Day Eleven Continued

After lunch at Finca Santa Maria we drove down an unpaved road to the Late Classic Archaeological Site of Chinkultic but found it closed. The story told that might explain the closure is about an attempted robbery of the office by a group of villagers in August the previous year. They approached at night armed with machetes and an old shot gun. The shot gun was fired as they approached and the army guards opened fire with a machine gun killing six of the villagers. In the seventies this area was a camping site for refugees escaping the military purge in Guatemala and travel guides from that period warn travelers of danger, a possible reason for Army Guards.

The only structure that had been restored was the temple on the hill side to the left of the road. We have little information on this site but it is interesting to note the remnants of twin towers on top. Architecturally this seemed similar to the temples farther north in the Reo Bec region.

The hill to the right of the road looked like it might also have been part of this complex and a few of us searched through the brush for any signs of structures to no avail.

From Chinnkultic we stopped at Comitan on our way back to to San Cristobal. Comitan was a pleasant clean town, with impressive well maintained buildings. The presence of a Tourist Policeman who saved a parking place for the bus and welcomed us as we disembarked indicated to us that the town was striving to be a tourist destination. The Policeman greeted Babu as he got off the bus and in broken English gave a dialogue on Chiapas complete with a complimentary map of the region. Arriving late in the afternoon we did not have a lot of time to explore. After searching we finally found the Archaeological Museum just as it was closing.

Upper left is the City Hall where we found the rest rooms, next is the church on the other side of the square. Upper right is an attractive band shell with a fountain in the center located in the main square. The rest are random shots of the area around the square. Lower right are evening shots of City Hall after the lights were turned on.

It was late and it had been a long day and destined to be longer to cover the fifty miles back to San Cristobal. We think it was this night that Steve, Axel and Ricardo went out on the town to celebrate Axel's birthday, but the rest of us were too tired to take part!