Tikal

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Tikal is known as the ´dog´s bollocks´ of all the Mayan ruins and consists of LOADS of pretty well preserved Mayan temples, palaces and other ruins hidden in the thick jungles of northern Guatemala.

We got there after a long trip and border crossing from Belize to Guatemala which took about 6 hours. Spent the afternoon cruising around the jungle climbing all these ruins (you can climb some of them thanks to specially built wooden steps) and basically marvelling at how amazing the 3-4 foot Mayans were.. how did they build these things??

We were also subjected to some monkey business when a resident pack of spider monkeys decided they didnt want us going anywhere near one particular temple and were going nuts in the trees above us. They were shouting out all kinds of monkey noises and then started chucking stuff doing at us. One took a very well aimed shit at James and just - JUST - missed him. Some got on his leg, which made him even more excited at the whole drama. Then it got a bit nastier when one monkey threw a big branch down from the top of the canopy at us and it hit the poor guy standing next to me. We took a pretty funny video of it all and got the hell out of there!

Some of the temples were made as early as 400 BC. Some are being restored and many more are still completely hidden under the jungle, earth and trees which have grown up around and over them over the 100s of years.

A truly amazing spectacle. And the history is steeped in ritual sacrifices and loads of other bloodthirsty stuff we all love to hear about!

** More pics to come **

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