Friday 15 November 2013
We are
in the southern Yucatan and staying at some really lovely haciendas. Santa Rosa and Temezon. Haciendas were a big part of the economic
area up to hundred years ago or so and even now the villages around here are
connected to the old haciendas. The
haciendas were started as a part of the trade in sisal rope which is made out
of cactus – yes cactus. The cactus in
the background is what they used. Not to
mention that the Mayans also used the sharp points on the end of the branches
of this plant for ritual blood letting – they pierced their tongues and then pulled
through knotted rope – psychos! It was
all about the gods. As if human
sacrifice wasn’t enough.
The
Ruta Pucca has all sorts of ruins along the way. All quite close together which was really
considerate of those ancient Mayans: actually while it’s quite quick to get
from one to another at 120km an hour on a good road, these distances were huge
to the people who created this society; no beasts of burden, everything had to
be carried by hand. Nevertheless, they
had roads and trade routes all through the Yucatan and into the mountains and
down into what is now Guatemala and El Salvador.
We saw three sites: Kaban, Sayil and Labna. Very beautiful. We also saw a really cool 4km cave but the pictures are a bit grainy so wont post those.
