Belize 2011 begins with a clap of thunder

Here goes another round of Belize blog posts from muggy, soggy, hot, and sweet Toledo District. Ethan and I flew in two days ago and we're getting our Maya feet back, bo'otik. We were met in Belize City by some typical days' experiences. The layover was several hours long, mostly spent talking with "Jet", the aged 4' 1" tall owner of the local airport pub who has a penchant for snuggling up to the bosom of every womam who come though the door. Its pathological. Hmm. Why do I keep coming back here?

By the time our little puddle jumper to Punta Gorda was ready to depart most of the airport workers were asleep on the tarmac (see the first picture). Ahh, welcome back to the tropics. I feel so much safer flying now.

Once we got here more fun ensued. We stumbled up a large hill yesterday as the rains threatened and the sky grew dark. On the top we found a large collapsing building that had just been burned as Ronaldo was preparing his farm field for the season. This bodes pretty well (the building, not the dark skies) for a fruitful season. But... It's not my first trip here of the season. In early April I was here with our new climate working group from the UK. They took the very posed image of me in the cave we are currently monitoring as part of our long-term paleoclimate study. More soon!

My two co-PIs on the project came to visit and it was a ruckus time, to say the least. Doug somehow managed to arrive right when we went on break, so I took him diving. The seas were choppy, but we managed to see three spotted eels on the second dive of the day. Yemane arrived a coupe days later and my week was divided between getting project business done and guiding the two of them around. It was perhaps the most fun of the season, though I did little work. We're building a house for the ethnographers on the project, and they had to haul lots of palm leaf for the thatch roof. Now we're in the last week of study and I'm looking at 15 hour days until Saturday. Wish me luck!

The heat continues so I'll just quit whining about it after I note that it was only 96 degrees yesterday with about 90% humidity. It was in this heat that I saw a bunch of 7-10 year old boys chopping the grass in front of the school with razor sharp machetes. They get their first machete when they are about seven years old, and those kids were good, clearing the entire hillside in about ten minutes.

We have divided our time for the last week between 5 teams of students excavating small-to-large settlement groups of 1-5 buildings each, mapping, and some side projects. The settlement excavations are the main focus of the last couple weeks of work. As we identify and map in architecture of elites and commons we are also generating spatial data to match the excavations. Here's some pictures of Claire and Neri (mapper in training). We also visited a rather interesting rockshelter up in the karst mountains surrounding the site. We'll do some excavations there on some human-constructed terraces. One drawback was the mosquitos, which were so thick we had to burn an old termite nest at lunch to keep them at bay.

Today and tomorrow I'm at the beach, finally! It's nice to sit by the sea, soaking the bug bites, and enjoy a nice dinner with the ocean breezes. Here's a picture of the view from my balcony (at $45 a night its quite the deal), and I saw an iguana on a hot tin roof.

It has been a busy last few weeks since I updated this blog. We have grown to about 10 people, plus 16 workers excavating at Uxbenka. The work has been exciting, hot, buggy, strenuous, and rewarding. In one plaza set back from the road we have found excavated an Early Classic (ca 400 AD) shrine complex in a large residential complex. We completed excavations at another shrine, far in the mountains, where I brought in an intrepid crew form California, the UK, and Hawaii. Despite the brutal conditions they did a great job documenting what may be the first large mountain shrine complex in the Maya Lowlands. Excavations have produced some really wonderful artifacts and even more interesting information. In between, on our occasional days off people have found time to swim into caves, visit other ruins, and mostly lounge around, enjoying a few cold beers in the evening. We only have three more weeks of work, but I plan to post at least three more blog-posts in that time.

Holley and Mark went up into the hills to camp while excavating a pre-Classic (ca AD 150) mountain shrine complex. We packed all there gear onto horses, including water since its far from the river, and then sent them off. One of the things they did was an experiment to see how hard it would be to move large construction blocks up to the shrine, where thousands of the 50-70 lb stones are incorporated into the buildings. So, we hired several young men to carry as many rocks as they could up the hill. Quite an adventure. Here's some pictures of all that, plus one of some pavers in an excavation at Group I, a large elite residential group far from the site core.

Its Sunday which is kind of the only real day off from working in the week. Saturdays are usually spent at the market and shops of Punta Gorda trying to get supplies, which are available in unreliable forms and quantities. Yesterday it took 4 hours and about 6 shops, plus the outdoor produce market before heading home with enough food to last the crew a week. On the way back we picked up the new project truck, just purchased from our mechanic. It's the biggest truck I have ever driven on a daily basis, but is solid, spacious for the rain, and safe.

The excavations have been going well, despite the intense heat. It's now been over a week of solid 100 degree plus days, making everyones' humor begin to crack a little in the field, and leading to cold beers being a kind of first aid at the end of the day. There are real concerns about dehydration, and everyone now carries about a gallon of water for the day. Friday I did wind up in some houses in the village of Santa Cruz and some friends were gracious to let me snap some pictures. The kids are eating beans and corn tortillas, which are made daily from corn grown locally. There is nothing like a fresh corn tortilla. Every morning the women and children strip the corn seeds from the cob, soak them in water, and then grind them at the community mill. They make enough masa to last just for the day. In the house the tortillas a patted out by hand and cooked over an open fire on a comale.

Even though its Sunday we did some work. Holley and Mark and I started going through the 2009 ceramics from the mountain shrine complex overlooking Uxbenka. It turns out that my thatch house can also double as a field lab, which is useful.

Sunday there was a freak storm that passed through Santa Cruz village. During morning it was very hot, probably about 100 degrees, but suddenly in the afternoon the temperature dropped suddenly and then it started hailing and the wind picked up. At least one Maya thatch house was blown down, and complete chicken coops disappeared, blown into the jungle. In Big Falls, 15 km away, we got almost nothing, just a 15 minute shower and a good breeze. It's strange weather to begin with, but even stranger that the dangerous storm was so localized.

Saturday we burned the low secondary growth off the 1.5 acres that we now call Group I. For Maya farmers, and for us, the timing of the burn is important. If you burn too soon then bush is still damp and its does not work. If you wait too long it can rain, making it frustrating to find just the right window. We had chopped this about three weeks ago, just when I arrived in Belize. It turns out we timed it just right with the big storm on Sunday. Here's some before and after pics of the burn, one with Chris. The pictures don't show how hot it was up there.

Also, on Sunday, I moved into my new house, a few miles down the road from the camp and the rest of the crew. It's nice to have some privacy and somewhere to write. Here's a few pictures of the new digs. It's a lovely one bedroom cabana with a hammocked porch and sweet outdoor shower.