Tikal is by far the largest archeological Maya complex I have visited.  It’s the largest in terms of area that must be covered to see huge excavated complexes that date back several hundred to a thousand years.  I visited the park for three days and between the heat, mosquitoes, wasps and distances walking on paths through impenetrable jungle on all sides I could only march four hours a day and I still only saw a fraction of what exists buried under jungle, for 75% of the site has yet to be excavated.  And also different from Teotihuacan near Mexico City, Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Dzibilchaltun, Kabah, Xcambo in theYucatan, and Copan in Honduras is the visibility of the buildings.  At all the aforementioned sites one could see the excavated ruins in relation to each other.  Granted, at each of those sites the excavated portions are also only a small percentage of existing structures buried under an accumulation of centuries-old natural growth unlike that in Northern Guatemala. In contrast, Tikal sits smack dab in the middle of a vast thick, tropical jungle with a seven-month rainy season.  It rains every day.  A lot.  Park employees must clear nascent green vegetation every few days from the ancient stone palaces and ceremonial sites before the jungle can again reclaim them.  When the Maya civilization declined about 900 C.E.  and the building sites began to be discovered in the early1900s, in that period of time everything had reverted to virgin jungle.  I visited Caracol yesterday here in Belize.  I have so much more to write about the places I’ve seen this trip. The water shot above is from the city of Flores, Guatemala an island city in Lago Peten Itza, the last holdout of the Maya in the Peten against the rapacious Spaniards after more than a century of resistance.  I will be returning to my home in Honduras on Monday July 16th after a month on the road.

The first four photos are of my stay in Antigua and the second four are from Panajachel, Sololá, Lago de Atitlán from where I traveled to Flores, Guatemala yesterday on a 13-hour bus trip after my 7-day visit to my friend Bob in Pana.  Arriving at 8 PM all I could do was eat dinner, have a couple of beers and crash.  But today I´m wandering the beautiful island city of Flores, a short distance away from the ancient Maya ruins of Tikal, a huge truly American metropolis founded 900 years before the spawn of christianity rose to infect humankind´s mind to its present dogmatic state.  Tikal was a city that existed in royal splendor alongside similar Mayan metropolises for almost 2,000 years until 900 C.E.  In the next few days I will be exploring and studying Tikal as well as other Mayan city-states in Guatemala and Belize, of which there are hundreds, many not yet excavated.  The adventure continues….

This colonial city is replete with history.  I have been walking around for the past three days and have encountered antiquity in every block, beginning with the cobble-stoned streets for which one must definitely wear sturdy shoes if doing much walking.  A few minutes ago I walked by a large crumbling structure that occupied half a city block and I noticed a metal plaque mounted high on a stone wall.  I edged closer to peer through the metal wrought-iron fence and read that in that building lived and wrote the conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who arrived on Mexico’s shores in 1519 with Hernan Cortez, one of the common soldiers who wrote a first-person account of the conquest of Mexico.  It took two years to subdue the Aztec empire.  Bernal Diaz ended up in Antigua, Guatemala’s first capital city, after participating in numerous battles subjugating and enslaving the original indigenous American inhabitants.  Tomorrow I leave for Lago de Atitlan, considered by many to be the most beautiful spot on the planet.

Governor Jerry Brown and First Lady Honor 2nd Lt. Travis A. Morgado

 Last Updated on Thursday, 31 May 2012 04:14

5-30-2012 – SACRAMENTO – On behalf of all Californians, Governor Brown and First Lady Anne Gust Brown honor 2nd Lt. Travis A. Morgado, who bravely gave his life in service to our state and nation. The Governor and First Lady extend their deepest condolences to his family and friends at this difficult time.

In memorial, Governor Brown ordered that flags be flown at half-staff over the State Capitol today. 2nd Lt. Morgado’s family will receive a letter of condolence from the Governor.

2nd Lt. Travis A. Morgado, 25, of San Jose, CA, died May 23, in Zharay, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when insurgents attacked his patrol with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA. He was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. 

There are endings and there are beginnings.  Some of life´s endings are enough to shake one to the core and shatter the belief in an ability to welcome new beginnings, the future appearing dire and dark.  I have been forcing myself to go through the motions, sick inside, emotions heaving while life goes on around me.  Edith invited me today to go with her to the groundbreaking of the new well being dug before construction of the new building for the Fundación Señor San José begins.  24/7 water is key to maintaining a population of 29 anticipated at-risk children.  Of course I went with her and the two youngest children.  I am committed to supporting her efforts.  The future of the children is the future of our community, the future of society.  As committed as I am, nonetheless I will be traveling into the Guatemalan jungle in a few days in a search for guidance.  Travis and I climbed the ancient Maya pyramid ruins in the Yucatán in his senior year of high school.  Perhaps I can find some peace of mind visiting the Maya ruins at Tikal and Palenque.  I plan to be gone for a month trying to understand and accept why, recognizing that I must move forward in spite of the pain: recognizing and coming to terms with the fact that there is much pain in the world.

