| The jurney I made to Central America was my first overseas. Maybe this
was the reason, or may be the facination of the Mayan ruins, the bright colour of the
open-air markets in Chichicastenango, or the vulcanoes reflections in Atitlan Lake, or
even the white beaches of Belize's coast, but the travel I made in Guatemala and Belize is
still one of my favourites. I have divided this page in 3: - Open Marketplaces of Guatemale - Mayan Heritage - Belize Coasline I hope you'll enjoy it too. |
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Open Marketplaces of Guatemala
Open Marketplaces of Guatemala
In Guatemala evrybdy seems to go to the market or come from one. The marketplace is where everything happens, it is the real center of any town and the center of life for almost all indigenous people. Many live their villages well before sunrise to get to the market of the main town in time to sell or buy what they need, so in the market there are all the facilities for a relatively decent long stay: a place to eat, a place to get your shoes repaired, maybe with an old truck tyre cut to form a kind of sandal, even a place where to sleep if you plan to market for more than one day.
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Of course if you happen to be a mother (and this practically means if you are a woman of 14 y.o. or more) you have also to bring your children with you, generally only the one that is too young to walk on his own.
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And, of course, everyone goes to the market, even the old who can anyway sell their goods or just meet old friends and relatives comeing from other villages. In the marketplace women dress the traditional style: each patern, each colour, each particular hat means something to the people of the high sierra, they are symbol of the village of origin a distinction mark for each community.
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Guatemala is the craddle of Mayan civilization. It blossomed before Cpanish 'Conqistadores' colonized South America destroying all the previous empires. Much of old culture still lingers on, hidden in the traditional dresses, in semi-christian rituals and in dialects still spoken in the rural villages. Much of the ancient glamour is forever gone and even many Mayan cities were re-descovered only in recent years (mainly in the '20s or '30s).
These first two pictures were actually thaken
in Honduras, near the city of Copan. The one on the left is a temple in the so called 'El
Mundo Perdido' (The Lost World), while the one on the right is a 'Stele' or a sacrifical
stone where cerimonies where held culminating in the extraction of the heart from the
still living victim of the sacrifice.
Mayan religion was sometimes very curel and human offrings were made to the gods; if the
priest was good in handling the obsidyan blade by which the sacrifices were performed, the
victim culd see his own heart being elevated in front of the crowd and put in the mouth of
the god represented on the Stele so that he could be satisfied.
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We have now moved to Tikal, one of the more interesting
historical places in all Central America, it is one of the main Mayan cities and home of
some of the most amazing temples I have ever seen (like Temple 4 depicted below). Tikal is
surrounded by a National Park and is also interesting for the wildlife in the jungle
surrounding it.
If the picture on the right seems familiar is because one of the first shots of "Star
Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" was theken here: Tikal was the perfect setting for the
Rebel's hideout.
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| One last shot of enchanting
Tikal main square. A view of Temple 4 and the sun in the morning mist. |
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Belize has the second longest corral reef in the world, after the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Here, on Kaye Cluker, one of the many little corral island (or kayes) off the Belizean coast I found my way trought great snorkeling dives and sunset happy hour at local beach bars. |
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A snorkeling dive on the barrier reef. Some inhabitants of the reef feel quite comfident with us and even with my disposable camera I could take this beautiful images of the life under the sea.
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| Carrabean sunset on the
lagoon. Kaye Cluker was still on the edge of touristic development in 1994. Just a couple of years later, when I came back, a concrete pear was built on the only sandy beach on the island. I resolve not to come back no more, as it could be too hard to cope my memories with reality. |
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