Here's a brief update from Punta Gorda, the hottest town in the tropics, and I'm not talking about the night-life. It's always sweltering here in the month or so leading up to the first rains of the wet season. That's both a blessing and a curse. We want the dry weather for working, since excavations in the mud are not fun, but we also suffer from the heat, which make work kind of like, well, work.

We have several excavations open but mostly small. This Sunday we'll burn the low bush off of a big architectural group and then start working there for about 9 weeks. There a pic of what we are doing now in a small plaza. Not much to look at except Margaret and Chris moving dirt.

Monday when we were at Lubaantun I took some pictures of several 1200 year old figurines found at the site since I last visited. They are mostly human figures, and mostly heads. The caretaker, Santiago, also makes beautiful replicas based on the ancient forms. You can see him, and them, above. While touring Norman Hammond around Geoff Braswell showed us his new excavations into a couple buildings and we posed for the obligatory photo. Three archaeologistson a ruin.