third attempt the gods carved a person out of wood. They were better than the mudpeople, but not perfect, although they could speak, walk and even have children and populate the world. But the gods found that they walked around sleeping with no purpose at all. They had also forgotten their farmer, their shaper, and so they were destroyed. The surviviours turned into chattering monkeys found in the trees all over Mesoamerica. The gods finally got it right when they discovered maize. They made the flesh of the human we now out of maize. The mayans call themselves children of maize, and indeed with the knowledge of genetics that we have, researchers have found out that the genetics of maize is acctually VERY similar to human genetics. Meaning that we are closley related to maize, so the Maya acctually seem to have known this! Or the gods of the Maya anyway, but it took them 4 times to get it. Popul Vuh is one of the GREATEST religious texts of ALL time and contains facinating stories and legends of Maya belief and creation.    

viernes, 22 de julio de 2011

My first day in Honduras

Friday I woke up 3:30 to take a shuttle bus to Copan in Honduras. A 6 h. drive from Antigua, but when the border is crossed it is 15 min. inside Honduras territory in the north. The ride to Copan Ruinas was not without some scary events; we almost had an accident with a bus driving through Guatemala City in the dark. All I saw was hundreds sharp of flashing lights, and then two of them came straight at us. The driver of the shuttlebus was standing on the brakes, and I think we where just a few cm. from being flattened by the big red citybus. The citybuses of Guate (Guatemala City) are some of the main targets for gangs of bandits that are after some quick cash. I had to catch them when I went to the embassy and the immigrationoffice, but then I had no money or anything else to take, and I did not have money to go by taxis. The ride to Copan, Honduras were on some of the most dangerousley trafficated roads that I have seen. And I have seen a lot! The danger is the number of big trucks and busses that are plunging down the hillsides. Guatemala is all hills and mountains, so we climb up and speed down. When hills are rolling away undisturbed by human settlement, it is green and lush, especially now in the rainyseason. Unfortunatley the nature here has many scars, causing tragedy for the human population.  

The main attraction of Copan is the old Mayan site which lacks the massive pyramids further north in Guatemala and Mexico, but has some of the worlds best preserved carved stelaes. Records on theese stelaes, and ceramic evidence show that people have been living in the Copan valley from 1400 BC, but they must have been in the valley before that time. At its peak, Copan may have housed as many as 20 000 people. Today, saturday, I went to check the site out! When the Spaniards found the place in 1576 there were only 5 families living there. And they had no idea of the history of the ruins!! It might make us wonder if the people that are called mayans today really are decending from the mayans. The thing is that ALL the places I have visited were left long before the fleets from Spain came. They found ruins taken over by the forrest already everywhere. And I have heard a theory that the natives of this continent are decending from the islands, that they are secondary settelers. I am not going to argue any of that now, because I am not archeologist. But I know that all of the people I have been writing about in my blog are still mysteries to the scholars as to where they came from and where they went.

The pictures below are from Copan Tuins town. A really, really hot but friendly place where all thrillseakers hang out, go to see the ruins, go horsebackriding (I am going to try that!) and even go tubing and /or rafting in a river.

The church in the park.
The park 

Fountain in the park.

jueves, 21 de julio de 2011

Honduras: The Ruins of Copan



Since many people have asked me to write my blog in English I took the opportunity to do so after I was (brutally) robbed of my dear Lenovo laptop, and am now stuck with a Spanish speaking laptop. Sometimes it speaks Spanglish as well, if I am lucky, but basically now I HAVE to learn how to read Spanish with its technical terms.

The film that is above is where I am going in the next couple of days, and I am really hopeing that this trip will snap me out of the my deep crisis after what happend! It is not that I am not fine! Even if the thought of going to Honduras seems more dangerous now, because Honduras is a country that has seen a rise in violence through 2009 /2010, than before, when the whole world was my safe Disneyland, if one can use this kind of expression. Now I am faceing some existential questions, and I think the only thing keeping me on this wnow is stubbornness. But I know that I want to come back to Latin America when I leave here one day. So dangerous and so beautiful, this se two expressions go hand in hand most places I have been on this planet, and I guess that I, reluctantly or not, fall in love with just that.

I will come back with photos and info on Honduras and Copan. Photos if I find out how my Spanglish speaking camera works. It even has a touch screen! It sounded so hip that I had to have it. It is cheap however, and will have to do for the rest of my travel. The Republic of Honduras is south of Guatemala, bordering El Salvador in the west and Nicaragua in the south. Before the Spanish came in 1524  it was home to many native tribes, among others the Maya. The main interest of the Sapniards were silver mining, and the natives were used to do the job. The natives, however died of disease brought from Europe, so slaves were brought from Africa to replace them. The decendants of the slaves now form the Garifuna culture along the Carribian coast, with their own constructed language, food and colourful garments and festivals. Like all countries in Latin America Honduras has had a lot of problems. One of the reasons of the violence and poverty is that it was made one of USA bananastates in the 20th century, with little economical growth for Honduras, but with US fruit companies controlling substantial land and infrastructure in the north. In addition the hurricane Fifi 1974 and Mitch in 1998 both caused destruction in the country. Especially Mitch that caused 50 years of progress to reverse, according to president Carlos Roberto Flores, with its massive and widespread destruction of nearly all bridges and secondary roads, 70 % of all crops and 33 000 houses.      5 000 people were killed.

More on Honduras next blog.