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Published: August 5th 2007
Hola Guatemala! We made to the funky little town of Flores, Guatemala yesterday. In a moment of extreme fatigue after our long boarder crossing, we (along with everyone else in our bus) signed up with a tour guide to leave at 3:30am this morning to see the famous Mayan Ruins at Tikal.
Flores is a staging ground for trips to Tikal, which is about an hour away. Because it has no other reason to exist, it is filled with restaurants and tourist shops. Liz and I walked around and looked at every restaurant last night until we finally picked the Mayan Princess. Bad choice. We ordered pan de ajo (garlic bread) which came out as 3 hot dog buns toasted with some butter on them. I dont think it was even I cant believe its not butter. My spaghetti carbonera was some spaghetti with butter and some chopped up bologna (not even Oscar Meyer quality). Liz had a chicken sandwich which also came served on two hot dog buns. Score! Regardless of the food, it was a beautiful first night in Guatemala and everyone has been great here so far.
Next: Alarm clock at 3am
We stumbled down
stairs and got stuffed back into the cattle bus with a bunch of other folks. We got to the park at around 5 and hiked up to the 4th temple and spent 45 minutes watching the sun come up, the clouds clear while listening to the animals in the jungle wake up. It was pretty spectacular and well worth waking up early. Tikal was built 400 years BC and reached its peak in the 9th century AD. It disappeared into the jungle after that and was not rediscovered until the 1800s when Wrigley Corp had guys with machetes searching the jungle in Guatemala for gum sap. By then nearly all of the 13,000 buildings were under dirt and trees. But they have excavated about 15% and you can see in the pics that it is pretty spectacular.
We also saw: Grey Fox, Toucans, a scorpion, Howler Monkeys, Spider Monkeys, Cotis, crocodiles, annoying children, and a few smelly Itals.
By the way, the Maya say the world will end in 2012. Just fair warning.
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Temple 1
val
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Smelly Itals?!
Tikal looks awesome! Can't believe that's only 15% of what's there. And I thought the weeds in my backyard took over... I hope the smelly Itals didn't give you too much trouble - those smelly ones are the worst. Gotta run - need to prepare for the end of the world. Hugs, V