Tikal -one of the new 7 wonders of the modern world

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Greetings from Guatemala,

In its hayday, Tikal (meaning city of voices) was a vibrant centre of the Mayan civilization. Over 100 000 people lived in Tikal and surrounding areas, and it existed for approximately 1800 years. Archeologists estimate there are approximately 13 000 structures on the site ranging from palaces for nobility, to temples, to places of sacrifice, and of course dwellings for commoners. Tikal was re-discovered in the mid 1800´s and is now a top destination for tourists in central america.

Our journey began at 3:30am when we borded the bus for the 1.5 hour trip from Flores to Tikal. Why you ask would we wake up so early? We wanted to be there for sunrise and beat out some of the mad-rush of tourists that acccumulates as the day goes on. So there we sat, in silence with our tour gide, for about half an hour at the top of a temple as we watched the sunrise above the rainforrest connopy below. We heard the early morning chirping of various types of birds, and of course monkeys. It all combined to make getting up at 3am totally worth it!

The pictures of the sunrise unfortunately didn´t turn out, but alas, the sunset pics in Flores turned out, so they are included.

Enjoy some pics!

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Photos

Temple V
Look closely at the people for an idea of the scale of this temple and the angle of the stairs to the top.

Does this look familiar?
If you guessed Star Wars you are right. Tikal was featured in the original Star Wars (Episode IV)

Sun Set in Flores
These were too pretty to leave out, but didn´t want to create a seperate blog entry.

Sunset with Boat
View from our hotel in Flores...