Wednesday 13 November 2013
Calakmul
is the big draw card in these parts.
This is what the guide book says:
Ever since the first Maya name-glyphs
were deciphered in the 1950s one of the great questions for Mayanists was the
identity of a place known as the Kaan or Snake Kingdom, references to which
were found in inscriptions all over the Maya lands, indicating a city state of
enormous power and prestige. As
excavations have gone on it has become clear that the Snake Kingdom was
Calakmul.
The
site was huge. Took us something like an
hour to get to the main pyramid centre.
Three huge pyramids. Two in
alignment absolutely due north and south aligned also with a hillside feature
on the horizon.
You
have to drive one hour into the site through a biosphere national park. On our
way we saw many animals. Here is a
picture of the wild turkeys we saw.
Didn’t know turkeys could be so beautiful.
Becan
was a much smaller site and not so raved about so we were very surprised at how
beautiful it was and actually quite big.
Well, they only have four huge pyramids; smaller than Calakmul. Pitiful really. But they did have a moat, with a draw
bridge.
