Blogs from Petén Region, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 9

We are currently waiting for our bus to whisk us away, first back to the city and then on to Antigua and Lake Atitlan. I´m sitting here in a cute little internet cafe, listening to the hum of a fan, the sound of mopeds and tuk tuks and feeling the heat rising off of my crispy, burnt skin. Today was a good day! We were able to take a boat ride over to the next island and swim and tan ( or fry ' you know ' tomato, tomato, aye ' when you type them you don´t get the different inflections but you know what I mean, wait, where was I?) Ah yes, here I am. This island is beautiful. I haven´t been swimming in over a year or two, so jumping into the lake was ... read more

"Tikal was the capital of a conquest state that became one of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient Maya.Though monumental architecture at the site dates back as far as the 4th century BC, Tikal reached its apogee during the Classic Period, ca. 200 to 900 AD. During this time, the citydominated much of the Maya region politically, economically, and militarily, while interacting with areas throughout Mesoamerica such as the great metropolis of Teotihuacan in the distant Valley of Mexico." See e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikal " img=http://whos.amung.us/w... read more

Guatemala has always me think of two things: worry dolls; Those miniature colourful woven cotton handmade figurines kept in matchboxes and purchasable from the shop ‘Evolution’ “to take away your worries” and my friend Tree whose parents spent much of her formative years working tirelessly on human rights for Amnesty International in this part of the world. That’s it. I know little else about Country Number 2 of this travel adventure…. Leaving Mexico behind and crossing our first border took me further East into the isthmus of Central America. We decided to pay for the privilege of a ‘shuttle bus’ from San Cristobal to Lake Atilan as border crossings can be notoriously challenging and with warnings of the dangers of doing it alone, we wanted the easy option. For a few pesos more, the chicken bus ... read more

As we continued on an outer circle around the ruins, we came across some areas called complexes which were identified with letters instead of numbers. The complexes did not features such large temples, and some none at all. The one thing that they all did feature was a set of impressive hieroglyphic rock carvings (the best of which are now in museums) which contained the text of the ancient Maya. After having visited a few of these complexes, we noticed that the clouds started lifting at which point we decided to start making our way back to Temple IV – now about 25 minutes away. As we were walking through a trail in which we didn't encounter another visitor of park, we heard a crash in the trees above us and soon realized that there were ... read more

Hola! Tikal Mayan ruins were nothing short of spectacular. The ruins are amazing - as is the setting! Set deep in the jungle and sprawled over 25 square miles you walk through a series of trails to each site whilst monkeys and birds sit above you in the canopy. The excavation work that has been put into recovering such an interesting settlement has been in itself amazing. Imagine having to remove centuries of the rainforest growth in the blistering heat and humidity, when all you have is a machete? Many Mayan sites have been dated between 2000 years BC to 900 years AD, or later until the Spanish arrived in the 1500's or so. There are periods of classification during this time to indicate the type of building style they used, the style of ceramics they ... read more