Mirador By Air

This is the story of how we got to make it "Mirador By Air"

Destino 502, Maya Wold Tours and Transportes Aereos de Guatemala TAG a joint operation.

19/12/17 

We landed yesterday mid-morning in a small clearing at the jungle in El Mirador hydrological basin. 

Before the landing the captain indicated that we were flying over the pyramids of El Mirador, I could only see giant mountains to my right and left and below the helicopter, at that moment the intercom of the helicopter began to sound with the voice of the captain informing the control tower of his arrival at Mirador and I sank in the jungle.

Leaving me alone... :-(

Mirador is a massive site of the pre-Classic period (B. C 2, 000 - A. D 200) with the largest pre-columbian pyramidal structures of the American continent and which are also among the largest in the ancient world.

La Danta Piramid

When the powerful sites of the clasic period (A. D 200 - 900) were just little villages El Mirador had 100, 000 inhabitants, and served as the capital for a network of cities in the Maya Lowlands of Petén, including Nakbé, Tintal and San Bartolo. Currently the Mirador basin could be consider a Mayan urbanization as six times larger than Tikal.

 Twin Hero Brothers Frieze

My field-task was, mainly, to achieve three objectives. 

1. Recognition of the site. 

2. Attention to visitors, at El Mirador, traveling by helicopter. 

3. Stay 22 days in Mirador in physical and mental conditions to meet the first two objectives.

To access the site visitors must walk two days in the jungle, camping in the middle of nowhere and then getting back to Flores in another two days of walking.

El Mirador. Base Camping Area 

The joint operation of Destino 502, Maya World Tours and Transportes Aereos de Guatemala TAG

must fulfill a great objective: "Make the visitor live, in a gigantic and wild place like El Mirador, an affordable travel experience with the most professional and sophisticated teamwork for touristic services"

With that great responsibility to fulfill, I landed at El Mirador carring with all my seasonal equipment.

Few travelers can say they know "The Cradle of the Mayan Civilization" due to the wildness of four or five days and their nights in the jungle.

However, the experience of visiting Mirador is unique, but, now the visitor has the excellent opportunity of a one day trip to Mirador.

The best of the best.

To be continue.

Textiles and Natural Pigments in the Mayan Commerce.

Trade is one of the most important socio-economic activities in the life of ancient and contemporary Mesoamerican peoples.

This immense cultural manifestation has been studied intensely from the moment that the academic interest, of the different Mesoamerican schools of archeology and anthropology, for the abandoned cities deep in the jungle and the different ethnic groups remaining from the great pre-Columbian civilizations arose.

Many commercial products have been identified throughout decades of study of Mayan art in archaeological sites, standing out among all those goods trade objects, cocoa, jaguar skins, quetzal feathers, ceramics, obsidian, jade stone, hallucinogenics, shells and many other goods.

Above all I would like to point out in the vital importance of textile and natural pigments, being one of the important reasons for the commercial relationship between the Mayan highlands and lowlands.

Each of the cultural regions of the Mesoamerican area is distinguished mainly by its environmental characteristics and that is why mention is made of the Maya highlands and lowlands.

The highlands simply are higher comparative altitudes and their landscape is mountainous, sometimes exceeding forty-five hundred feet above sea level. While the lowlands are the plains of northern Guatemala and southern Mexico that hardly exceed fifteen hundred feet above sea level.

As the agricultural production is varied in the different regions, the commercial activity had to be intense and generate an enormous amount of work for the different societies of the past in Mesoamerica.

Not all people had access to commercial goods such as cocoa, jade or quetzal feathers or jaguar skins and it is very difficult for these goods to be considered as indispensable for daily life in the community. But clothing, the raw material for making textiles, was a much needed commodity in any of the civilized regions of Mesoamerica.

Cotton was cultivated in Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spaniards and was one of the raw materials in the elaboration of the garments of the Mayan communities

The indigenous communities of the highlands of Guatemala, mainly, still know the techniques for making natural pigments to dye their cotton threads that they themselves grow, even in the patio of the house

Using bark from neighboring forests, fruits, seeds and minerals of vulcanic origin and with an intensive production of vegetable fibers such as cotton, Mayan producers met the demand of the different sectors and social classes of cities and towns.

Large merchant caravans left from the highlands to the lowlands and vice versa to trade their products. Some of the villages on that road had specialized in weaving, others in making the dyes, others in cultivating the plants to obtain the fibers and at the end of the day the traveling merchants had acquired enough quality goods to visit the markets of the big cities.

