Mayan Beauty Tips

Chac Mool and Claire
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We set off from our beach hut in Tulum on a brief 4 hour bus journey in air con luxury to Chetumal. A big city not really visited by tourists much, we were using it as a stop-off to make our journey into Guatemala shorter.

Apart from a really friendly taxi driver and our first taste of non-mexican food the only highlight was the museum of Mayan culture.

..strap a board to your forehead from an early age..

We learnt a lot more than we will ever need to know about the Mayans. In fact we were a bit Mayaned out by the end.

Chac Mool and Callum
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However we did pick up some interesting beauty tips:

Women! In order to look attractive to the Mayan male you need to have a bead suspened between your eyes from an early age to help you train yourself to be cross eyed. Mmmm, they liked that.

Men! You need to strap a board to your forehead from an early age to deform the skull into a flat, recessed slaphead.

Both sexes had numerous facial tattoos and ritual scars and piercings.

It was a tough life for the lower classes. They were expected to work themselves to death, average age was 30, but this was a great honour.

The upper classes spent their days enjoying the trappings of wealth and performing self mutilation for the benefit of the gods.

Women! Tongue piercing and then pulling a rope through the hole. Then the blood soaked rope was ritually burned.

Men! Penis piercing, using a large bolt and hammer. Again gathering the blood and burning it.

After we had dried our eyes we posed in front of Chac Mool and went out for a pizza.

Next Stop Flores in Guatemala