Pausing Here and There

Then we left Semuc and went onwards to the little town of El Remate, where we were blessed to find a clean room and kind folks to help us get to Tikal (Mayan ruins, only 20 percent of which are excavated.) We were a day after solstice, but this did not stop us from seeing the beautiful misty sunrise, or from later marveling over the fact that those ingenious Mayans constructed their temples so that the solstices and equinoxes shone over significant points on their buildings. The jungle around Tikal was beautiful. The giant ceders and ceiba trees–the national tree of Guatemala and the Mayan tree of life–kept us from feeling the heat. When we became tired of our solo wandering, and hungry, we searched out some panqueques.

After breakfasting in the park of Tikal, we wandered back into the jungle with our guide Miguel. He pointed out many medicinal plants (even giving Sarah a remedy of honey and lemon for her cold), told us that papayas are sweeter when picked during a waning moon, and showed us termites nests. We also saw jocotes (funny furry mammals with big furry tails that they stick straight up into the air to help them balance as they search for bugs and things in the ground), tucans, howler and spider monkeys, brown jays, woodpeckers, and lots of other birds (Miguel is an ornothographer). We also smelled the sap and leaves and fruits of lots of good smelling trees like the incense tree and the chewing gum tree and the allspice tree (which smelled like cloves stuck into an orange, which made me homesick for christmas).

Miguel also claimed at every temple we came to that “This is certainly the best view of the whole of Tikal.” And so encouraged, we climbed many many nearly vertical stairs up to the tops of temples and saw lots of tree tops and “best views of the whole of Tikal.”

One of the interesting facts I learned is that Guatemala means “tangled vines” in Quiche. Indeed there were lots of tangled vines, and many fig trees or arbols de amor, strangling other trees to death.

Other exciting events in my journey include two beautiful sunsets in the lake town of El Remate. Also, yesterday morning I said farewell until Bolivia to Sarah and Megan and began my viaje back south to Antigua. I spent an evening in Coban which began by me being led by a nun through the streets of Coban to a good posada she knew of. She saw me walking down the street and asked me where I was going and if I was travelling alone, and when I answered affirmatively insisted on taking me to a hotel she knew of. Turns out it was a nice little place. They had pine needles all over the floor in the reception area so it smelled really nice. This morning I took many buses to get to Antigua and successfully found some Christmas tamales (yum). Apparently, my adventures through eating have not stopped.

Here, I wait for my brother, happily spending my Christmas Eve solo in The Yellow House, which has, thank goodness, a kitchen. Happy Holidays to all!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 24th, 2006 at 9:17 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.