Monday, Quirigua, Castle San Felipe and Lake Isabelle.

January 11^th:  What a week of adventures and ruins.  I am going to post a blog for each day because of all the pictures we took.  Monday we left Guatemala City at 7:00am with Elder and Sister Price and Elder and Sister Hurst and drove to Quirigua.  It lies in the southeast part of Guatemala near the border with Honduras. It was closely aligned with Copan.  It is famous for the large stelas that are in very good condition.

Steps leading up to some of the residential buildings.

Residential buildings.

The main plaza.

Stela C.

Stela D

Stela E the largest.

The largest is stela E.  Stela E stands in the northern half of the Great Plaza. This stela was dedicated on 24 January 771 by K'ak' Tiliw Chan Yopaat. Its total shaft measures 10.6 meters (35 ft) in height, including the buried portion holding it in place, which measures just under 3 meters (10 ft). This enormous monolith is the largest stone ever quarried by the ancient Maya and weighs approximately 65 tons, it may even be the largest free-standing worked monolith in the New World. (Isn’t Wikipedia great?)

The jungle was very dense and green.

Stela H.

The stone work is a lot finer than in Mixco Viejo.

I was amazed at the carving on some of the large rocks.  The entire rock was completely covered in carvings.

Zoomorph B.

Other end of Zoomorph B.

One of the large carved stones.

Another carved stone.

More carvings in the museum.

They had a small museum at Quirigua.

Quirigua is surrounded by a banana plantation.  As we tried to leave, we were stopped by a trolley system crossing the road with bunches of bananas hanging on the trolley or conveyer.  We only had to wait about 5 minutes and then we drove to San Felipe and found our hotel. 

Banana plantation.  The bananas are protected by the blue plastic bags until they are ripe.

Trolley or conveyor of bananas.

 

 

 

 Video of the banana train.

Vinas del Lago, our hotel was right on Lake Isabel and we had a great views from the restaurant. 

View to the east from on top of the bridge.

Waiting for lunch.

We had lunch there at the restaurant overlooking the lake and then walked to the Castel San Felipe.  The fort was built to keep the pirates out of Lake Isabelle.  It wasn’t all that successful.  Pirates took it over a couple of times.  It was interesting to walk through. 

The castle San Felipe.

Turret of Bustamante, year 1595.  It must of started out as only a turret.

The castle San Felipe.

 

 

At one point it was used as a prison.

 

This cannon has the date of 1796 on it.  These must have been replacements because the fort was build in 1595.

Heading for the boat ride. 

Afterwards we took a boat ride on the lake.  We ended the day playing cards at the restaurant.

The castle from the lake.

The bridge over the lake.

Lots of birds.

On Lake Isabelle.

Flowers in the garden of the hotel.

Flowers in the garden of the hotel.