El Baúl

Due to popular demand (one person sort of asked) I present to you the site of El Baúl. Home of the famous “Rocket Man” stela. Well, that’s what I call it.

What is going on here? As far as I know, no one knows. This stela is unique. It is part of an array of sculptures found at this site. The site was destroyed in 1997 to make way for sugar cane fields. They kept plowing up stuff and decided to preserve the bits and pieces in an open air covered walkway arrangement.

To get there you have to enter through this guarded gate. I don’t know how you’d know it is there. Fortunately, I had a guide.

**Part of the old sugar cane processing plant**

The walk way leads to a set of walkways, arranged in a square. There are individual sculpted heads and pieces of ornamentation. There is also one walkway that has large stones with faces or figures carved on the stones.

We were curious about the thorny sticks atop the sculptures. Obviously, they had some religious significance. Images of Christ and his crown of thorns, perhaps? When we asked the guard said, “Oh no, that’s to keep the birds off.”

So much for religion.

**Before I left I had to sign the book**

Paperwork is important. Here Ivania, my guide, and one of the staff are looking for the next entry. Notice the thorny stick on top of the sculpture to keep the birds off.

I get to sign just below Jerry Miller. He was here in September of 2013. The date on my photograph is March of 2017. Maybe, they just had an extra line at the bottom and there might be a few more pages beyond this. However, you can see that the book is not very much used and the pages go back at least five years. Not many people come here.

In the nearby town of La Democracia are these wonderful stone heads and figures. There were some at El Baul too, (See Below).

These heads actually come from a nearby site called Monte Alto. What’s interesting is they are displayed in the town square where people find shade under their protective coverings. Mothers sit nursing their babies and small children climb on them, using them for a jungle gym.