Three Pyramid Complexes, a Colonial Town, and Lunch by the Lake

And through the jungle mists, I spy the Great Lost Pyramid of Tazumal. Located in an outer suburb of San Salvador.

What's on today's agenda? Pyramids, pyramids, and pyramids. These are the pre-Mayan and Mayan-era pyramids in the environs of San Salvador. Admittedly, these pyramids are not as spectacular as Copan. These pyramids are smaller and have suffered greatly from earthquakes and volcanos. And that means that the archaeology is a lot more in the early stages and what can be seen is more re-creation than restoration.

First stop: Joya de Cerén.

More specifically: Parque Arqueológico Joya de Cerén. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which, when it comes to international tourism sites, does mean something,

Let's have a look-see.

This is called the "Pompeii of the Americas." And that's legitimate. It is a very well-preserved small Mayan village from the early classical period. Which got buried for several centuries under a huge amount of volcanic ash. This meant much of the village is well-preserved.

Below is the functional equivalent of City Hall.

The buildings do not have roofs because the roofs were made of thatch and (Thatch) + (Volcanic Explosion) = (No More Thatch), in simple mathematical terms.

Unlike Pompeii, there were no dead bodies. This is because, apparently, the residents of Joya de Cerén had the foresight to bug out at the signs of the volcanic activity. They were not taken by surprise like the villagers in ancient Pompeii.

They did not climb that ladder when they were getting the h*ll out of Dodge, or, in this case, Joya de Cerén. Two reasons. First of all, they didn't have metal ladders. This is from the archaeologist. But, more importantly, until their city was buried in a few dozen feet of volcanic ash, they would not have had to climb out of the hole to get away.

The roof over all this means that this is very much an active archaeological site.

There is a Mayan sauna in this picture. From the description, it seems less like a Finnish sauna than the sweat lodges used by the indigenous people of the Southwestern United States.

I guess I lied when I said I visited thee pyramid complexes. I guess this was all a pyramid scheme. Joya de Cerén was too small and too unimportant to have a pyramid. How small and unimportant? It was rules by a chamana -- a woman -- a woman shaman.

The green line above is the laser pointer being used by the guide to point out various things worth seeing.

This is a block of adobe from an adobe column because why not:

And this is a piece of pottery with a crab design:

Not a lot of crab iconography in Mayan culture. Lots of jaguars and serpents and caiman. But rather light on the crustaceans. I love crab. It's delicious. And the Mayans in this out of the way woman-ruled town we now call Joya de Cerén loved their crabs. Which they got from here:

The river that ran, and still runs, next to the village.

Finally, we end our visit to Joya de Cerén with this:

Again, that's an animal we don't usually see in Mayan iconography. It looks like a camelid. Maybe a llama. Or a guanaco. Apparently people in other Central American countries call Salvadoreans "Guanacos." It's what we would call a friendly insult. Equal parts each. Did those wise Mayans of yesteryear foresee a future when the inhabitants of this land would be called "guanacos"? The wonder of the ancient Maya.

Moving on to the next stop, which actually does feature real pyramids (which are largely still buried under the volcanic soil): Parque Arqueológico San Andrés.

It's very green. Below is a pyramid still completely underneath the green green grass of Parque Arqueológico San Andrés:

But some stone does come through the soil in places.

One sad reality of San Andrés is not just that the pyramids remain buried in soil, but much of what was found has been buried in concrete. The structures are so fragile that the archaeologists had a choice: seal it in cement or let it decay at a rapid rate.

The opening below on this ancient ruin was for the archaeologists, but it's not been sealed shut.

 

And here's an ancient ruin. Standing in front of an ancient ruin.

Damn. Who is the decrepit old guy who keeps jumping in front of me when someone is taking a picture of the young and handsome me? This ancient ruin is so girthy that you cannot even see me with him standing in front of me like that.

And here's a picture from high ground, viewing a pyramid emerging from the soil:

And this is an indigo plant:

The Mayans figured out how to extract indigo dye from this decidedly not-blue plant. It's a complicated three-stage process. Indigo was beloved by the Europeans soon after the Spanish made contact with the New World. And they hadn't even invented Levi's blue jeans yet. The indigenous Mayans worked in slave conditions to produce the huge amount of indigo Europe was demanding which, let's just say, was a whole lot more than the indigo needed to blue-up a small Mayan village. Eventually, African slaves were brought in to work in the indigo mills after the Spaniards -- pretty much literally -- worked the Maya to death in the indigo factories.

