Tebowing in Tikal (1)

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After one more day in Lanquin at the highly suggested El Retiro Lodge, we hopped a shuttle from Lanquin to Flores – our base for our tour of Tikal.

I've started to learn that posted arrival times are rarely ever met as we left at 8 am and arrived near 6 pm (the trip was supposed to last 7 hours).

We got off the shuttle with a hostel called La Union in mind. As we were waiting to get our bags off the roof, the tourist agency that ran the shuttle did all they could to convince us to stay in the hotel directly across the street from their agency. Tactics included providing a tour of the hotel and room commitment-free and then waiting an extreme amount of time to untie our bags from the roof of the shuttle as they were all too busy standing around. After talking it over with my buddy Jose, we actually realized that we probably wouldn't find a better deal at La Union than we had at this hotel as we paid only 45Q ($6) and had a private bath with a patio outside of our room overlooking the lake. As soon as we agreed to take the room, our bags were taken immediately off the top of the bus and we were able to settle into the room.

After settling in, we walked around the town a bit. I have to say, while I really liked San Pedro at lake Atitlan, this place came in a close second. Flores is a small town of 15,000 people forced to live on top of each other due to the fact that they are situated on a small island in the middle of a lake. The buildings are narrow and seem to be about three stories tall on average. A street follows the edge of island creating a boardwalk with small docks from witch people jump off and swim to escape the heat. We got to the west side of the island just as the sun was setting, making for some excellent pictures.

We went back to the hotel and went to arrange transport to Tikal the next day at the tourism agency across the street. It's amazing how they're always willing to start discounting their quoted prices as soon as you say you're going to walk around and see what other places have to offer. We ended up getting round trip tickets to Tikal for about $8.50 and skipped the option to bundle a guide in the purchase – a decision for which I'm extremely glad. At the hotel, and Australian girl named Hannah told us about some cheap food at the town center up the hill near the town church. After about 15 minutes of walking through some back alleys, we found the town center and the food which indeed was extremely cheap, delicious and probably the best value that I've found so far while traveling. For $2, we got a super burrito, a taco, a tostada, and a soda. Even though we were quite hungry after the 9.5 hour bus ride that day, we could barely finish off this meal.

After eating, we walked the streets a bit and found this bar-restaurant near our hostel with a special of 3 beers for $2. The mix of people in this place was ideal at about 75 percent locals and 25 percent backpackers. We grabbed a table and after a few drinks walked out amazing that with a full meal and drinks that day, we were lighter in the wallet by only $4. That night we had to get to bed early though as our shuttle for Tikal left at 4:30 am the next morning.

Over the previous several days, we had encountered a number of travelers coming from Tikal that had strongly suggested going as early as possible while foregoing the guides in order to see the sunrise from Temple IV – the tallest temple located in the back of the park. Unfortunately, our shuttle featured several delays and the sun had broken the horizon by the time we reached the ruins.

As you enter the ruins, you must first disembark the shuttle where everybody must then walk to a ticket booth where you pay the park entrance fee of $20 before climbing back onto the shuttle for another half hour drive through the Tikal wildlife conservation territory within which the ruins are actually located. Through the twisting and turning road, we saw several animal crossing signs, though not similar to those I had been used to seeing. These animal crossing signs features jaguars, snakes, and some sort of possum looking animal.

We finally parked and got off the shuttle at the entrance to the ruins. The people who had booked a guide were to wait at the nearby restaurant while the rest of us were free to go off on our own. About ten steps later, we started thinking that it might have been a mistake to go without a guide as we were in a large clearing that was obviously for vehicles but was so large that we couldn't even seen the actual entrance for the ruins. As all of us stumbled a bit randomly about the area probably looking to be drunk from a distance, we eventually started moving in roughly the same direction as my buddy and I eventually found the entrance gate. We showed our tickets, I quickly bought a $2 map, and off we went into the park.

The map scale was much smaller than expected as we took the first path to the left which we thought led to the larger pyramids in the back of the park; only after about 10 minutes we realized this was nothing more than a random path not meant for visitors through the middle of the woods. Keeping in mind the puma crossing sign, we walked carefully with our senses a little high before coming back in contact with the main walking path at which we saw some of of the other tourists from our shuttle that had also chosen to forgo a guide.

After about 25 minutes walking at a very brisk pace through the dense fog in the morning air, we came across our first ruin which which was an impressive structure that stood what looked to be about 60 foot tall. Remembering what our friends had told us, we kept moving. After another 15-20 minute of walking, we saw the back of an enormous temple well over 150 feet tall. As we walked around the temple, we entered the Grand Plaza which was by far more impressive than any other ruins that I had ever seen before. On opposing sides, there are two temples, Temple I and Temple II which are of similar height. The area was boxed in by the North Acropolis on one side and opposing it was the Central Acropolis.

In this area, there were only two other tourists and oddly enough about 15 turkeys. We got some pictures in front of the temples and the Acropolis' before climbing the recently built (meaning less that 500 year old) staircase which was set an an angle more expected of a ladder. The steps and railing were quite slick from the moisture in the air, but we quickly reached the top. On the platform, we were treated to some incredible views of the central plaza desolate of other people. That lack of any other people combined with the foggy atmosphere in which you could barely see the other temple made you feel for a brief moment that you could be the actual people discovering this enormous site.

We tore ourselves away from the Grand Plaza which was quite difficult as we were told to expect even better views as we went further back in the park. We next reached Temple V, another incredible structure though at this temple we were not allowed to climb the steps. Based on some bad information provided to us on the road, we thought we had reached the actual temple to climb for the amazing views. The fact that the stairs were closed had us feeling a bit dejected and so we just took some pictures around the temple before moving on to make a lap around the remaining unexplored ruins. We also thought it was time to start funny pictures in historic sites which after several failed poses, we decided to start Tebowing on the rest of the ruins.

After Temple V, we soon entered the area of the Seven Temples which in the morning air was still foggy creating an impressive albeit haunting atmosphere. We walked around the area which was completely void of other people. We explored and walked in and out of temples which upon looking back, were probably completely off limits. After some more pictures (and Tebowing), we entered the next area of the ruins named The Lost World (El Mundo Perdido). While the area was really great, I didn't find it nearly as impressive as the previously visited ruins. It was here that we also ran into a couple of guided tours which unfortunately let us know that our time of running through the ruins as if we were the only ones in the place was over.

We continued onto Temple IV upon which seeing the massive size, and the much more manageable staircase, we knew was the actual temple we were suggested to climb first as to see the sun rise over the other temples.

Temple IV stands at over 200 feet tall as is situated up on a large hill giving it a commanding position above all other structures (man made or natural) for miles around.

We quickly climbed the stairs upon which at the top we were treated to the phenomenal view of nothing. As the fog which made all the other sites that we had seen seem even better than normal, it completely ruined what was often said to be the most impressive view of the park. At the top of the temple, we decided to rest a bit and grab some food and water as the previous hour and a half of madly rushing through the park while walking as fast as possible started to sink in on our legs. At the top of this ancient skyscraper, we were able to sit, eat some bread, and drink some water in complete tranquility and isolation of other tourists.

After about ten minutes, some other people arrived at the top of the temple and after a few more minutes of trying to wait out the clouds, we descended Temple IV with plans to see the other sites though return as soon as the clouds lifted.

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