Saturday, July 9
Palace of Palenque
If you are an individual that feels comfortable getting off the beaten track, then the ruin of the ancient city of the Palenque in Chiapas Mexico is a must-see sight for you.
Although the most well-known ruins include the Mayan structures throughout the Mexican Peninsula, the Palenque was located in an ancient Mayan city-state, and today it offers travelers some of the most exquisite and intricately designed architecture in all of Mexico. While the site is still being unearthed there is much you can learn by visiting it.
During your visit, you will get to experience the Mayan world and walk in the footsteps of the ancient priests and rulers of the time.
There are several pyramids located within the city most of which were used for ceremonies and rituals. The tranquility of the site will be lost in the emotions you may feel when you visit Palenque ruins and imagine its distant inhabitants who vanished off the Earth.
The Mayan Ruins of Palenque are a Mesoamerican site in southern Mexico in the Chiapas state of Mexico. They are believed to have been built sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries AD, although the exact date is uncertain.
These Mayan ruins were once the center of the Mayan city of Palenque founded by an ancient Maya ruler known as Pakal the Great, who ruled from 615 to 683 AD.
The site was first settled in the Early Classic Period, and the earliest evidence of Mayan occupation at the site comes from around 600 CE.
By the Late Classic Period, Palenque had become one of the most powerful Mayan city-states, and its influence extended throughout Mesoamerica. Archaeologists date the ruins of Palenque back to the year 226 BC. The city was smaller than Chichen Itza and Tikal. READ MORE...
Friday, October 15
Mangroves Trapped in Time
It has been hiding away for around 125,000 years.Scientists have uncovered the origin of a mysterious landlocked mangrove forest in the heart of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.
Normally, trees of this species — known as red mangroves, or Rhizophora mangle — grow only in salt water, along tropical coastlines. But this forest is located near the San Pedro River in the state of Tabasco, more than 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the nearest ocean. Somehow, these mangroves have adapted to live exclusively in this freshwater environment in southeast Mexico.
Exactly how this ecological enigma came about has baffled scientists. But now, an international, multidisciplinary team of researchers has revealed that this out-of-place ecosystem began growing around 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were much higher and the ocean covered most of the region.
"The most amazing part of this study is that we were able to examine a mangrove ecosystem that has been trapped in time for more than 100,000 years," lead author Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, a marine ecologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said in a statement. It was like putting together a "lost world," he added.
Saturday, June 5
What Do Ya Need?
Many of us Americans as well as those immigrants who have entered this country
illegally want the SAME THING.... MORE... MORE... MORE... of everything, such as:
- more money
- more food
- more alcohol
- more drugs
- more sex
- more clothes
- more fun
I was going to add more education but that thought got me to thinking about my previous students who only wanted to memorize what they needed to know for the test and not what they needed to know to retain knowledge... some would argue that those two statements are not mutually exclusive.
I remember a very wealthy man telling once that all he wanted to do was just earn one more dollar...
What is this obsession with MONEY?
I had a conversation yesterday with a legal immigrant who has become a US citizen and he lives two doors down from me and when we are out mowing our yard at the same time, we always stop and talk...
He is 61/62 years of age and I am 73 years of age, and we both at at that point where we are no longer interested in having the desire to acquire more money... but instead, have acquired the desire to enjoy the live around us... that is to say:
- enjoy the sunrises
- enjoy the sunsets
- enjoy the warm weather
- enjoy the birds singing
- enjoy watching the rabbit in the yard
- enjoy the beauty of trees