One of our major field trips while in Belize was to the Mayan ruin at Xunantunich (pronounced "zhoo-NAHN-too-nitch"). In its heyday, Xunantunich was a city of almost 10,000 people that thrived until around 900AD. It is very close to Chaa Creek, and to the Guatemalan border. According to Wikipedia (see link above) it was allied with other smaller city states in wars against Tikal in current Guatemala. Tikal was a huge city of over 100,000 people - we will visit its ruins on our next trip to Belize. To get to Xunantunich we had to take a ferry across the Mopan river. Not clear from this photo is the fact that the ferry was 'man powered' by turning a crank that pulled the barge across the river, one vehicle at a time.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Xunantunich
One of our major field trips while in Belize was to the Mayan ruin at Xunantunich (pronounced "zhoo-NAHN-too-nitch"). In its heyday, Xunantunich was a city of almost 10,000 people that thrived until around 900AD. It is very close to Chaa Creek, and to the Guatemalan border. According to Wikipedia (see link above) it was allied with other smaller city states in wars against Tikal in current Guatemala. Tikal was a huge city of over 100,000 people - we will visit its ruins on our next trip to Belize. To get to Xunantunich we had to take a ferry across the Mopan river. Not clear from this photo is the fact that the ferry was 'man powered' by turning a crank that pulled the barge across the river, one vehicle at a time.
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