We had a yummy breakfast at the parrot nest and arrived at Xunantunich a little before 10 and hired our guide, Shaneenee. To get into the site, Rob had to drive the car onto a old fashioned hand crank ferry. For some reason all of us passengers had to get out of the car and stand on the ferry. It was pretty cool to do something so old fashioned :)
Once we got to the site we walked in the morning heat to the site. Shaneenee spent over 2 hours with us; telling us about the site, individual ruins and educated us on the old Mayan beliefs. Anna and Ashley really got an education; they were pretty stuck on the fact that they believed in 13 gods instead of 1. Oh, and stuck on the fact that they would want to sacrifice themselves for their gods and give blood for rituals by pulling off their fingernails..... Luckily no bad dream have centered on this new found knowledge :)
We were able to climb two ruins- the kings palace and the main highest temple. The girls did great; Abby was a trooper and insisted on walking most of it by herself. Once on top of the highest ruin, we had a clear view of the jungle/forest all around us. We could even see Guatemala (which was 5 miles away). The view was beautiful.
Kings Palace
Highest Temple
Exhaustion from the heat and first climb up the Kings Palace
This was a great activity to start with since many of the other things we did referred to the Mayans and this taught/reminded us about their cultural beliefs. And we were super glad we got a guide; we would have been clueless without one :)
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