Coban

Today we got up and after a yummy breakfast walked the mile to the ruins of Coban. These ruins are from the Mayans just like those at Tikal and are over 2,000 years old as well. However this civilization was different in that they put hieroglyphics on everything and covered all of their structures with stucco and paint. At its peak, this town must have been spectacular as everything was red, blue and green colored.

The people of Coban build one temple on top of another as one king died and a new one reigned. So archaeologists are able to tunnel through the top temples to discover the older temples underneath. This is how they know things were covered in stucco and paint. the tunnels were really cool but did not lend to pictures. Again I only posted a few pictures and you can see the rest on flickr if you want.

That is actually a sculpture of a Macaw.

ruins of one of the temples on the main plaza.

This is their "rain god".

The heat was getting to Alex and I again so we started getting pretty silly. I thought I would give this guy a good nose picking. He He. It is really an altar where they did sacrifices.

Alex tries hard to "push" over one of the big Steala. Again, I think the heat was getting to us.

This was my favorite thing at the whole site!! It is a jaguar and it use to have huge black onix in it for its spots but I think it looks like a cartoon version of a jaguar. Most of the sculptures here are so serious but this one seems so out of place being so playful!

There were wild Macaws in the grounds. They can really make a raucous but boy are they beautiful when they fly. We saw about 6-8 of them all take off at one time. It was amazing!

This was in the museum and is the a sign of the entrance to the underworld. It is a bat with a jade necklace that represents death.

This was the coolest and most elaborate carving that we saw. Really cool.

Alex is looking around the structures that have been moved to the museum and trying to pretend he is not dying of heat exhaustion.
We are making our way back towards the airport tomorrow and then head home on Sunday. It has been a great trip. We are both sad to leave but at the same time looking forward to long warm showers and seeing our guide dog puppies again!