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The most accessible and impressive of the sites near Sayaxche is Ceibal , which you can reach either by land or river. It's easy enough to make it there and back in an afternoon by boat ; haggle with the boatmen at the waterfront and you can expect to pay around US$40 (for up to six people). The boat trip is followed by a short walk through towering rainforest. By road , Ceibal is just 17km from Sayaxche. Any transport heading south out of town passes the entrance track to the site, from where it's an 8km walk through the jungle to the ruins. Surrounded by forest and shaded by huge ceiba trees, the ruins of Ceibal are a mixture of cleared open plazas and untamed jungle. Though many of the largest temples lie buried under mounds, Ceibal does have some outstanding and well-preserved carving: the two main plazas are dotted with lovely stelae , centred around two low platforms. During the Classic period Ceibal was a relatively minor site, but it grew rapidly between 830 and 930 AD, apparently after falling under the control of colonists from what is now Mexico. Outside influence is clearly visible in the carving here: speech scrolls, straight noses, waist-length hair and serpent motifs are all decidedly non-Maya. The monkey-faced Stela 2 is particularly striking, beyond which is Stela 14, another impressive sculpture straight ahead down the path. If you turn right here and walk for ten minutes you'll reach the only other restored part of the site, set superbly in a clearing in the forest - an unmissable massive circular stone platform which was either an altar or observation deck for astronomy.
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