Hi, everyone!
After we went to the beaches in Mexico and Honduras, MS Marina cruised on to Guatemala. Grandma and Grandpa took me on a bus trip inland to Quirigua Archeological Park! The Mayan indians used to live all over Central America and they built big cities. When they left their cities for various reasons, the jungle grew all over the buildings, so they looked like big leafy mounds. In the past hundred years, archeologists have been removing the plants and dirt from the buildings so people can see what the cities looked like. They’re still working on it in a lot of places!
At Quirigua, the archeologists have exposed the stone columns or steles that stood in the central plaza. The plaza is close to the river and has been flooded many times, so there is still dirt and silt on top of the original stone paving. The steles that were tipping over have been straightened up, but they are still where the Mayans originally set them. There’s a big ceiba tree, also. The ceiba is the national tree of Guatemala, because it provided shade for meetings in town plazas like this one. Our guide explained what all the images on the steles meant — they are messages about the kings who had them carved. One is a city welcome sign! In addition to the steles, there are boulders carved to look like animals. They are called zoomorphs. One of them was getting a new protective roof when we visited!
After we walked around the plaza, which would have been public for all the people, we climbed up to the acropolis. This was space reserved for kings and their families, except for special occasions. The steps could also be used as seating for public events, like ball games. The inner area of the acropolis reminded me a lot of the temples I saw in Ayutthaya and Lopburi Thailand.
Some of my cousins, the jaguars, are native to this part of the world. I made friends with a jade carved jaguar at Quiragua, then I also made a jaguar friend in the tourist center at the port where we were docked, Santo Tomas. Guatemala is a major source of bananas, and there was a banana plantation right next to Quirigua. Ripening bunches of bananas are put in blue bags, to protect them from birds and pests. Some of the bags even change color to tell the growers exactly when to harvest the bananas!
The next day, MS Marina was in Belize! That’s my fourth new country on this trip! The barrier reef protecting Central America is very close to shore in Belize, so there’s no way big ships can get through the reef to dock in Belize City. We had to take shallow draft tenders from where MS Marina anchored into the port. Grandma said we were taking our longest tour from the Belize port — almost all the way to Guatemala to the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich! They are so famous that they’re pictured on Belize money! After a two hour bus ride, we had to cross the Mopan river on a hand-cranked ferry to get to the archeological park.
The first thing I did at Xunantunich was make friends with a mahogany tree. They have very pretty wood, and Grandma’s piano is made out of it! Then we started at the public plaza. There aren’t any steles here, but there are the remains of lots more buildings. Our guide, Nazario, said he used to work with the archeologists to excavate them.
The Mayan ruler moved out of the first palace he built into something taller and grander. That was El Castillo. It’s 130 feet tall! Grandma and Grandpa and I climbed up part of it to get a closer look at the engraved sections, but we didn’t go all the way to the top. That was still a lot of climbing for a little lion!
After I came down from El Castillo, I found the ball field and sat where the goal used to be. Mayan ball was a lot like soccer, but the ball had to go through a stone arch on the slanted wall to score a point. Sometimes, the Mayans used ball games as a way to settle disputes, instead of having a war! On the way back from Xunantunich, I helped crank the ferry across the river. Then we had a typical Belize lunch, with rice and beans cooked in coconut milk. There were six kinds of hot sauce to use!
After lunch, I climbed into a tour bus for the last time on this trip. We just made it back to the tender for the last departure time for MS Marina! I didn’t even get a chance to pose with the Belize sign at the port because we were so late! When we got back to MS Marina, we were hot and thirsty from our long tour. Grandpa and I had a cold drink on our cabin balcony, then we watched the sun go down as MS Marina left port. It took an hour to get to the open sea through the twisty reef!
The next morning, we were back in the United States at our last cruise port, Key West Florida! Grandma and Grandpa had been here before, so they took me to their favorite places. First, we walked east on Whitehead Street. I made a parrot friend before we even got off the pier! Then we stopped at the post office, so I could mail the postcards I got at Xunantunich to all my friends. Whitehead Street marks the beginning of US Route 1, which goes all the way to Maine, so the Mile 0 marker is famous! We walked all the way to the end of Whitehead to the southernmost point marker so Grandma could take my photo there, too. The statue of Bishop Kee was new since Grandma and Grandpa last visited, and I made friends with him.
We walked back to the ship on Duval Street. Grandma and Grandpa were interested to see which of their favorite restaurants and shops from previous visits were still around. I was happy to make a lion friend and stop in the nice, cool garden of the oldest house in Key West. When we got back to Mallory Square, we could see that MS Marina was the only ship in port for the day. Grandma explained that all the cruise ships need to leave port before sunset, so the people gathering at Mallory Square don’t have their view of sunset blocked. Before we went back to MS Marina, I made a new cannon friend at the Maritime Museum.
When we got on board this time, there were some “lasts”: my last trip up the Grand Staircase, our last afternoon tea, and our last departure from a port.
Saturday morning, we were back in Miami to see the sun rise. It was time to get off MS Marina, but we weren’t headed home just yet.
Grandma and Grandpa rented a car and we drove across southern Florida to the Gulf of Mexico coast. At Naples Florida, we visited the Baker Museum. Grandma was excited to see the gates of the museum were made by Albert Paley. He is an artist from Rochester! I liked a lot of the art work at the museum and the building itself is very pretty!
We had lunch at the cafe in the courtyard at the Baker Museum after we looked at the display of origami art. Aunt Emi and Bill-kun would really like these pieces!
Next, we drove on to Fort Myers Florida, to see the winter houses built by Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. They are side by side! There was a museum that told about the projects they worked on together. One was trying to find sources for rubber that could be grown in the United States. Thomas Edison planted all sorts of tropical trees for his rubber experiments!
From Fort Myers, we drove to Sanibel and Captiva Islands, where we’ll be staying this week. It was raining when we got here, but this morning was sunny. We have a resort unit with a porch overlooking the beach! There’s a nesting platform for an osprey right near by and a boardwalk over the dunes to the beach. Captiva and Sanibel Island beaches are famous for their seashells, and now I understand why!
Love,
Lion-san
I loved seeing the many different statues/sculptures you saw on this trip and made friends with Lion-san. I’m glad you had Grandma take your picture with those statues. The two with scissors were really neato. The parrot on the bicycle was so colorful. Glad you got to see it and make friends with the parrot. You had to climb SO MANY steps at those ruins you visited. Your little legs must have been tired. I would not want to have to climb those steps. I think coming back down those steps would be even worse than going up. You did well. Thanks for telling us about your cruise.
Moose-san was happy to see the Route 1 sign, he likes anything that has to do with Maine. We really liked the ruins. They looked very interesting. The Baker Museum looked neat too. We liked your new parrot friend, very colorful.