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Published: September 20th 2007
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Tikal
World cultural heritage. Rightly so!!! Finally added the pictures, folks. As promised, although I'm again a day late. 😉
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As I mentioned before we were off early to Tikal, perhaps the most impressive set of Mayan ruins, situated in the just as impressive jungle of Peten.
We arrived at the gates of the nature reserve (stretching several hundreds of square miles around Tikal) around six, too late for sunrise, but early enough for it to still be cool and dry in the jungle. Said jungle hosts an impressive multitude of wildlife - bears, jaguars, snakes, tucans, crocodiles, tarantulas, hundreds of different birds and insects, geckos, etc.pp. - it's a nature lover's dream!
First off we decided on some breakfast for the group at the restaurant near the ruins - after all, you need to be fit to climb huge pyramids! French toast for me, quite good, actually, considering we were sitting in the middle of the jungle at an ant-ridden table and could watch numerous squirrels and hummingbirds while eating.
Newly awakened, thanks for no small part to the excellent Guatemalan coffee, we went on our way with our guide, who, besides being an expert on the Mayan culture, knows the jungle
The Tikal-Emblem
Plus our guide. Whose name I have forgotten. SORRY! I'm going to find out, though. like the back of his hand.
The path to the ruins starts off near a small pond, which the Mayas dug and which hosts a couple of wild crocodiles. We were lucky enough to see one swimming in there through the guide's binoculars, which by the way became our most important gadget during that day. Awesome - though I'm pretty glad we only SAW it, not encountered it, if you know what I mean. Crocs are naturally shy and not prone to attack humans, though - as is true for most of the jungle-life, of which we certainly saw a lot that day.
Continuing on our walk through the jungle to the first set of buildings we stopped every couple of metres to look at some part of the wildlife - being ten minutes into our tour we had seen a couple of tucans, a tarantula, holler-monkeys, wild turkeys, said crocodile and numerous birds the names of which I have sadly forgotten already. Not to mention the numerous plants and trees, that in themselves make Guatemala well worth a visit, as you'll hopefully think too, after having seen the pictures.
During the course of that day we furthermore played with
Wild turkeys!
They really are completely wild, although they are standing on some steps. There sure are a lot of them in Tikal! a couple of coatis (don't make the mistake to think they're just cute - they have very sharp nails on their paws), watched a lot of ants and termites, admired a praying mantiss and of course we saw a lot spider-monkeys and yet more birds in the treetops. All of those animals completely wild, of course. Beautiful!
The pyramids themselves in Tikal are awesome as well. If you ever visit there don't make the mistake to only go to the main plaza, you'll miss the chance to climb some great pyramids (well, actually you climb on wooden stairs - or, sometimes, ladders - next to the pyramids, to preserve them) and have a totally amazing view over the jungle. I added some pictures of that, but don't think for a second they could ever come close to the real thing!
The main plaza has one not-to-be-missed sight, though: the huge sculpture of a face they uncovered in one of the pyramids. Once again, I'm sure Erich von Daenicken claims it to be the picture of an Alien, but of course it's a Mayan in a headdress. Mayan rulers had a flat head and were cross-eyed - they achieved that
Ceiba-tree
with Tiago next to it, as a size-reference. Impressive, huh?
It's the national tree of Guatemala, by the way. by binding two pieces of wood in the front and in the back of their kids' heads, so they would grow out flat (this does not lead to brain damage) and aditionally hang something in front of their eyes, so they'd be cross-eyed. The sculpture reminds one very much of Tin Tin, though - don't you think so? 😉
All in all it's very hard to describe the wonders of Tikal - it's without a doubt my favourite Mayan site, and I'm sure my group would agree to that in a heartbeat - and Tiago does, anyway. So just visit it, if you ever get the chance, and pay for a tour, otherwise you'll miss out!
After half a day in the jungle - including some nice and refreshing rain and burning sun - we were utterly beat (after all we had climbed no less than three huge and a couple of smaller pyramids), but very happy, so we piled up back into the van and headed back to Flores. For lunch we stopped at a nice little restaurant on the far end of Peten Itza and had more great times on group. Amazing, how different we all
are and how well we get on nevertheless!
The afternoon and evening we spent in Flores, it's really quite a cute little island with great sights.
Next day we were off to Belize!
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