This is a ceiba tree.
The tree is sacred to the Mayans
Lots of other plants grow on its branches
Some of them hang down
This is its fruit
This is a mushroom, which is not a plant, but it’s growing on a dead plant, so it counts.
We think this is the sapodilla fruit but can’t remember.
This is a flower.
The pyramids at Tikal are very tall
The other buildings are too
They stick out of the jungle.
Most of the buildings have boring names like “Temple V”
Because they don’t really know what the buildings were
Of course they never really know what the buildings were when they find them
But usually the archeologists make up a name that turns out to be wrong.
I don’t understand why you need a degree in archeology to give temples the wrong name.
That seems easy to do.
This temple’s name is Chester
There was some wood left in some of the buildings
But most of it has rotted away
This is a stone bed
This is Kerri and Matt and Chester
This is a tall pyramid
There were a lot of them.
Kerri is up high
Matt is down low.
We couldn’t climb all of the pyramids
That would have been a lot of stairs
Most of the ones you can climb have modern wooden stairs at the back to protect the temple
And a wooden platform at the top with railings so you can’t fall off
But that side doesn’t make good pictures.
We couldn’t take any pictures in the Actun Tunichil Muknal Caves, but they were really cool so we’re making a post anyway with random internet pictures.
We had to swim to get into the cave.
Then it was really dark. We had headlamps, but this is Kerri’s drawing of when the headlamps were off.
Some places we had to swim, and some places we had to wade, and some places we had to climb.
There were stalactites and stalagmites everywhere.
And lots of ancient pottery
And a few skeletons from sacrifice victims. This one is covered in crystals because water runs over it when water levels are high.
On the way out we had to take a very tight waterslide in the dark. We had to bend our head at a weird angle to fit into the crack to get in.
Xunantunich is a ruin site near San Ignacio
It’s not very big
Their ball court looks like it must have been for children
We’ve seen a lot of stone tools, but this is the first stone wrench.
They had a weird rounded pyramidy building
And some other buildings
This one is very steep
This one had a courtyard
There are more buildings down the hill
The walls are almost as tall as Matt
He has to go through the middle of the doorway
Except he didn’t because there were bats inside
There were lots of little rooms
Kerri’s the king of the castle
