Addendum: Copán (8/26)

Before I left Guatemala I decided I had to see at least one Mayan ruin. In 1993 I had a chance to visit Chichen Itza, the beautiful ruins in the Yucatán not far from Cancún. But as impressive as that visit was, I was far more prepared to appreciate such ruins after some preliminary studies of the Classical Mayan civilization and two months living among their descendants. I left San Pedro on Saturday for Antigua. I found a nice little hotel in the middle of Antigua and made a reservation to visit the magnificent site of Copán the next day. It cost $20 roundtrip to Copán and back.

I slept right through my 3:50 alarm only to be awoken by knocks on my door at 4:15. The van driver was willing to wait because I was the only traveler who had signed up for Copán that morning. In the darkness, I entered the van and began chatting with my driver, Victor Hugo…just like the writer. We drove through the empty streets of Antigua and hit the highway for Guatemala City. We stopped a short while later for strong coffee. I had never seen Guatemala City so empty and serene, I wish people slept longer there. We proceeded down the mountains and hills as we journeyed east, towards the coast. About 8:30 we stopped at a roadside restaurant and had a nice breakfast. Two other vans on their way to Copán stopped here for breakfast too. A couple of the passengers told me that their vans were packed. My private driver and I left a short time later for the leisurely ride to Copán in Honduras. We stopped an hour later at the border to Honduras and I had my passport stamped with a Copán Ruins visa and exchanged 100 quetzales for 280 lempiras. We arrived in the nice town of Copán Ruinas a short time later and Victor drove me out to the site.

I paid the $15 entrance fee, which seemed exorbitant by Central American standards, and headed into the site. The morning was bright and balmy, perfect for a pleasant visit to this famous site. I had always heard good things about Copán, in particular about the quality of the hieroglyphs there. Even with high expectations, I was not prepared for the stunning beauty of the site. At the entrance to the site, hanging around on the fence and flying back and forth to the tree above, were no less than a dozen giant parrots colored all the colors of the rainbow. They looked as if they had flown off the front of a cereal box. No doubt the park raised these birds here to stun the visitors, a job they did with great effectiveness. As I began walking down the path, looking through the tree boughs, the tempo of my heart increased. In the distance, one could just make out a beautiful Mayan pyramid in the sun. I fired up my camera and began shooting pictures. Before my short visit was up, I only had two hours at the site before I would need to catch the van back for the five hour journey to Antigua, I had shot nearly 250 photos…by far the most I’ve ever shot at any one place! The ruins were spread out over a mile or so of low cut Bermuda grass. Everywhere one looked was another pyramid, or stela, or stone face peeking out from a thousand years of jungle silence. As I walked around marveling over the sculpted details, I noticed that many of the pieces actually still exhibited pigment, pigment that had been painted on so many times that a thousand years of tropical storms and hurricanes hadn’t been able to wash the stones clean. Like the Greek temples famous for their bleached whiteness, most people share the idea that Mayan ruins have always possessed that stone-colored grey hue. In fact, just like the Classic-Age Greeks, the Classic-Age Maya loved to paint their temples and stelae in loud colors. But without care such paint erodes away, along with the finer details, after a few centuries of neglect. At least most of it does.

Walking around slackjawed I made my way to the famous hieroglyphic stairway, covered up by a giant tarp to protect it from rain. Rising up from the ground, hundreds of steps ascended to the sky, each step intricately carved with Mayan hieroglyphics. The reconstruction of these fallen steps by early archeologists left their order jumbled but even in this Rubik’s cube mess contemporary archeologists have determined the steps to be a record of the succession of Copán shaman-kings. As I turned each corner and as I ascended the top of each pyramid, I would discover another sight to rivet my attention. I walked around unable to believe that each site was as spectacular, or more so, than the last. Out of some pyramids grew trees the likes of which I’ve never seen, great jungle arms reaching up hundreds of feet to the blue sky and grasping it with raggedy green fingers. The whole experience seemed a psychedelic dream, erupted up from the more creative parts of one’s unconscious.The experience of walking around this outstanding site gave me a new understanding for the obsessions of archeologists. It had always surprised me that passionate people could devote so much of their energies to the study of long-dead civilizations. Why study the Classical Maya when the living Maya were so dynamic and fascinating? But a glimpse at the glory of this Mayan world, a glory of mere relics, excited my imagination; what power such a civilization must have had at its living height! Their architectural and artistic achievement—the only record we have of this culture after the conquistadors and priests burnt up their codices and books—portrays a unique vision of the world. In the Egyptians one sees edged symmetry and color; theriomorphic gods and pharaohs. In the Greeks one witnesses balance and grandeur, the Apollonian restraint of Dionysian energies, if one believes Nietzsche. But in the Maya there is an organic explosion of flowing forms within and among squares, hierarchies, and danger. If the Egyptians expressed the Nilotic glory streaming through the desert’s expanse, the Greeks the harsh stony life on dry land so near the Aegean, then the Mayans definitely expressed the life of the jungle, life lived in fear of the stalking jaguar.