And speaking of local plants whose wealth was also not obvious and, yet, the Mayans figured out the complicated to extract something from this plant that became tremendously valuable after the Spanish contact with the New World:

Cacao. The cacao is right behind the indigo plant in the above picture.

Next stop: Tazumal.

Tazumal is located in an outer suburb of El Salvador. The other two sites are about an hour outside of San Salvador, but Tazumal is a loud and busy place.

This is not a historic site for quiet contemplation.

Even if you are sitting on your throne-stone.

And here's the star of the Tazumal show:

Let's climb to get a better look, shall we?

The view from on high:

And looking from a different angle: 

This is the ball court.

All Mayan villages of any import had ball courts. This one was in such a state of decay that it is not known how the ball game was played here. Was it knock it off a statue, like in Copan? Was is knock it through a tiny stone hoop, like in Mexico. Was it shoot through a metal hoop hung ten-feet high, with a net dangling underneath, like in the NBA? The answer is lost to time.

Some archaeology is happening here:

And this big stone is somewhat interesting. On one side, you have to look closely to see this because of the ravages of time -- something with which I am all too familiar -- eroded the man's face, but this is a Mayan ruler who had a mustache. Just like back in the disco era.  

Only it was ancient Mayan times, which went back even farther than the disco era.

And visible next to Tazumal was one of the more colorful cemeteries I have ever seen.

So much blue and turquoise and teal coloring, which are not generally considered funerary colors.

It was sealed off from Tazumal with barbed wire. Someone didn't want me crossing over.

And, just to be clear, by "crossing over" I meant traveling from Tazumal to the cemetery. Nothing more than that.

And that will conclude the pyramid portion of this five-day holiday vacation weekend. It's on to the beautiful colonial era town of Santa Ana.

We didn't stop long in Santa Ana. Just enough time on the way to lunch by the lake to snap a few pictures.

This is the Teatro de Santa Ana.

This is City Hall. This is the newest of the buildings around the main plaza. But, credit where credit is due, they made it in the same style as the older colonial architecture, blending in quite nicely.

This is the former casino, catty-corner from the main plaza. Yes, it's "catty-corner." It's not "kitty-corner" or some other such nonsense. Catty. Corner. Hyphenated.

This is the Cathedral of Santa Ana.

The interior is nice:

But the exterior is what makes this spectacular.

And here is a picture of me in front of the cathedral. The tour guide who snapped the picture thought the picture was ruined because several birds took off and flew in front of me when the picture was snapped.

I really don't like pictures of me much at all. But I think this particular picture is all kinds of awesome. You can tell I'm worried about whether Suzanne Pleshette is going to get all of her schoolchildren to safety before the birds attack. (Obscure Hitchcock reference. The best kind of Hitchcock reference.)

One last look at Santa Ana

Lunch time!

Looks like an ordinary restaurant, roof overhead but open-air sides. But check out the view:

The restaurant overlooks Lago de Coatepeque, a very large lake that is within a very large caldera of a local volcano. There is no known outlet for this lake. They do know that the water in the lake eventually reaches the ocean, but how it leaves the lake is a mystery. They do know it is deep. Very deep. How deep? Deeper than that.

I had a beef dish, with tortillas, carrots, a small bit of corn, avocado, chorizo and a mixture of rice and refried beans called "casamiento," which translates to "marriage," which is a typical Salvadorean style of serving rice and refrieds.

I ordered the beverage "limonada," which I thought was going to be lemonade. But this is Latin America, so it was something much better than lemonade. It was limeade. It's always lime and never lemon in Latin American cuisine. It was extremely tart. Extremely. Which, to my tongue, meant: Most Delicious Glass of Limeade Ever,

Dessert was coffee and a cake made from rice flour and cheese.

In El Salvador, this is called a "quesadilla." Seriously. Not even remotely like a quesadilla in Mexico, You think the food in Central America is the same as it is in Mexico? Order a quesadilla in El Salvador.

And that ends today's excursion. No supper blogging tonight because this was a late lunch and -- more importantly -- did you see how much food was on my lunch plate?