The Future of Petén

My trip to Guatemala began with an uncomfortable bus ride from San Ignacio Cayo, Belize through Melchor to Santa Elena where I tried rather unsuccessfully to communicate with the people around me in terribly broken spanish. Nonetheless, as I waited for my brain to wake up enough to remember how to conjugate the imperative I had to remind myself that many of my archaeologist friends would gladly trade places with me for the opportunity to work at El Mirador. I just had to survive the trip and get to the site. Easier said than done. I tried to be as prepared as possible for the brisk 47 mile hike into the site by bringing the essentials: peanut butter, rubber wellies, and duct tape. Despite losing one of our group members for a few hours and getting so many blisters they practically merged into one superblister spanning the entire bottom of each of my feet, I made it safe and sound to the camp after two days of hiking welcomed by a hot camp shower.

My archaeological curiosity was finally satisfied with a two day tour of the site of El Mirador. Last year I had the opportunity to visit close to 40 sites within the Maya area as well as highland Mexico, but none of those sites is comparable in scale. As I hiked up the various levels of La Danta it was difficult to visualize it as one architectural complex. Each level seemed almost like a natural hill I needed to surmount rather than a section of an enormous man-made structure. The summit was so high that I was looking down on the rainforest canopy. As I visited various sectors of the site I was practically hit over the head with Preclassic architectural patterns. The triadic arrangement of structures is replicated consistently throughout the built environment, each outfitted with the skeletons of deity masks flanking the inset staircases.

The archaeology wasn’t the only aspect of El Mirador worth remembering. The rainforest is beautiful, strange and just full of animals from the creepy crawlies to obnoxious spider monkeys…

p.s. David is STINKY!