"I would not be believed"
Visiting a Lost City in Guatemala
Perhaps because I spent half my life in Asia, I have a natural affinity with Marco Polo. I have always loved this quote:
"I have not told half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed."
The photo above is me gazing at the rising sun at the top of the world’s largest pyramid, of which no one has ever heard, in Northern Guatemala. Until now that is! Mel Gibson just spoke about it on the Joe Rogan show this week and it seems to be one of his most popular podcasts ever. They touch on everything from adventure, to dealing with one’s inner demons and religion. I always thought Mel Gibson was treated badly by Hollywood and the Establishment. All the comments I saw on youtube were praising his vulnerability and humility. I do not agree with everything that was said, especially about Pope Francis. I think its a great development that the Pope is encouraging ecological thinking (like his namesake) and inter religious dialogue.
Mel Gibson speaks about El Mirador in the first 20 minutes, although the whole show is interesting. I trekked many days though the rainforest to reach it. After surviving an attack by killer bees, I saw monkeys, snakes, the footprints of a jaguar and some small cats on our trek. In fact, El Mirador is a vast lost city with roads interconnecting it. The largest pyramid is called La Danta, which has a bigger area than Giza in Egypt.
Just like Graham Hancock’s recent Netflix documentary, it suggests that there was a lot happening in these rainforests centuries or millennia ago.
In fact, there is strong evidence that indigenous peoples have played a crucial role in shaping the composition of these rainforests: such as soil management and enhancing their biodiversity over millennia. This challenges the assumption of the Amazon and other rainforests untouched wilderness and suggests instead that it is a complex biocultural landscape, the product of long-term interaction between humans and nature.
Pilots re-discovered La Danta and El Mirador in the 1930s when they thought it was a volcano! Then the archeologist Richard Hansen began doing serious work on it.
"El Mirador is not just an archaeological site; it is a symbol of the incredible achievements of the ancient Maya and a reminder of the importance of preserving our shared cultural heritage."
Richard D. Hansen, the top archeologist at El Mirador
Nowadays, advanced technologies such as LIDAR is enabling a more detailed view of these ancient civilizations.
No doubt in Peru I will discover other places and have experiences which people might not believe!
For inspiration here are some quotes by travellers who have inspired me
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."
Saint Augustine
"Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller."
Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan explorer and scholar whose travels were partly motivated by pilgrimage.
"Life is motion. Existence is motion. Nature is motion. The sun and moon travel eternally through the heavens, tracking the unending ages of time. Birds migrate, flowers bloom and wither, marking the passing years – beget to begotten, father to son, generations ascend and are usurped. Throughout history, poets have wandered the land, nomads pursuing the muse of motion.”
Japanese Poet Basho