Exploring Copan, Honduras

Since our temple was closed in January for two weeks and we needed to be out of our apartment for the thorough cleaning of the annex, we decided to go traveling with Ken and Chrys Meadows.  Their kids, the Bradys had been there over Christmas, so we didn't have much time to plan our trip other than the main places we wanted to visit.  We decided that since we didn't know how long we wanted to stay at each of our planned destinations, we would just get our first night's reservations and trust that we could wing it for the rest.

We bought peanut butter, bread, and some snacks and started off on our way on Wednesday, Jan. 7 at 7:00 am.  We crossed the border of Honduras late in the afternoon and then it took us only about 10 minutes to get to Copan which was a quaint little town with narrow cobblestone streets going up and down the hills.

After traveling all day we were glad to get out of the car and walk those streets.  We found our hotel and were delighted that it was even lovelier than described on the internet.

We walked to El Bosque (the forest) which was recommended by our hotel.  This was the meal they brought us to share.  Wow!  What a lot of delicious food!  It was the best beef we had tasted since leaving the states.

This is the patio of our hotel where the next morning they served us breakfast on little tables set up here.  It was lovely with the sound of the birds in the trees and the water in the fountain.

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We walked to the ruins and right away a guide "Tony" attached himself to us.  He was 77 years old and had been a guide there for 40 years.  We were really glad we did as we learned so much more than we would have on our own just walking around.

We learned from Tony that these magnificent Mayan ruins cover a time period from 1000 BC to 8 or 900 AD so there very well could have been some Book of Mormon connections here.  He was actually familiar with the Book of Mormon and had read it.












The carving on the stelas here was magnificent!  They were carvings to honor their rulers and were very detailed all the way round on four sides.
Both of these stelas are of Governor 18 rabbit and there are 6 stela images of him here all intricately carved like these.

Between the four of us adventurers you can see the Mayan ball field like the one we saw in Zaculeu.  They are found in most Mayan ruin sites and are quite well preserved.  We were told that on special occasions they have a ceremonial ball game.  I hope they don't kill the losers as they did anciently!

This old man's head sculpture is one of the most famous and was featured in National Geographic.  This is the monumental head of a bacab, or elder holding the sky.  There were two enormous sculptures at the top of the Great Stairway of one of the temples.  Apparently the body was fractured so badly it could not be reconstructed.  I can't imagine how colossal it would have been!

This is the Hieroglyphic Stairway and is the largest text in the Maya world.  Governor 15 Humo Caracol had this stairway made in the year 753 AD which tells a history of this people.  It was discovered in 1886 and as they tried to reconstruct it they moved some of the steps not realizing they were a text.  The stairway consists of 1250 rock blocks with hieroglyphic inscriptions which have not all been translated yet.

This is what they think it would have looked like in its original form.  Mighty impressive!

This altar with its detailed carvings represents the images of the 16 governors of the Copan dynasty.

There were tunnels under the temples dug by the archaeologists to explore that we could have gone in but since we could see this complete replica in the museum, we opted not to knowing how much Brannick likes tight  confined spaces.

This is a replica in the museum of the Rosalila Temple dated 571 AD  which is found buried under another temple because it is so sacred.  According to archaeologists it represents a mountain and the God of the Sun. The original actually has these bright colors on it.  They have discovered two more large temples buried underneath the Rosalila Temple which are not accessible to the public yet.

Our guide Tony compared Copan to Paris and Tikal to New York City.  The beauty of Copan was in the detailed carving of stelas and small temples but they did not have much height to them as we found in Tikal.




We also enjoyed the beauty of the plants and birds as we spent the morning exploring these amazing ruins.

To the left you see a cacao tree from which our chocolate is made.
The beautiful parrot is one of the many flying around in the treetops among these ancient Maya ruins.

We were so glad that we were able to spend the day with friends and see the sights that we would probably never have been able to see had we not come to serve in Guatemala.

Lake Atitlan and San Juan

I know some of you have been waiting for our pictures of our trip in January but I have over 500 shots to choose from!  And it will take me awhile to get them sorted to post on the blog.  So in the meantime, I will add in a few short trips and experiences.  Today we took a day trip to Lake Atitlan which is about an hour and a half from Xela.  It is a beautiful lake surrounded by volcanoes and there is much to see and do there.

The first thing we did was go to the small museum which holds artifacts pulled up from the bottom of the lake where they have found the ruins of a small city which buried under the lake. They believe it was an island which sank when some catastrophe happened. They found many indications that it was a religious sight for the people to come from the surrounding areas to worship.  There are pictures there of the six ceremonial monuments and altars that they found underwater at that location.

