A long day gets longer

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We headed out for Tikal on the 9th. After a long bus ride, the first hour of which Dave was standing up with his head pressed against the ceiling, and a transfer to a camieneta (shuttle), we found ourselves at a hotel near the entrance to the park (Tikal Inn) where the swimming pool beckoned. Mo retired to the room, while Dave and I took a walk to a nearby restaurant.

On the way there I stopped, dumbfounded by the brilliance of the night sky. In all my years camping and hanging out in mountains, I don´t believe I have ever seen as many stars filling the night sky. It was truly a sight to behold (although neither of us were able to identify more than one or two constellations).

We went straight to bed, because we were getting up at 4:30 to go on a sunrise tour at 5am. Our guide came late, however, and the luxurious nature stroll through the awakening forest that was advertised at the hotel quickly turned into a breathless paced sprint to get to the temple before the sun rose. While it was bad for us, I felt worse for the two little 8 year olds and their parents who were trying to keep pace as well.

At about 5:40, we finally arrived, panting and drenched in sweat, at the top of the temple. Although I was a bit peeved at the guide for the first minute or two, during which there was a bit of chatter going on among the hundred odd people who were up there, I took a few deep breaths, stared out at the magnificent sight of the sun rising through the mist above the three temples visible in the distance, and sunk into the meditative state that the tour guides who were there (ours was still busy bringing the family up) encouraged. Bird calls filled the air and alarmingly loud roars rang out every few minutes. I thought they must be the jaguars, but it turned out they were howler monkeys, purportedly the loudest animal on earth. As it turned out, we had only missed 2 or 3 minutes of the sunrise, and were actually lucky as this was the first day in almost 2 weeks that the mist had cleared enough to see the sun at all.

After watching peacefully for about 20 or 30 minutes, a more experienced guide, seeing the exasperation of many people who were arriving breathless, took us into his group. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the guide had spent his life working at Tikal, as had his parents before him, and also was an archeologist. His knowledge of and love for Tikal was apparent every step of the way. He stopped to point out plants, birds, animals and anything else along the way that was significant to the Mayan civilization. Incidentally, guess which insect the Mayans most likely patterned themselves after.....Ants, leaf cutters to be exact. Who knew?
Plus our guide had the most unique accent you´ve ever heard- imagine a cross between Scottish brogue, Cockney English, Australian, Texan, New Yorkan, and any other form of the English language you can imagine. He attributes his accent to the fact that he learned English entirely from talking to tourists at Tikal over the years. Crazy.

Tikal itself is exactly what its creators set out for it to be- majestic and impressive. Hieroglyph engraved temples tower everywhere. After a while, you start to realize that most every mound you stand on is more likely than not part of some Mayan structure, buried by nature over time. Particularly impressive is the fact that all of the temples that dot Guatemala, at Tikal and every other major city of the Mayan empire, are aligned precisely with North, South, East and West. If you stand at the top of the highest temple at each site, you are able to see directly in front of you the highest temple of the next nearest city (so our guide told us). We hiked up and down 4 or 5 temples, sometimes using perilously steep stairways constructed for public use and at others ascending the seriously high temple steps themselves. Each temple is designed precisely, so that the number of steps corrolates with, say the number of days in the Mayan calendar, or something else significant. Again, impressive.

After our tour ended, the three of us checked out the little museum of artifacts, and while Mo and Dave rushed back to the swimming pool, I lingered, pondering and admired the greatness of the Mayan people.
After I got back to the hotel, Mo and I spent half an hour talking reason to the front desk man, Alex, to get a partial refund on our not-so-relaxing sunrise experience. Mo had had enough ruins, thank you very much, and so she headed down to Flores, the major city about an hour from Tikal. David and I stayed, and after lunch and another dip in the pool, returned to Tikal, taking plenty of time to photograph plants, monkeys in the trees, some unidentified possum looking things, and hiking around to more of the ruins.

At 4:30, David and I returned to our hotel, only to find that the luggage we left was no longer there. I could sense David´s pulse skyrocket next to me. At the front desk, Alex quickly explained that it had mysteriously been put on a 2 o´clock shuttle, and was currently at the hotel´s travel office in Santa Elena, the city right before Flores. The bus that was supposed to pick us up between 4:45 and 5 wasn´t there, and the front desk man told us we´d better walk over to the main bus station, just in case. We did, and a driver with a full camieneta told us his was the last shuttle left. After insisting he had to leave that minute, I convinced him to stop by our hotel, where Alex (who I am positive will be happy never to see us again) apologized, saying that their hotel shuttle we were supposed to take must have forgotten to stop by, and that we would do best to pay again and go with this other company. So we pulled away, disgruntled, but happy to be on our way. Then, just as our new shuttle was preparing to pull on the road, a camieneta pulled out in front of us, and the hotel´s shuttle driver rushed over to claim us, apologizing for being late. Oy ve. I would say this qualified as the most harried day of our trip. Suffice it to say I will not be staying at the Tikal Inn in any future trips.

In Flores, we got to our hotel at about 6, sat on the lake front patio, ordered a well deserved beer, and called Tikal Inn to have our luggage sent over as we watched the sun set over the water. What a day.

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