On Monday, December 22, we had a group outing with all the other missionaries to Iximche and Los Colinas. It was a wonderful day! Iximche is ruins of the ancient capitol of the Kaqchikel, a Mayan tribe in the area. There is a lot of known history for this area because it is relatively new for an ancient Mayan ruin. It was built in 1478 AD and conquered by the Spanish Conquistadores in 1524. It included more than 170 buildings. What is left now are the pyramids of stone on which the original wooden buildings were built.
Inside the little museum on the grounds is this miniature representation of the original city.
This is a ball court. They played a ball game of some sort here. President Burke said that, if you won the game, you got the privilege of being sacrificed, unless it was the day the loser got to be sacrificed.
This is the sacrificial stone. Looks like Gary won the game...or lost it!
Dorine coming down the steps from the ball court. They are very steep, but the step itself is so narrow that you have to come down sideways.
This is one of the pyramids. The top and parts of the sides are overgrown, but you can get an idea of what it looks like.
This large tree was in the middle of the area. A close-up of the trunk is very interesting.
Woodpeckers bored holes all up the trunk, and squirrels filled the holes will little acorns. This was the only tree we saw that had this phenomenon.
Here we are in front of one of the temple pyramids.
This is an area where Mayans still perform religious rituals. The round stones are altars, and the rocks in the picture above are places where candles are burned and fruits and vegetables are sacrificed. They no longer do animal sacrifices.
We spent a delightful couple of hours exploring these ruins then got back in the vans and headed to Los Colinas. That is a church-owned camp for youth camps, EFY, etc. It is a beautiful facility that covers 300 acres. The staff of the camp prepared a delicious lunch for us. They were in the process of breaking camp from a huge EFY that brought kids from all over Central America.
This was the boys campsite and is nearly all down.
This is the girl's campsite and is still up.
It was called Camp of Helaman.
And this is the lunch room where we ate. We really enjoyed this visit!
On Wednesday, Christmas Eve, we had a wonderful Christmas dinner at the Burks followed by some games and visiting.
Merry Christmas everyone!!