 These are some of the pieces they brought up from below depths.  They are pretty intricate and so well preserved for being down in the water so long.

The lake is actually surrounded by 12 small towns that are each named after one of Christ's apostles. We decided to take a boat ride across the lake to San Juan and San Pedro although we ran out of time to get to San Pedro.  Saving it for next trip. The lake was smooth as glass going over (about 25 minutes) but in the afternoon coming back it got REALLY CHOPPY with white caps on the waves!

Each of the small cities has a specialty and San Juan specializes in making textiles, the whole process starting from raw cotton.

This lady belongs to an association of women who work together to make fabrics and woven things to sell.  She showed us the whole process from the raw cotton to weaving.  She had two different shades of natural cotton, the brown and the white which she removed the seeds from by hand and then beat it with sticks to make it ready to spin into thread.

She just takes a piece of cotton and starts spinning it onto this little spindle in the bowl to make thread.

 She then went through all the plants that they use to make the natural dye for the thread.  Amazing!

They use different parts of the plants like leaves, bark, seeds, etc.  This is showing how they use a metate to crush the seeds they use for the color orange.  They they boil the plant parts in water for 2 hours before they dip the hanks of thread in them.  The pots to dip them in are over to the right.

 Then we got to see one of the women in the association weaving a scarf from the cotton threads that had been dyed right there.  She is using a back-strap loom.  Don't you love their tipica clothes?

We had not intended to do any shopping but we went across the street to this association's store and couldn't resist some of their beautiful things.  Aren't these bags cute with their bows on the side?

This was our yummy lunch which was certainly big enough for both of us to share.  Fresh fish right from Lake  Atitlan.

 We rode back to Panajachel through very rough chopping waters and got rather wet from the sprays.  Next time we will remember to return earlier in the afternoon.

  We relaxed a bit at a beautiful hotel right on the lake edge which had some lovely gardens.  This area had huge bunches of bananas hanging right there in the garden.

 These flowers were so unusual I couldn't resist and few pics of them too.  All in all, it was another wonderful Guatemalan adventure!  But we saved a few things for next time too.

I promise I will get at our travel postings soon but life is pretty full here throughout the week at the temple.  Glad we have Mondays for p-days. Although I missed my trip to the mercado for all the wonderful fresh fruits and veggies that we love so much here.  Maybe tomorrow.

Mayan Temple at Zaculeu

We started off the new year by traveling on New Year's day to an ancient Maya temple area called Zaculeu close to Huehuetenango (that is pronounced like 'way way ten ango').  Jeff and Lezlie Brady were here from Utah and had rented a 12 passenger van which carried the 9 of us just fine.  We drove first to Huehue where we met Hermano Vasquez and his wife who had been temple workers here at our temple earlier.  They were our guides around this amazing place.   These ruins date from 250-600 BC which puts them during Book of Mormon times.  They are many mounds which have not been touched yet.

The one in the center here is a tomb where they did find some mummies.  The museum was closed that day so we didn't get to see the mummies though.

This is on top of one of the temples and we were told it was the sacrificial altar where they slit the throats of the sacrificial victims.  Chrys and I were glad we weren't in line for that.

This is one corner on top of one of the tall temples that shows what the construction looked like.  One of the reports I read on line said that the reconstruction in the 1940's was poorly done as they just plastered and white washed over the exterior of the temples without regard to what it originally looked like.

Underneath all this area is a labyrinth of tunnels. This hatch is one of the entrances but they have been sealed off so no one can go in them now.  Hna. Vasquez told us that she and a girl friend decided to explore the tunnels when they were teenagers and were lost for several hours going through these narrow tunnels in the dark with just a small flashlight.  They finally came out in the center of Huehuetenango several miles away!  Not something I would want to try!

It seems all these Mayan ruins have a ball court where they used to play a competitive sport.  We were told that the ball they played with was flaming!  Who would want to play with that?

This one was a palace residence of one of the leaders which must have been elaborate in its day.  When the Spaniards came to this country, they threatened to kill anyone who would not convert to Christianity.  A faithful group of Mayans held out here for several months but they were finally starved into submission.  

From Zaculeu we went to prolific spring near Aguaton that poured out at the base of a mountain at such a rate it looked like it had a huge pump bringing it up.  It was a family holiday place and there were lots of families enjoying the day there.

And of course there were people taking advantage of the chance to sell their wares.  Don't you think their dresses are as beautiful as their vegetables they are selling?  I just love their tipica clothes!

