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Published: July 26th 2006
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Shut down all garbage mashers on the detention level, will you?
I came to Tikal for my Rebel Alliance medal ceremony, how 'bout you? First a quick disclaimer- photos are loading up about two per hour. It doesn't look good for a lot of pretty pictures. But hang on, I'll try again at th next backwater town internet dive...
Sunday morning I arose at 5:30am to catch the mini-bus to Tikal. There I ran into a British guy from the bar at my hostel, Mark (of course), and we walked around for the next 5 hours at this giant city in the Jungle filled with stone temples and Mayan history. The city was built by a certain Mayan tribe out of the jungle between 600 and 900, when they abandoned the city, possibly because of droughts.
But the Mayan history is not the reason I was there. Two reasons to haul across Guatemala for Mayan jungle ruins:
1) Monkeys
2) Star Wars
1-
I just really like monkeys. They are cute and furry and humanoid and one of the only exotic animals I've only seen in the zoo, unless you count Los Feliz coyotes. Plus, it really to one up Asher Selsberg's Mr. Monkey (although, really, how sad is my life when I fly to a foriegn country to have
You{re all clear kid...
Now let's blow this thing and go home. something over a 2 1/2 year old?)
Getting there as the park opened, the brit and I headed down an out-of-the-way path for a temple in the way back, when we heard a rustle in the trees. There were Spider monkeys everywhere! We saw five in about 10 minutes. I have both small monkey photos (which I'll upload soon) and even monkey video (when I get to SF). Awesome. My favorite is the video of the monkey with his tail caught in the tree.
2-
I will quote the Starwars databank website on the connection between the 1st Star Wars movie, 'A New Hope', and Tikal.
"For their brief appearance in Star Wars: A New Hope, the Massassi temples were actually the ancient pyramids found in Tikal, Guatemala. A skeleton crew of ILM cameramen traveled to Guatemala to film the handful of scenes required. When they arrived, they discovered that the path to the 300-foot summit was completely overrun by the jungle. They hired locals to hack through the brush with machetes. http://www.starwars.com/databank/location/massassitemple/?id=bts
Yup, at the end of the first movie, that was when Luke Han and Chewie got their medals. Amazing.
Monkey!
Mr. Monkey! (Upper Leftish hand, walking across a branch)
Thye temples were awesome: 250 feet high at the tallest, most still at least have buried under earth and jungle. Mark and I climbed 4 or so temples, until we were so tired it was like 'Hey look, another towering temple. Hmm. (click) Lets go...' It was hard to tell what was cooler: the jungle or the city. Call it a draw.
After 7 hours there (my bus didn't leave till 2pm, we parted ways I headed to a cool backpacker place 80km south called Finca Ixobel. I planned just on staying the night and hanging out the next day in a hammock (7 hours of climbing temples really killed me), but the nice folks I met (a British woman, a Irish woman, an Auzzie and 2 gringos) convinced me to take a hike on Monday to a cave. I new little more than this when I signed up.
Next morning, a guide with a machete (btw, pretty much every man I've seen for the past 4 days was carrying a machete to chop wood, clear brush, or for self protection. Yoshi Fenton would fit in perfectly) took us on a THREE HOUR HIKE though mud. There was
slippy mud, and sticky mud, and mud with sharp rocks and slimy get-inside-your-mud and every other kind. My feet hated me.
Then we arrive at the mouth of a cave with a large stream running into it (my camera is not water proof, so you'll see why there are no photos), We lit our flashlights and small into a giant cavern filled with cool water and shreiking bats. In the first two big caverns, we lit candles and then swam under a low roof into another cavern. For the next 1-2km, we swam, rock climbed, were pulled by the current, walked through water and scrambled around a giant underwater cave system. I kept waiting for Chunk to ask for a baby ruth, and I sincerely hoped that there would be a giant pirate ship with the treasure of one-eyed willie at the end (insert inappropriate joke here).
At the end of the walkable/swimable part was a 15 rock jump into a large pool which also then sucked all the water into an underground, inaccessable river. I took the leap (I let the Auzzie try first. I'm brave, but my momma didn't raise no dummy) and promptly had my
bandanna sucked downstream into the black waters. So I had to take the next muddy dalet amot, and the 30000 amot after it, bli kovah. Shlach lanu, avinu ki chatanu. We exited the cave the way we came in. Pretty spectacular. Totally unplanned, and so far, the highlight of the entire trip.
After the muddy, painful return, we got back around 5pm to hot showers and veggie dinner, and drank cold beer and relished the conquest. While lazing about I met two Israeli women, Meital and Avital, form Jerusalem, who were dati Israeli school teachers backpacking Central America. This morning after sleeping in, Avital, who is studying to teach Jewish HS in the US at Machon Hartman, and I learned gemara for an hour. Could I make that up ? No.
So, really amazing days these past three. Today the british woman, Sonia and I caught a bus to the river town of Rio Dulce. Tomorrow we're off to see the pirate fort and the Caribbean coast.
Yarr! See you next time. Avast, with pics, ya scurvy dogs.
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Ladon
non-member comment
Obviously you like monkies
Mark, Your blog is great - All great writing should be a combination of Jewish text and tweny-first century cultural references. Who knew Guatemala would be so exciting? To mix cultural references, I will be eating at the Pico Taco stand on the night of Aug. 5th will you be there? Stay away from the monkies, Dave Chappelle told me thats where Aids came from. Keep up the good work!