TRAVEL
September 2006
SPIRITS,
SAINTS AND THE ART OF SACRIFICE
San Juan Chamula, Mexico
Amid the rough dirt tracks that criss-cross the Mayan village of San
Juan Chamula, a stark, grey building stands four storeys over the others.
"The man who owns that house," explains Caesar, an inhabitant
of pure Mayan lineage, "is the distributor of Coca-Cola."
June 2006
A
HOLY COMMUNION
Tequila, Mexico
Maria made me repeat the words: ‘Oh Lord God, fountain of life,
creator of all, blessed be this most Holy of water. Renew the living
spring of life within us, and protect us in spirit and body from sin.
Amen.’ I raised my cupped hands and drank...
January 2006
SAN
CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO
An Ethereal Highland City
Strikingly positioned in the highlands of Chiapas, there is an intense
and otherworldly quality to San Cristóbal de las Casas. The streets
rise and fall with brightly coloured houses, green mountains all around….
June 2005
SCENES
FROM THE FRONTIER
Richard Arghiris visits canyon country in Mexico
The mountains are stacked on tiers like the towers of an ancient city.
Each turn opens a new canyon. Each is as expansive and consuming as
the last....
June 2005
PALENQUE:
SECRET CITY OF THE MAYA
Dense, exuberant rainforest shrouds this immense Mayan metropolis, abandoned
for unknown reasons over a millennia ago. A sense of the lost, grandiose
world of the Maya lingers in this city’s ruined plazas….
June 2005
OF
BEASTS AND HEROES
Guadalajara, Mexico
Trumpets heralded the entrance of the matadors. They emerged out into
the fanfare, clad in black, armed with swords….
Friday March 18th 2005
THE
HIDDEN CIVILISATION
Richard Arghiris takes the path less travelled to see an ancient Mayan
marvel in the jungle of Guatemala
We had reached the summit of El Tigre and below us the forest was unbroken
in every direction. Far in the distance, ancient and ruined cities were
silhouetted on the horizon....
ART
December 2005
AMERICAN
BEAUTY
Frederick Catherwood was the first 19th-century artist to record
the splendours of some of the most inaccessible central American ruins.
His images, published in books that changed the way academics viewed
the region’s indigenous peoples, were created under appalling
conditions, writes Richard Constantine Arghiris
It is impossible to describe the interest with which I explored these
ruins. The ground was entirely new; there were guidebooks or guides;
the whole was virgin soil…
LIFESTYLE
February 2002
ON
THE TAKE
Richard Arghiris remembers his past life as a casino croupier
Being in the 'business' is not unlike being in the army - six weeks
training in the art of murder before being unleashed into the battlefield....
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