Buddy's hangover excuse

Isn't it amazing what kinds of weird things you run across when you aren't trying? I was just looking for a clean sheet of paper to keep up with my radical feminist critique of the latest James Bond movie (which, for those interested, took over 15 minutes into the movie before ANY woman gets to even SPEAK! - I know, I know, you say, it's James Bond, Prince of misogyny...still, I had HOPED. I mean, Dame Judy Dench is in it!!!!), when I opened an old notebook to this page. I had to laugh. The game was Scrabble. And Buddy's pathetic excuse for the slaughter is a hang-over. Ha! I'm just surprised I didn't get him to sign it for further verification!

I lied. Really, the final Ek' Balam picture.

I couldn't let go of Ek' Balam with just a picture of a plant and a bird. I had to add this final picture. Enjoy.

Nature at Ek' Balam

Ok, so I didn't get too many photos of nature. But let's start with this award-winner that Ginger took of a bromeliad on a stair. I adore this picture. It's just so perfect, I think.
Moving on to the picture of the bird. Can you identify it? It's a big brown bird. That's all I know.

Last Ek' Balam pictures

The last of the Ek' Balam pictures, and we aren't in them! How did this happen?!??! Anyway, the big round building is the back side of the small pyramid that we were on. The one with the sacrifice room at the top. The group of Jehova's Witnesses beside it are giving their undivided attention to a guide who is telling them that ALL people EVERYWHERE have ALWAYS worshipped the sign of the cross because it symbolizes freedom. She was saying that birds in flight have always been the ultimate symbol of freedom and their silhouettes -ta-dah!- form the shape of the cross. Isn't that special? I find it funny that nobody seems to question the idea of personal freedom as the be-all end-all of religious striving. In fact, I was under the impression that christian dogma actually emphasizes sublimating the self for the good of others. Silly me. That only applies to women.

More Ek' Balam

A few more pictures from Ek' Balam. Some of us in front of the big pyramid, one of me in front of the A-frame structure, and one of Ginger beside a tiny house. Maybe a guard shack? Again, it's too small to house more than one or maybe two people.

Ginger and Jenny goofin' at the little pyramid

Here we are at the top of the little pyramid. Having fun. Taking pictures. We struggled to get a good self-portrait. The angle of the sun made the pictures too bright and we had to take a lot. But the view is beautiful. And the pyramid made for a good fake bar, with Ginger as bartender.

On human sacrifice

Here I am pretending to be a sacrificial victim in the tiny room at the top of the little pyramid. There is a channel cut into the floor that slopes toward a small hole in the side, reminiscent of an abattoir. While it is beyond dispute that the ancient Maya practiced human sacrifice, I ally myself with those who decry the representation of the ancient Maya as bloodthirsty heathens who needed "saving" by the merciful, humane, and oh-so-civilized Spanish conquistadores in the recent movie by the well-known alcoholic christian supremacist Mel Gibson. Every civilization in the history of the planet has done the same. So why set up human sacrifice as an ideological justification for colonization? The europeans burned witches, White US southerners lynched Black men, Indians burned widows, and on a daily basis people are murdered by soldiers (from all kinds of armies). All of these are forms of human sacrifice designed to maintain power structures.

Small pyramid at Ek' Balam

The area across from the front of the main pyramid has several smaller pyramid structures. Here I am at the top of one. There is a tiny room at the top without a roof, but it probably had a thatch roof. Or maybe a stone roof. I don't know. But the room is TINY and not very tall. As you can see from the doorway, I had to crouch to get through it. There's hardly room for two people in it and we don't know why it's there. It's alone at the top of the small pyramid. It seems likely that it was a ritual place for maybe one priest or elite person to perform something important, like human or animal sacrifice? I will expand on this in the next post.

