Strangler Vine

While touring the Mayan ruins of Xunantunich, our guide, Patrick showed us the amazing strangler vine. This parasitic vine chooses its host tree, ascends while dropping its roots and eventually destroys its host's ability to obtain nutrients. After the host is dead and rotted, the strangler vine creates its own hollow tree and is extremely susceptible to high speed winds. It is also called the strangler fig.

Ceiba

My friend, Eila and I took pictures along side the Ceiba tree when we were touring the Mayan ruins of Caracol. This tree is the national tree of Guatemala and is extremely important to the Mayan culture. Our lovely Mayan guide explained to us that the Ceiba was the inspiration for the mystical tree in the movie Avatar.

According to Mayan culture, The Tree of Life has branches connecting to the heavens and long roots connecting to the underworld. The Mayans believe that the underworld consists of cave systems. This is where they performed many sacrifices and other rituals.

The Lovely City of Caracol

Welcome to Caracol, an ancient Mayan city occupied from 600 B.C. to 900 A.D. My family and I were fortunate enough to visit this stunning archaeological site. The Mayan people successfully dealt with a challenging environment through the use of reservoirs, city planning, a terrace system and recycled garbage. In this picture, I am standing on a massive temple called Caana which is 140 tall.

 Here is a picture of my friend, Eila, in front of the Mayan reservoir located about half a mile from the temple shown above.