Advertisement
Published: April 25th 2011
Edit Blog Post
One of the few reasons for me to come to the island of Flores was that from here you can get to the ruins of Tikal quite easily.
So that is pretty much what I did today...
Yesterday morning while I was waking up over a nice and big smoothie, the Austrian couple which I met while travelling trough Belize, greeted me after checking in to the hostal.
After they had put their stuff in their room and some casual talk they decided to go on the same trip that I had booked for the coming morning, the one to the Tikal ruins.
We were being picked up at around 4h30 by a little van that would drive us all the way to the entrance , which meant we would arrive at 6h and have time for some coffee or whatever since the park opens at 7h.
So pretty much at the moment I truly began waking up I found myself walking on a little trail trough the rainforest towards the first Mayan temple of the day.
Ye, unlike the sites I had been to in Yucatan, this one is located in a dens rainforest which gave it a whole
different kind of feeling.
Which was also nice was that we arrived well before the tourist-mass and thus didn't see a whole lot of other people along the way.
After the first two smaller temples we immediately got to the highlight of the day: howler-monkeys :D after the guide made some funny noises and clapped around a bit and stuff they replied with their own distinctive sound.
And that was pretty much a sound you'd expect from a gorilla or so but not from a little monkey as this one.
So with the purpose of coming to Tikal completed I turned around and went back to the entrance to have another coffee while waiting for the group to come back.
Nono, although I admit they were loads of fun they were not the sole purpose of my visit to these ruins.
So After some more walking and bird/monkey/weird animal watching we came to a really big temple where basically the guide sat down and told us to knock ourselves out but that he wasn’t climbing it.
So like a true mountaineer I climbed the wooden stairs leading all the way to the top...
The top of the temple reaching
well above the treetops meant that it offered an absolutely phenomenal view of the area, which was, apart from some temples reaching out of it, one big mass of rainforest.
Big things tend to impress, like when looking out over the ocean you(or at least I) wonder about the wonders it holds, what is at the other side and also just stand in awe in front of its simple greatness.
I guess U could compare it to that, maybe even a bit better since everybody has seen the ocean probably like a hundred times so it gets taken for granted.
But anyway after climbing the stairs we ended up like ten meters higher than the tops of the trees which meant that we could see as far as our eyes would let us or the curving of the earth or whatever.
And down in the trees we could see a family of monkeys doing what monkeys do best, hopping from one tree to the next and so on..
Once back down we went of to another area where all off the sudden the guide had this 10cm hairy spider on his hand.
He told us that it was a
young tarantula and couldn't kill us...just yet.
It didn't do much besides running over peoples hands, which was good cause if it did we probably would have had to go to the hospital …
When everybody had taken his picture with the spider on his hand we moved one to yet another temple and this one was even higher than the one we had climbed before.
I can tell you again that the view and sensation was well worth the walk up the shaky staircase to the top of the 40ish meter high and 2000ish year old temple but I'm afraid there is only one way to truly grasp it all...
After this the guide took us to the central plaza where he showed us around a bit and told that the last two hours we were free to do some exploring of our own.
Since the closest temple we didn't see yet was a 40minute hike away the Austrian couple and I decided to decline that offer and slowly make our way back to the entrance, where we arrived 40minutes early of departure time so with plenty of time to have some drinks and cool down a bit.
Back at the hostel we had lunch, they gave me the pictures of the day and I played a game of chess against the dude of the couple, which I shamelessly lost.
After that I left for a walk to the piers from where I was planning to do some swimming since the first part of the day had been plenty hot.
Just outside of the hostel I met some other dudes and dudette who were planning on doing the same thing, so we joined forces and went about with one common goal..
While swimming the once sunny day transformed in a matter of minutes in to a rainforesty-type rainy kind of day, which meant that since I brought my cellphone, ironically, I had to go and shelter somewhere.
After that the day pretty much ended for me as I was plenty tired and it rained till it got dark so I didn't do much besides drinking some beers, eating a bit and writing this entry... which to me is A-OK 😉
Cheers,
P.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0587s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jacques
non-member comment
simple in its greatness....
You are in Guatemala now and you bought yourself a new camera. I must admit that it is difficult to grasp all the beautiful things which you are finding on your way. You can describe them to perfection but I fear that we will not stand in awe as you see these things with your own eyes. That phenomenal view above the forest, which gives the same sensation as when you are viewing the ocean we cannot realize completely. We can let drift our imagination away but that standing in admiration we cannot really feel. Again you were in Maya land and this time you climbed up wooden shaky stairs, which at first I didn't discover when watching your pic. Peter again sincere congratulations on how you try to make us part of your daily journey. A.o. you wrote ...big things tend to impress and simple in its greatness. I imagine that you wrote all that stuff before you started to drink those beers. Your narrative style continues to impress me and so many other readers of your travelblog, I imagine. As your sister is suggesting, I am discovering someone I didn't know before. Go on surprising us Peter.