Quirigua is located in the department of Izabal in the north eastern corner of Guatemala—that which closely borders Belize and Honduras. Oriana and I are still hoping to get to Copan in Honduras which reportedly has bigger and better ruins than Quirigua. The region itself is much lower altitude than where we’re staying outside of Antigua. Comparatively, it is tons hotter, more humid, with exponentially more mosquitoes than Antigua or our home in San Miguel Escobar. And because of that climate difference, it is a part of Guatemala that has malaria. I took my meds—no worries there. Seriously, it is a particularly miserable climate for people to live.
On our route, we stopped in Zacapa to spend the night. I won’t go into gory details—but we didn’t stay at the Ritz. My favorite part was that the toilet we had in our room didn’t have a toilet seat, there was no A/C, and I had to take a Benadryl to sleep and therefore, stop itching my mosquito bites. In the morning we woke up before 6 AM to catch a bus to Quirigua. Once we got close, we started to see lots and lots of banana trees. These were the property of United Fruit Company (Chiquita Banana, amongst others). United Fruit was the driving force behind U.S. and CIA intervention into the 1954 coup.
In 1954 there was a law, called the Agrarian Reform Act, that would have nationalized many farms and parceled small pieces of land to the farmers here. In that time, fincas (large farms) would contract entire families to work their land for little pay and often would not pay folks in actual currency but in finca currency. Ultimately, that situation proved tenuous as families could barely afford to feed their children, let alone pay off their “debt” to the finca and move out. Labor unions started to form, and fincas mounted all manner of union-busting techniques to ensure that their workforce would remain docile, uneducated, and willing to work. Because of the fear that United Fruit and many other fincas had of the repercussions of the Agrarian Reform, they mounted a U.S. backed effort to topple the government and install their own more moderate version.
All of this happened in 1954, and Guatemala has been destabilized ever since. I bring all this up, because it was on United Fruit’s land that these ruins were discovered. And United Fruit again, put up a stink when the government wanted to create a national park to house them.
As we drove down the side road to Quirigua National Park, all the eye can see is bananas. For me, that was important to put into perspective how significant the U.S. influence is here. It is also interesting to think about how intertwined global export markets have been in shaping how government here makes decisions.
The ruins range from 700 CE to 800 CE and they are principally in two different shapes. One is a squared column with drawings on all four sides. The second is a large round boulder—with literally drawings covering the entire surface of the rock.
I could try to explain what all the drawings mean, but that would take a long time—and I’m not an expert so as I add photos here, I’ll give you the highlights.
In addition to the column and boulder drawings, there are huge steps that create the boundaries of where the palace for the King of Quirigua used to be. As you climb up and over the first set of steps, there is yet another flight down that brings you to a now well-kept lawn where royal games were played. Mayans thought these games had significance because they’d be competing with other worldly beings, their Gods.
The steps were really difficult for me to do, with out stepping up bringing my other foot up, and then attempting the next step. In my head, Mayans were probably not that tall. Francisco corrected me saying that they were about 160 CM tall then—making them a little taller than me. I’m not sure if he was referring to men or women, but I would guess they were in better shape then and could get up the stairs more easily. Also, the steps were not covered with moss then—that probably helps.
Anyhow, there is virtually nothing around this site—and like other Mayan ruin sites, was only stumbled across as folks tried to clear the land and hit rock. As I looked around the surrounding area, it looks like there could be many other ruins underneath all the vegetation there. Due to lack of funds and perhaps interest, they remain covered today.
The entire time we were standing there I couldn’t help but hate mosquitoes. Thank goodness for bug repellent with deet. I’ve never seen 40 or so come at me so fast and be repelled like that. I would have had hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bites without the repellent. Then, as if sent by the Almighty, it started to rain. Francisco and I both agreed, “mejor mojado que picado”—better wet than bitten.
So, again staring at some of the etchings, I wondered what this people must have been like. Their drawings depict babies that morph into jaguars, and warriors with skulls. The columns usually depict a king or queen with their associated symbols of their reign. From the little I know, they didn’t have contact with other civilizations aside from Mayan territories at the time. People are still trying to figure out why they disappeared. It’s also worth mentioning that I had forgotten to charge my camera battery and my battery died sometime before climbing the steps at Quirigua.
After we had gotten our fill of the ruins, we made our way to a little truck stop of a town called Morales. We ate lunch at the counter at a lunch place. Since we had lots of time left before we needed to be back in Antigua, we decided to take advantage and go and visit Rio Dulce (Sweet River). We get into yet another bus, probably the 8th at this point, and make our way to Rio Dulce. Once we get there, we stopped and had a cup of coffee at what seemed to be an “extranjero” foreigner haven. We got some advice on where to stay and made our way to find that hotel. Of course, yet again, it started pouring. We finally found this place, put our things down and got ready to take on what Rio Dulce had to offer. This is the point at which I really wish I had packed an umbrella.
We walked up to the bridge that spans the river and spent some time there, we tried to find the Rio Dulce National Park—but it turned out to be more of a playground than a National Park. Honestly, I think we missed it somewhere along the way. Then we went back to another pier to check out the water again. The entire time—it was raining. I was sopping wet and perhaps less than enchanted with the water.
The roofs in Rio Dulce are worth mentioning. Many of the houses we saw had roofs that were threaded together with dried corn husks or some other type of material that looks like that. They were threaded together by the thousand to create roofs. Same type that is on the roofs of the little huts that stood over the ruins.
Oriana has more pictures--I'll try to upload more soon. I've got more stuff coming your way tomorrow, gentle reader!
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