Helicopter Viewpoint Tour from Flores

Day 1

Helicopter Viewpoint Tour

• El Mirador is a late Mayan pre-classic city located in the Mirador basin. It is located in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. El Mirador is located on the shores of the “La Jarrilla” basin and this was very important for the development of the place since the first inhabitants populated it, since it was used as a source of rainwater and drainage. "La Jarrilla" was also a source for the extraction of clays to build their structures and make their ceramics.
• You will need to be at Mundo Maya Airport at 7:00 am to begin the helicopter adventure to El Mirador. Our flight will last about 30 minutes. Upon our arrival at the archaeological site we will begin our walk. Here is a brief summary of what to expect on our way.
• Monos Complex: During the period of the Monos ceramic complex, the city of Nakbé was fully developed, with the first occupation in 800 BC By then there was already a differentiation of social status evident in the fine ceramics recovered in certain sectors, inlays in the teeth and import of exotic products such as the shell.
• The most prominent aspect of the material culture developed during this period is the architecture whose characteristics are voluminous or monumental buildings, numerous groups of triadic patterns, residential structures that surround squares, ceremonial platforms, the use of stucco to cover the buildings, the masks attached to the facades of buildings and the construction of roads that connect groups and sites to each other and that indicate the unification of a vast territory.
• The frieze of the popol vuh: In 2009, under the ruins of a road, a 4 x 3 m piece was placed in 300 BC. The limestone and stucco images show the twin heroes of the Mayan creation, Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué, submerged in the underworld, in search of the decapitated head of their father, a fact narrated in the sacred Mayan temple Popol Vuh Garra Jaguar. It was built around 150 BC. C. In the west wall you can see the high quality of the materials and the construction systems developed more than 2000 years ago. A substructure built around 400 BC. C.
• It was also decorated with masks and red, cream and black stucco paneling. The masks in this building show the metamorphosis of a solar-jaguar deity throughout its movement from east to west. The protruding figurehead has half its face skeletal and the other half corporeal.
• The panels have been suggested to represent a ruler or royal lineage. The earmuffs are shaped like a "jaguar claw" with fire symbols. This building is believed to be a dedicated monument or the grave of a member of the ruling lineage.
• The La Danta Complex is one of the most representative works of architecture of the Preclassic Mayan world due to its stylistic and artistic majesty, its antiquity, and the dimensions it reached and that surely required millions of man-days of work, in addition to industrial raw materials. for walls, floors, construction fillers and pigmentations.
• Lunch time. At the end of our jungle trek and adventure, we will return to Flores.