Snake carver

After descending, we were attracted to a little hut just below the pyramid where a guy was carving and selling things. Ginger wanted to get a snake for Luis. We bargained for awhile and eventually bought the snake for 150 Pesos. I wish I had a close-up picture of it. So we got a picture of the craftsperson and another picture with the pyramid in the background. He told Ginger the name of the tree that the wood came from in spanish and maya. Later on we went back and I video'd him saying the words in spanish and maya, but because I was pretending to be looking at pictures or fiddeling with the camera so he wouldn't know we were filming him, it looks like I'm filming Ginger's rear end. And I didn't get much audio of him saying the name of the tree. I don't know if it's worth posting. I'll reflect upon it before spending the time uploading to youtube. And lastly, we had to get our pictures in there somehow. Otherwise the whole trip could have been photoshopped.

Glyphs for Enrique

Here are some more details from the pyramid with glyphs for Enrique to translate. Also here is a cute one of Ginger at the base of the pyramid.

"Angel" area

Ok, you might be able to get a bette idear of what it looks like from these pictures. But check out the mural. We couldn't get a very good picture because you can't get close. But these are original. This little scene of several people is in the original paint and you can still see it. The top row is of a person seated on a dais with people in rows in front and behind. I think it's a ruler with servers behind and somebody petitioning in front. Below is a person who looks to be climbing the pyramid, maybe? I need to do some research on Ek' Balam so I'll know what all this is. Still, it's fascinating!

Details from "angel" area

The intricate decoration is just beautiful. I have no idea what it means. The area appears to be the entrance to a sacred space in the pyramid. The doorway is surrounded by giant teeth so it looks like you might be walking into the jaws of a giant creature. There are faces of old people carved into the design. And there are other people represented. The part below the winged figures looks to me like a stylized tree. The archaeologists put glass doors/windows in the spaces, so you can't see what's inside. And the area is roped off so you can't climb up the little stairs to see. So I don't know how big the room is, but there is at least one, and maybe more rooms. The ledge is not all that wide, so you can't really get a good picture of the whole area. Or, at least, I couldn't with the camera we have. So it's hard to get a good idea of what you're looking at from these pictures. This section is about halfway up the pyramid just to the left of the main stairway. The room (or rooms) are carved back into the pyramid itself (or maybe were built into it at the time of construction). And the facade of the area is elaborately decorated in plaster. It was probably all painted when new.

Mayan angels? Not.

Well, these are the most spectacular statues I've seen. The sarcophagus of Pacal at Palenque is Twilight-Zone-ish, but these people with "wings" at Ek' Balam I think win the prize for strangest iconography of the Mayan world. They are called "angels" in all the guide books and pamphlets. Obviously, they cannot be angels. And the "wings" look more like feathers to me. But they are beautiful and striking.

Climbing back down

Did I mention that the steps are very steep? These first detail pictures are from a niche area about a third of the way up the pyramid. I'm about to post a lot more of these because they are the best preserved I've ever seen. Maybe the best preserved pyramid decoration anywhere.

Ginger on pyramid

Here is Ginger at the top of the pyramid. The stairs are quite steep and it was scary going down. At various levels on the pyramid, there are platforms and rooms. From one such area, I took this picture of Ginger in the distance about halfway down the pyramid. She's in the red hat. Also, I took a couple of pictures off of the one side that you could walk around. You can see the chultun built into the side of the pyramid in the clearing. There were apparently residential areas built into this pyramid as well as ceremonial areas. It's cool. I imagine families of royals could have actually lived in this pyramid without ever having to climb down it (as long as people would bring food, I guess). And what's the point of being disgustingly elite if the common people won't bring you food?

Ginger and Jenny climb the pyramid

I am going to post a lot of pictures of us climbing this pyramid and at the top because I feel sure that within a very few years, noone will be allowed to climb it. That's just the way it is with these pyramids. Uxmal, we climbed it 17 years earlier than this trip and now you can't climb it. Chichen Itza, we climbed it just two years ago and now you can't climb it. So we wanted lots of documentary evidence of us all over this pyramid.