We are certainly not dressed as colorfully as the natives but here  are four great friends who have enjoyed their friendship for decades.  Ken and Chrys Meadows and Brannick and LaVonne Riggs.  

And now we are off tomorrow to explore some even more amazing ruins but we'll be gone for a week so check in later for some more temple adventures.

Christmas Giving

After all the preparation, tying quilts, boxing food, buying crates of bananas and mandarin oranges and a few apples, we're ready to load and go.

 

Hermano Diaz brought the mission truck and we loaded everything we had gathered plus a lot of clothing and supplies the Meadow's kids, the Bradys, had brought down from their ward and headed for the mountains.

We had the pickup, the Brady's 12 passenger van, President Galvez' 7 passenger van, President Maldanado's 5 passenger vehicle and President Villeda's 5 passenger car to take all of us and all the goods to the little branch high in the mountains.  Almost 3 hours later over some pretty rough mountain roads, we arrived at the chapel and found the members in a meeting in the chapel with the branch president planning next year's calendar.  After the meetings the members all came out into the parking lot and the branch president had them all line up by families.

Each family came through the line very orderly and received their box of food, new blankets for everyone, especially the babies, bananas, tangerines, apples and some bags of candy from the Bradys.

(Notice the baby on this little girl's back.)

After everyone had come through the line and we had given away as much as possible the branch served stew from a huge wash tub made with two kinds of squash, carrots, onions, big chunks of fat and small chunks of meat.

Almost every family brought their own dishes, and spoons.  The sisters serving the stew made sure every bowl had squash and vegetables and at least one hunk of meat.  They also served tamalitas, which are corn masa wrapped in banana leaves and steamed in a big pot.  They would break off a chunk of tamalitas, dip it in their soup and eat it.  None of the food went to waste.

The only car at this branch was the branch president's pickup which mean that everyone loaded the food, blankets and goodies on their back and walked home, some as far as 1 1/2 hours.  These two boys are loaded with the boxes of food on their backs and ready to go.

This sister is getting ready to wrap all her things in her tipica cloth wrap and carry it home with her baby on her back and two little girls in tow.

And the people!!! They were sweet unassuming people, earning their living from tiny farms on the hillsides and faithful members of the church.

Young and old, they gathered at the church and we were blessed to share a small part of our plenty.

This little girl will probably carry her baby brother all the way home tied on to her back!

This abuelo (grandpa) will have a warm neck this winter.

This little project made our Christmas.  How could we remember the Christ Child better than serving His children in far off Guatemala?  Thanks you Heavenly Father for this great blessing in our lives.

Our Christmas Project Preparations

Our friends, Ken and Chrys Meadows have always been service minded like we have and love to do special service to those in need at Christmas time.  So we made a plan to find fleece to make double sided baby blankets since few homes have heating in them.  We thought perhaps we could locate an orphanage to give them to.  We were unsuccessful at finding cute fleece in Xela so expanded our search to San Francisco Alto which is a mountain town whose specialty is fabric or anything to do with sewing.  Every shop was filled with fabric or notions for sewing.  Look at the city plaza below with fabric just laid out everywhere in piles. 

We finally found the perfect fabric and at a good bargain too which was even better when we bought a large quantity.  We purchased enough to make

48 baby blankets!

Then came cutting the edges off evenly and making the back exactly the same size as the front.

Because our backing fabric was not the same width as the blanket fronts we had to sew some of the backs down the middle.  It was fun to work together with all the temple missionaries.

On Monday, Dec. 15, we all met in our common area and worked on tying the blankets on the edges to secure the backs to the fronts.  Here is Brannick and Ernie Maes working on one together.

We inherited 200 larger blankets from a boy scout project, ready to give to needy families.  President Galvez learned of a high mountain branch that is very poor and would not have any Christmas.  So we decided to change our project to aim towards doing what we could for them and incorporating all our blankets.

This is Hermana Galvez showing off some of the larger blankets we found.  All we had to do was wash and refresh them.  We also bought basic food staples and put them into individual family boxes to give them out.

Here is President Galvez and two of our temple missionary men showing off proudly the blanket they worked on together.

We still had a few to cut the fringe on so they could be tied together.  So great to have us all working together on a service project.  Great thing for ancianos (ancient ones) to do!

And here we all are, proudly showing off all our united work.  We finished 45 blankets that night and the last three a few days later.

I thought this was a nice shot with the blankets piled in the Meadows apartment with the lighted temple showing in the background.  In the next post we will share the actual delivery experience, which was just marvelous!