"Santo Tomas de Castilla " a Puerto Santo Tomás de Castilla Travel Page by Sambawalk

The archaeological site of Quiriguá, Gatamela contains the largest stelae ever discovered in the Mayan world. Quirigua is just 94 kilometers from Puerto Barrios on the road to Guatemala City, making it the closest place from the capital to see important ruins.

My visit here was part of the 7 days Holland Amercia West Carribean cruise visit, including Belize, Gatamela , and Cozumel, Mexico. The tour was 4.5 hours long and it costs US$79.

Santo Tomás de Castilla is one of the most important port cities in Guatemala. It is located in the eastern Gulf of Honduras coast on the Amatique Bay. Santo Tomas Guatemala was originally settled in the 19th century by Belgian pioneers. The port here was built in the 1960's to compliment the cargo port at Puerto Barrios, and for many years Santo Tomas Guatemala received only cargo ships. In 2004, Santo Tomás de Castilla began accepting cruise ships that make their way through the Caribbean. The cruise industry brings tourists to this before much neglected coastline, and the local economy surely appreciates visitors. While void of prestigious Guatemalan beaches and the more popular Mayan ruins, the port still manages to give visitors a good taste of the local culture.

While the more popular Mayan ruins at Tikal are quite a trip away from Santo Tomás de Castilla Guatemala, you can sample the more modest ruins at Quiriguá. The different cruise lines that stop at Santo Tomás de Castilla Guatemala offer tours to places of interest, and Quiriguá is a tour that many people choose. What Quiriguá lacks in size, it makes up for with its fine sculptures, which represent some of the finest pieces from ancient Mesoamerica. Quiriguá, consequently, has been added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Other nearby places of interest include the Dulce River, Lake Izabel, the San Felipe Spanish fortress and the towns of Puerto Barrios and Livingston. The Río Dulce (Sweet River) is another notable place to explore off of the cruise ships. River cruises can start at the town of Livingston and take visitors into a scenic gorge rising to 300 feet in parts. The natural foliage and wild flowers make for picturesque photo opportunities and you will want to keep your ears open for the calls of the howler monkeys that inhabit the surrounding trees. Other animal sightings include the colorful toucans that make their homes in this lush region. Eventually, the Dulce River flows into the largest lake in Guatemala, Lake Izabel. At the entrance of the lake rests the Spanish Castle of San Felipe. If your boat cruise makes a stop here, you can tour the 17th century fortress that once served to keep pirates of the Caribbean at bay.

Puerto Barrios is a good destination for the hedonistic traveler, offering pool halls, bars, nightclubs and a few strip joints. Livingston is a more complete tourist destination, and it’s popularity as grown in recent years. The main interest in this town is the local Garifuna population, as well as the mix of Maya, and Latino peoples who share this city on the Gulf of Honduras coast. As a result, the air of Livingston is filled with different dialects and languages, including the Garifuna tongue, which helps to make Livingston stand out from other cities in Guatemala. Visiting these two towns is a better idea for people choosing to stay in the area for an extended period of time, while those arriving on Guatemala cruises will find the organized tours that the cruise lines offer to be a better, and usually safer, way to explore the region.

Quiriguá, Gatamela is an ancient Maya site in the Izabal department of Guatemala.

Quiriguá is a medium sized site along the lower Motagua river, with the ceremonial center heart of the site about 1 km from the left bank of the river. The city's period of occupation seems to correspond to the length of the Maya Classic period; the site being occupied by 200, construction on the acropolis begun about 550, a great boom of grander construction beginning in the 700s with all construction evidently halting about 850. Quiriguá's boom in the 700s was no doubt tied to the military victory by Quiriguá's king Cauac Sky (also known to the Ancient Maya as "Butz Tiliw" and "K’ak’ Tiliw Chan Yo'at") over Copán in 738, when the most famous king from Copán, Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil or "18-Rabbit", was defeated, captured and then sacrificed in the grand Plaza at Quiriguá. Before this Quiriguá was probably a vassal state of Copán, afterwards the situation was reversed. The amount of grand ceremonial architecture is perhaps rather small for a site of Quiriguá's importance, but the site remains very impressive thanks largely to its wealth of sculpture, some of the finest of ancient Mesoamerica.

This includes unusually huge stelae elaborately carved from single blocks of stone, the largest being 10 meters (35 feet) tall and weighing some 60,000 kg (65 tons), the Stela E, the largest of the Maya civilization. In addition to the tall vertical stelae, the site has a number of boulders elaborately sculpted into the forms of mythological animals; these sculptures are referred to as Zoomorphs. There are also various altars and sculptures used as decoration in the facades of buildings. As a whole, the artistry of the sculptures is not quite so good as the best found at Palenque and Copán; most Quiriguá monuments have a grand formal monumentallity that is rather stiff compared to the naturalistic grace of the art of those other sites. A few Quiriguá monuments, however, show exceptional artistry. Probably the finest of these are Stela D from 766 which has extravagant full-figure anthropomorphic versions of Maya hieroglyphics on one side, and Zoomorph P (which explorer Maudslay nicknamed The Great Turtle), from 736, which are masterpieces of Mesoamerican art. Stela C depicts the date 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahaw 8 Kumk'u (August 13, 3114 BC), the beginning of the 5th Maya Era.