After I recovered from the bad chicken (what a great opening line!), I headed to Flores, in the north of Guatemala. It's a relatively long journey, but the road is probably the best in Guatemala, and I took an express bus, so it only took 8 hours.
I passed the time reading, listening to music, looking out the window, and desperately trying to avoid watching the C-movies they showed on-board. I had never heard of any of them, but they were all of the big-explosion variety. One seemed to be about an elite group of paramedics that served to take care of the emergency needs of the NYPD and no one else. No wonder people in Central America have such a warped perception of American life.
Anyway, my primary reason for going to Flores was to visit Tikal, the largest and, apparently, most impressive of the Mayan ruins. To get there, I got on a 5 AM tourist bus. I was hoping to get there in time to see sunrise from the top of Pyramid 4 (imaginatively named, huh?).
I got there at six thirty. Incidentally, if you're wondering why I wrote that in longhand, it's because this computer seems to have no colon or semi-colon key. Ah, the vagueries of Central American keyboards. To get the symbol @, I have to type ALT+46.
But I digress. When I got there, the sun had definitely come up, but Tikal was still magical. Mist hung low over the trees, and many of the strange animals that inhabit the jungle around Tikal were out, eating or just making a racket. The strangest-sounding must be the howler monkey, which sounds exactly like the way I imagine a jaguar would sound right before it pounces and rips you to pieces. But it's just a skinny little monkey.
The amazing thing about Tikal is that it's still very much in the middle of the jungle. To get from one ruin to another, you have to walk along these little paths through the forest. You're in the middle of the jungle, and then you get to a clearing and, hey, there are some pyramids!
Probably the best moment I had all day was almost by accident. I was walking along one of the little paths when I saw a sign that said "Punta de Interese," with an arrow pointing towards a small path. Which seemed a bit odd, since, well, isn't it all a point of interest? But I was curious and decided to check it out.
I followed the path to the end, only about 100 feet away. It ended at a ravine, and when I looked across the ravine, I saw that there was a tall, thin obelisk rising out of the jungle on the other side. Something about this sight took my breath away. It sounds silly, but I felt like I was discovering something no one else had ever seen. Never mind that it was marked like a lookout point on an interstate highway, there was something special about the place. Standing there, I understood the importance of Tikal. It was as if that one moment made me realize the historical weight of this site.
And then I went to the Mundo Perdido and played with funny-looking raccoons.
I don't know what these animals are called, but they're sort of the unofficial mascots of Tikal. They look like raccoons but they have long tails that stick straight up, and they're cute as hell. They're also not shy - I think a lot of people feed them.
At the end of the day, I was exhausted. I played a few rounds of cards with some other people in my hostel, and went to bed early.