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Our budget for guatemala is waning, but i wanted to go ahead and write about the last few days before the details escape my mind.....although they're still so vividly with me now that it seems impossible that i could ever lose them.
Since we're in Guatemala for such a short period of time, we kinda did a touristy loop of highlights, unfortunately missing atalan......though i saw postcards and the place looks amazing. One of the 'must sees' here is Tikal, and i am really really happy that we were able to experience it. It seems to have made up for all of our previous misfortune.
Tikal is a unesco world heritage site of mayan ruins nestled deep in steamy jungle. After seeing Angkor Wat in Cambodia, i was wondering if these could even compare. They do.
I won't go into a long litany about the differences and similarities between the two. Suffice it to say that Cambodia's temples are structurally more impressive, but Guatemala's jungle elevates the 'ruin experience' to a whole new level. We were advised by more than one person that the best way to capture the ruins is at dawn and
dusk when the heat of the day has subsided a bit and the jungle comes alive. We took this advice and took a late bus into Tikal, in time to catch the sunset. There is one large tower in the middle of the complex, which is ideal for this. So we headed to the
center, climbed up......realized we had climbed the wrong one......descended, and then climbed up the taller of the towers. For being such short people, the mayans sure built large steps!
Our timing was impecable. After a sweaty and somewhat grueling ascent we reached the top. I felt bad because at the time there was only one other couple up there and i felt that we were sort of ruining their moment.....
Pictures will soon follow but i will do my best to paint with words the beauty that we experienced. It was an overcast day so the sky was filled with big puffy clouds that were being painted with all the warms of a sunset. The temple rises above the canopy and from our lofty perch we had a 360 degree view of a sprawling jungle below us, and an infinite sky above. I
felt almost like i had trippy vision....the colors were so intense. For those of you who have ever owned sweet polarized sunglasses, you'll understand. When you put them on, things become a bit brighter, with more
defined lines.....greens especially. At Tikal, i didn't even need the polarized lense to take in the explosion of color around me. There was a pleasant evening breeze, and we really did hear the jungle come to life. Howler monkeys......they sound a lot more like gorillas than the little guys they are......but they were screaming a series of Arsenio Hall like hoots into the evening air. The birds and the bugs were also greeting the evening with their various songs.
The birds deserve their own paragraph. The only time i've ever seen parrots or brightly colored fowl has been in the context of a cage, where they seem depressed. The jungle was filled with toucans and green parrots and black birds with bright yellow tails. From where we were sitting we could see one toucan perched in the highest branch. He looked like a yellow highlighter swath against the purple sky. Every now and again the parrots would fly just below us, but always
in twos. I think their name should be spelled "PAIRots." I forgot to mention that earlier in the evening there was a bird at our hotel sitting in a branch that is apparently a rare siting. She was probably 3 feet tall with a HUGE wingspan....and she just sat for many minutes staring at us staring at her. She was big and grey with big black marble eyes....they were soft and inquiring.
Anyway, so there we are with the sounds of the monkeys, birds, and bugs....it was all very energetic. As nightfall approached the sun peeked through a small slit in the clouds. It was big and orange and dim enough to stare straight into. When i say the place was energetic, i mean it was so on many levels. As that burning ball peeked through the small slit in the clouds, it had the appearance of a winking eye.......the center of which gives life to you, me, the birds, the monkeys, the plants and the mayans. I couldn't help but feel like it was
G-d him/herself......giving me a wink.....as if to say, "yeah.....i did that."
That night at dinner max was attacked by a grasshopper that
kamikazeed into his hair and then landed on our plates. He just sort of chilled after that and let us look at him. He was so bright and upon close inspection you
could see yellow dots and the tiny shades of his beady eyes. And then on the table next to us there was a gorgeous moth about 4 inches in diameter. Its wings were a rich variety of browns and velvety to the touch. Beautiful
design.
This morning we woke at 4:30 and headed back into the jungle for sunrise, which was equally as impressive. It poured rain last night......hasn't happened for about a month and a half here, and so we woke to a damp jungle. We climbed a different temple and again caught the forest waking up. Same sorts of monkey howls and birds. The wonderful thing was that our guide requested that everyone stay silent for 10 to 15 minutes, so
we really got to be observers. I was so thankful for that! I sat in podmasana....which is the lotus pose that i struggled with so much in India...and had a really nice morning meditation. It still hurts when i come out of the
pose, but this morning the massive blood rush to my legs gave me a sort of body high that made me feel light. It felt like the
energy in my body was rising upwards......which was a wholesome experience as the sun burned off the mist hanging in the trees, and the bird calls rose to the heavens. What a magical place.
We saw more brightly covered birds down at ground level. They looked like wild turkeys crossed with peacocks. The had ugly rooster heads but they were cool because their heads were bright blue with red and orange growths. We also saw lemurs mulling about the entrance, and because of last night's rain the place was swarming with black and white iridescent butterflies. You know, it's impossible for me to observe all of this natural phenomena.....from the vastness of the sky to the detail on a moth's wing.....and not intrinsically know that there is an intelligent
consciousness that governs our universe. I felt it on a deep level at Tikal......i could feel it within me and all around me and it is such a glorious and consuming peace. It's places like Tikal that remind me of how intertwined
everything is......and how real G-d is. The challenge now is to carry that intrinsic knowledge into my everyday environment........to bring that sense of peace to the world of humans and our sad modern day attempts at reaching the sky.
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