Last week in the feild!

The last week went by so fast! I'm going to miss San Ignacio and the people here but the ocean is calling! We spent Monday and Tuesday in the feild at Aguacate and Wednesday and Thursday in the lab. My operation finished up our units and drew profile drawings and the final plans...oh paperwork. As a whole our operation was the least "sexy" as archaeologists would say. We only found a floor, a corner of a building, and a wall. We also only dug up lithics and ceramics with occasional obsidian and shell. Other operations were very sexy and had full on architecture and really cool artifacts like jewelry and game peices. I think that my operation definitely had the most fun though!! We were pretty goofy and very delirious this last week after being in the jungle for four weeks together.

The lab was interesting and extremely boring at the same time. I managed to escape the lab for so long and I'm so happy that I did. All we did was wash artifacts with little toothbrushes and then count them and bag them. Talk about going insane! On the other hand it was awesome seeing all of our hard work look so pretty and neat instead of covered in dirt. Of course we celebrated last night at Hode's because all of the work was finished early! Today we have a free day and most of it has been spent relaxing so far! I'm so excited for Matt to get here tomorrow and for us to spend a week in the Cayes together! I can't believe I only have one more week left!

San Ignacio and Cave Tubing

Our professor left on Friday so on Thursday night Hode’s had a huge party for him. At around 2 AM our staff decided to let everyone sleep in and go to the field three hours later that same morning! The staff here are so awesomeJ I definitely needed those few extra hours, we all did! After another week in the field it was time for the Foothill group to leave San Ignacio and go home or on to other travels. It was a slow and relaxing night but we managed to get a lot of dancing in at Faya Wata! Saying bye to Foothill made me realize that I only have two weeks left in beautiful Belize! After a lot of celebrating and goodbyes Thursday and Friday night it was nice to spend some down time in San Ignacio on Saturday. We went to San Ignacio hotel up on the hill and enjoyed their pool for the day. It was extremely sunny and hot so it was awesome being able to get in the water. We went with a big group so we all just hung out and chatted. It was a nice switch from Midas Resort that I would most defiantly not call a resort. Our recent visitors have been a tree frog, cockroach, and ants along with the stray dogs that love to follow us home. We’re definitely in the jungle. I’ll take our visitors over some of the other students who have gotten a rat and a scorpion!
We tried out Pop’s for breakfast and got some delicious waffles and some interesting hash browns (skip these on the menu if you come here). Then we ate dinner at Yoli’s Pizza which was good but not enough food! I would like to try out some more of the local restaurants before I leave San Ignacio but I’m running out of time! The market tacos on Saturdays are to die for and the baked goods from the Mennonite stands are delicious! We live it up on the weekends and get our good food in since we are getting a little tired of Hode’s cooking.
Today we went cave tubing at Nohoch Che'en and it was so funny and relaxing compared to the ATM cave experience. I loved ATM but if you want to float and not do any work go with the tubing! Our guide wasn’t that great but our group definitely made up for his grouchiness. Tori, Valda and I decided we wanted to go and staff was the only ones going so we went with them and had a great time! I wish I had my camera in the cave because it was hilarious! So our group was 11 people; ten of us and one random lady. Our guide made us link together by our feet so we were a giant blob going through a pitch black cave and we all were supposed to “work together” with our paddling skills. Our guide was so irritated by the end of it because none of us were putting in any effort to paddle the right way. We were having way too much fun laughing hysterically at how uncoordinated we all were together. When we headed out of the caves we floated down the river for a while and again we were being way too silly. The current was really strong and we kept floating into the bushes!!! The sun was nice after the cold caves and the river was a beautiful teal color. That was so worth the money!

Dig, Dug it, Diggin it

dug a lot today. ate animal crackers and frosting for dinner:)mmmmm!

Xunantunich and Benque Festival

It’s the weekend! We went to Xunantunich in the morning after another round of market tacos! It’s a relatively big site and when you get on top of the highest structure you can see Guatemala to the left about 16 miles away. It was quite a hike up to the site after working in the field all week and partying pretty hard the night before at the local San Ignacio bars. Xunantunich was my favorite Maya site so far. It has three main structures; one in the middle of the plaza that looks out of place, the largest one with lots of stairs, and a structure that most likely served as a private area for the elite. The other sites we went to haven’t had a structure in the center of the plaza like Xunantunich. When the middle structure was excavated it had nothing of importance inside and the function of the structure remains a mystery as to why the Maya would have wanted to split their main plaza in half. The view from the highest structure was very impressive so we all relaxed up there for a pretty long time. Definitely my favorite Maya site so far! The view was great and we got to relax and explore it ourselves without a tour guide. It started pouring as we were heading back to our bus so we just enjoyed not being hot for a half hour and got soaked! Such a nice break from sweating! The rest of the day me and my roommate Tori hung out and got ready for the Benque festival. There is a bootleg channel on our TV so we watched Eclipse!!! For free…I love Belize in moments like those!