To this day Guatemala is recognized in the world market for its great textile production. In the last decade, large groups of indigenous weavers have been formed to satisfy the demand of large national and international companies that use indigenous fabrics to make fashionable clothes.

The important thing of all this is to show that for three thousand years the custom of the Mesoamerican peoples is still preserved and it is even possible to visit the local women who still dedicate themselves to the production of pigments and raw materials for textiles in the kitchen of their house.

Before and today the greatest exponents of Mayan textile art are women. Evidence of this ancient tradition are the murals of Calakmul, a classic archaeological site (A.D. 200 - 900) in the Maya lowlands of southeastern Mexico.

Photographs of this publication were taken in the workshop of pigments, threads and textiles of Doña Cristina (her kitchen actually) on the southern shore of Lake Atitlan in the town of San Pedro la Laguna. Solola.

Last picture taken from: Blog of the SIBARIS group. 

In order to ilustrate about textiles of the clasic Maya peoples.

Reseñas de gastronomía, turismo y eventos; 

La Gastronomía impresa en los Murales de Calakmul. 

https://sibaris.com.mx

eliasalvatierra@yahoo.com.mx

Ecology and archaeology tour guide.

Cold Friends

Some friends of those who always go out to greet in the morning and we are very pleased to have in the rainforest of Tikal.

Tree Vine Snake, beautiful friend always very fast slider on the grass or dry leafs it sounds like a very soft sssssssssss...

eliasalvatierra@yahoo.com.mx

Ecology and archaeology tour guide.

Interculture

Looking through some photographs taken in Tikal, I found these that I think is a good way to think about our archaeological site as a cultural heritage for humanity where the interaction within people from all over the world is natural.

What makes us interesting as humans is that we are all different ... yet all humans.

eliasalvatierra@yahoo.com.mx

Ecology and archaeology tour guide.

Adventure = Freedom.

December 2016 I met over two thousand people in my job as a tour guide, but one of those people talked to me, had a conversation, so we decided that we had to continue that conversation another time, he promised to go back to Guatemala and this is the very brief story of this week spent together traveling and enjoying Guatemala.

Worried, very worried, of losing my connection with my job and with the people I attend I decided to dedicate a few days to attend a friend and his girlfriend that I met last year. We went to explore caves and live the life of Guatemala, to see the corn fields and to see the communities in the jungle, to eat their food and to sleep on the hard and cold floors.

The day I said goodbye to them and I left them at their hotel on their journey home I could not speak, every time I tried to tell them something, the tears came to my eyes. So I write this little review to remember the special of that trip and how much it reminded me and reconnected with my work.

Cesar, Nathan, Heidi

When I returned from this adventure my boss loaned me the biography of Ian Graham, one of the most recognized explorers of the Mayan jungle during the 70's

And two days later we went on an adventure to visit the archaeological research project San Bartolo, I can only say that it is a matter of Karma you give something and life gives you the same, I went with my boss who is one of the best archaeologists I have Had the pleasure of meeting and two of her friends very good people and with a very deep knowledge about archeology, research, life and experience in the jungle.

I found it in Ian Graham's vehicle at the San Bartolo site still running.

I had been trying to reach San Bartolo for six years and could not have been any better.

Thanks to the people who allow us to share our life in the jungle, our adventures, experience, knowledge and above all ... our context.

Elías And Ian Graham's vehicle.

eliasalvatierra@yahoo.com.mx

Ecology and archaeology tour guide.

Alignment

In archeological sites it is most common to always listen about the importance of astronomy in urban planning, or simply in the settlement pattern of cities. In order to see how this works it is necessary to stay in one place for a long time or to have the greatest luck to be able to witness an alignment of sun, moon or Venus. Here I share some of the best alignments I have had the luck to be able to photograph in Tikal.

Sunrise behind Temple III. View from Templo IV 

Sunset. View from Templo XXII, North Acropolis.

Moonrise behind Temple III. View from Templo IV

eliasalvatierra@yahoo.com.mx

Ecology and archaeology tour guide.

Environmental Indicators

This year I will be focusing on sightings of species associated with water. I have been observing the statistics of ebird.com and have noticed that there are some variations in the average sightings per year of some bird species that are closely related to the health of the watersheds and especially with the lacustrine basins as well as the changes In areas of capture and water recharge.

Snowy Egret

I love being able to discover how important birds are as accurate indicators of environmental changes. Especially I love that some people in my community come to talk about birds they have seen and ask what they are called and why they are there ... I like birds more and more.

Boat Billed Heron (Nesting)

eliasalvatierra@yahoo.com.mx

Ecology and archaeology tour guide.