MAYA COSMIC NUMBER PUZZLES VOLUME 237 MAYA COSMIC NUMBER PUZZLES VOLUME 237 | Page 9

Thomas chose to order the men their next round, and they in turn offered him a seat at
their table. Thomas introduced himself, and told them he was interested in Archeology
and the old Maya Civilization. He asked them, if they would be interested in taking him
along on their treasure hunt? They explained to him the high cost and severe misery that
would certainly be waiting for them in the unforgiving jungle. Thomas looked at the two
men, and assured them with a simple smile and handshake that from the hell he had just
endured, he was qualified to fight whatever evil spirits were waiting in the ancient homelands of the Maya. With a toast to their mutual prospects and a blessing to the Fates, a
simple partnership, based on mutual trust and the spirit of adventure, was struck. The
following day, the three men bought a new Ford truck from a dealer, and an extra set of
Firestone tires and a couple of barrels of untaxed gasoline from a black-market racketeer. They then drove happily south. After two weeks of hard driving, they pulled into the
Mexican state capital, Oaxaca City. They could almost smell the treasure waiting to be
found once again.
Juan Vega thought back, as they drove towards the center of town, to when he
first wanted to find the Maya treasure. In a mud-brick house, two blocks from the main
Catholic Church, Juan was told of an adventure by his old uncle, Guillermo Gaeta Covarrubias. Who as a young man was on an expedition in 1921 that first discovered an abandoned, ancient Maya city lost in the jungle. As this group of ten men dug into the earthly
depths of a royal burial chamber of a Maya King, the tunnel roof suddenly collapsed
during a severe rainstorm. The uncontrolled mud smothered and quickly killed eight of
the men. They had just handed out only one of the immensely, valuable gold leafs of a
Maya book that had been discovered. Guillermo and Eduardo, the two lone survivors,
tried to unearth the other men, but the deep pit had rapidly filled with water and heavy
mud. In the downpour of rain, the final blow came when a large, stone block bearing the
image of the Spirit Zipakná fell across Eduardo’s legs. Guillermo desperately dug him
out, while he was still clutching in his hands, the gold page of Maya glyphs and numbers.
Eduardo’s legs were crushed and he couldn’t walk. To make matters worse, their pack
burros had been spooked by the thunder and lighting, and they had vanished. Guillermo looked down at the broken body of his friend, but he never gave it a second thought
of leaving his friend. He valiantly shouldered the burden of the wounded Eduardo, and
tried to carry him back to civilization. Eduardo pleaded with Guillermo to leave him; but,
Guillermo would not listen to the words as he determinately put one foot in front of the
other. However, in less than a week Eduardo died painfully of gangrene poisoning from
his wounds. Guillermo buried him deep in the soft earth, and about two weeks later, he
stumbled out of the living jungle onto a small rancho. It would be many years later that
Guillermo would learn the whole truth, from a friendly Maya Spirit, of what happened to
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