After our lazy afternoon we took a local bus to the Benque Festival which is one of the largest festivals of the year here in Belize. Right when we got there we got some pretty awkward looks but because everyone there was from all over the country it wasn’t that bad… Candy, a girl in our group got electrocuted when she grabbed onto a railing while waiting to go on a ride. That pretty much taught everyone that the rides weren’t particularly safe. Let’s just say nobody went on rides that night out of our group. It started raining again and we all packed under the little overhangs that didn’t cover much. It was starting to turn out to be an interesting night. Then the power went out. So here we are, pretty close to Guatemala in the middle of a power outage in the rain. That’s when I decided beer was necessary. The power went on after an hour of waiting and the majority of us went into the warehouse were a huge dance party was going on. There was supposed to be a band playing but I guess no power and the rain scared them away! The party literally didn’t start until 12:30 in the morning and from there on everyone was dancing! To use the bathroom you had to buy toilet paper every time you went in which was interesting. Most of the night they played Spanish music that most of us didn’t understand with such a fast beat I don’t think anybody was dancing to it right. Basically if you had a good sense of humor it was great! We left the festival around 3:30 in the morning and didn’t crawl into bed until 5. Woke up at 2 in the afternoon! That was a first for me in Belize! It beats 5:45 AM! Tori and I woke up slow and headed to Greedy’s for a long lunch. Today is very relaxing but back to the field bright and early!

Farm and Survey

Yesterday I went to the farm with the Foothill group to learn about Ted and Linda’s research to see if I could incorporate the information into my research project. We dug a soil test pit (Kay, I was thinking about you) to locate where the good soil was for farming. It was kind of interesting but I know that I don’t want to do that for my topic, I won’t bore you with the details. It was hot! So hot that I got sunburned though my shirt. Foothill has it so good out there though, they have a toilet seat and an occasional breeze with lots of breaks and no mosquitoes. I can’t wait to see them out at Aguacate….hehe. We got to swim in a pool at the resort that they are farming on called Chaa Creek. It felt nice to get in the water again! Still unsure about what I will do for my project but I have time and I think that I want to focus on terracing found at archaeological sites. Who knows I will probably change my mind a lot!
Today Eric invited me to survey with him and Gilbert and I went for it. So much fun! We probably hiked about five miles total. It was hot but so much better than digging all day! We mapped out a new site that could possibly have evidence of terracing. It was small compared to Aguacate but on top of a pretty steep hill. The mounds were only about three meters high and there were only four of them. A Mennonite who owns the land helped us find it and was really cooperative about the whole situation. I should mention that Aguacate is in Spanish Lookout which is Mennonite central for Belize. After mapping the site we hiked up a road for a long time and started mapping out the different mounds on the way. The mounds are everywhere! We used a compass and GPS to locate the mounds. It was the best time I’ve had out in the field so far! I get so antsy digging all day in a 2 by 2 so it was a nice change!

Tikal and Flores

Guatemala was fun I'm so happy I decided to go! We went to the local market in San Ignacio before we headed out to cross the border and ate the most delicious tacos for breakfast! We packed into a truck like sardines because the air conditioning broke for the bus we were supposed to take. Crossed the border with no issues and drove through Guatemala for a couple of hours until we reached Tikal. It was HUGE! The biggest site I've seen so far. It makes Aguacate look so tiny its rediculous.The tallest structure wasn't that impressive because it had scaffolding on it and you couldn't actually walk up the original stairs but the wooden steps they installed. My favorite was the ritual structure with really unique architecture along the sides. We walked up stairs to get to the top of that one and it definately got our adrenaline pumping. It was straight up and the wind started blowing so hard that the plaster on top of the structure was falling off. The view from the top was gorgeous though, even better than the tallest building because you could see a lot of the main plaza. Our tour guide definately wasn't the best, nobody could really understand his broken up English so he just spoke in Spanish and people translated. I was one of the only ones that didn't speak Spanish so I was guessing what the structures purposes were for on my own. Thats ok though cause that's what an archaeologist does.

From Tikal we headed to the little island of Flores where we stayed for two nights. It was a very fun place to stay and the most touristy place I've been so far. We all took a nap right when we got there because it was the first time we got to relax all week!And we partied hard the night before at Faya wata for Tori's b-day so we were all exhausted and needed to charge up for another night out on the island. We went to a local bar/dance club that was really fun!

I think everybody gave up on sleeping in for this trip. I wake up at 5:30 every morning no matter how long I get to sleep! We took a little taxi thing across the bridge to the market. It's amazing how those things can fit in the tiniest places, kind of a scary ride but super cheap! We realized the market didn't have much to offer so we decided to walk around. Well we came across Burger King and couldn't resist! After 2 weeks of chicken and rice it was awesome to have some fries! We walked back to Flores to watch the final World Cup game with a bunch of crazy Duth men. Let's just say they were upset with the final score:) It was a fun atmosphere and they had great smoothies! Went out to dinner with the staff members who were in Flores also then had a relaxing night drinking rum and cokes at our hotel overlooking the lake. It was a much deserved break from teh field!

Tori and I woke up early the next morning to get some breakfast and came across Cafe Amelia. So yummy! waffles with honey...probably the last normal breakfast I will have for a while. Wanted to stay longer on Flores but it was time to head back to Belize! We stopped in San Jose to swim in the Itza Lake. Yes, the third San Jose I've been to now! It was nice to finally get in the water and escape the heat a little bit even though the water was warm. Had a really great weekend and tomorrow I won't be back at Aguacate but on the farm to get ideas for my research project!I'm excited to switch it up!