I met him, saw him, loved him when he was only a day old.  He grew ahead of his two younger brothers, spunky and so smart.  So serious he was, and studious.  I watched in ignorant awe as he and his brothers and their many friends mastered the digital intricacies of computer games.  In high school he was accepted by the Microsoft Corporation as a master gamer.  He sailed through algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus.  On our senior class trip to Mexico´s Yucatan Maya ruins he took his calculus homework.  He excelled at the University of Washington earning a degree as a civil engineer.  He was everything I ever wanted to be.  My grandson.  We were so proud after he joined the US Army, graduated from OCS as a Second Lieutenant and sweated with him as he finished the elite Army Ranger training.  Last Thursday as I finished packing my bags to return to Honduras from Seattle we learned that he had been killed in action in Afghanistan.  My daughter ran screaming down to where I was: He’s dead! Travis has been killed!  May 23, 2012: a date seared into my brain, into my family´s collective mind.  Memorial Day is this weekend.  My family has sent our men into WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War.  Travis was our first casualty.  The pain is overwhelming.  My heart is shattered.

I had an appointment with my orthopedist in Seattle a few days ago.  He wants me to consider an elbow replacement; my arm is not progressing as well as it should.  I told him I had to think about it, that I would be returning to Seattle next January 2013 and would decide by then. That is the last thing in the world I want, another surgery.   I will be returning to Honduras on the 23rd of May.   I have been busy while here collecting the documents required for my permanent residency Honduran ID card.  But I’m ready to go back to my apartment in La Paz.  I had it painted the month before I left.  It had been painted all pink. Every room pink.  Now the living room is a forest green, the two bathrooms pale blue, the kitchen sunny yellow and the two bedrooms dark blue and pale brown.  I left two Belgian foreign exchange students teaching my Saturday morning English class to my 5 students at the Hogar San Jose.  Europeans are so versatile, they each speak 4 or 5 languages.  I haven’t heard from Peace Corps when they will be reopening the office for new volunteers but it won’t do me any good when they do in fact open the mission again.  My disabled arm will prevent my reinstatement into the Peace Corps, however Honduras is a nice affordable place in which to retire.

When you get on a bus in Honduras one is often in for a unique experience.  I have ridden buses all over Honduras and parts of Guatemala.  In Honduras the local buses are mostly ´chicken´buses, big used orange school buses from the U.S. in various stages of repair and disrepair, often with the name of the school still stenciled on it.  The long distance buses vary per price of ticket, service and route.  Luxury buses like Hedman Alas are air conditioned and offer a meager food service and make few stops.  But that´s rare for most poor folks like me and the rest of humanity who travel cheek by jowl with loud rap music blasting from a mounted TV screen or speakers that make the air resonate with skull-rattling sound.  When I say cheek by jowl I mean literally cheek by jowl, every seat filled with two often three persons and the aisles standing room only as one could imagine a sardine-can filled Japanese commuter train.  When the driver stops to pick up more passengers I wonder how in hell are they going to squeeze aboard.  But they do.  And he always stops to pick up passengers, even if he´s traveled only a block.  I have even seen them back up to pick up a waving, running passenger.  This morning I decided to go to Comayagua, the old colonial capital, 40 minutes away to buy gifts for my family.  As usual on a Sunday morning the bus was packed leaving La Paz.  It proceeded making stop after stop but even on the staightaway it just crawled along about 2 mph.  After several lo-ong miles I understood why.  The bus was almost out of gas and pulled into the nearest gas station.  We finally made it and I made my purchases.  The return bus was a different story.  This driver must have thought he was driving the Indianapolis 500.  A young guy, he raced along at top speed even in town skidding to stops when he decided to pick up a passenger.  Weaving back and forth through highway traffic he almost collided with a semi-trailer.  He passed cars on a curve and almost lost control of the bus.  What´s the rush, I thought, wondering if I was going to live long enough to fly back to  Seattle May 1st.  Relieved to reach La Paz in one piece I thought back to another bus trip in the mountains when the driver almost lost control of his speeding, smoking bus on a high peak and I could see the valley way down below as the tires touched the gravel edge of the narrow roadway and I saw the driver yank hard and we lurched back to pavement … but that´s another story.

The carpetas or alfombras are constructed the night before Good Friday by skilled crafstmen.  Similar to the Hopi sand paintings or Tibetan mandalas in their religious significance, these beautiful creations are made of colored sawdust and laid on a damp street surface ready for Friday morning´s procession around the city.  I´ve put just one example of the stations of the cross but there are thirteen of them situated in a large square route around the central community core.  Still, it takes three hours in the heat with a prayer stop at every station to finally finish the circuit again in front of the church.  Afterward I put up the swimming pool I bought the kids to join a second one an absent parent had provided.  This was our version of a holiday at the beach.  Nonetheless the kids loved splashing in the water.

 Well, here we are, the new governing body for the Fundación Señor San José.  In office for a term of two years, we will oversee the construction of the new building and the subsequent establishment and expansion of the new home for at-risk children.  Our benefactor from Virginia Hospital Center Medical Brigade is expected to attend our second meeting the last week of the month when he travels from the States for his quarterly inspection visit of the projects they currently support in Honduras.  This weekend is the beginning of Semana Santa in Honduras.  The country revels in a week-long holiday for the Easter celebration that culminates next weekend with the creation of the beautiful carpetas that will adorn the streets of the city as a large part of the population participates in a parade that celebrates the Stations of the Cross; you have to be Catholic to understand it.  I´ll post photos of the event.