Beautifully Ruined
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007Day: 36
After two days of laundry, pizza and wine in Flores we headed 40km northeast to the mother of all Mayan sites, Tikal. There are a few things that make Tikal such a special place. First off, its massive. The national park of Tikal contains thousands of ruined structures and is 550 sq. km. The central area where most tourist wander is 16 sq. km and has over 4000 structures. Besides being so large its the location that sets Tikal apart from other Mayan cities. Located deep in the remote Peten jungle, the wildlife alone would draw visitors.
We decided to get the most out of Tikal we should spend the night there. Once upon a time you could bribe security and camp atop the temples. With those days long gone we had to shell out $50 U.S. for a room at the Jungle Lodge. Overpriced but a really nice place in the jungle, we had our own veranda facing the dense green forest and there was even a beautiful pool. We spent most of the day reading up on Tikal and eating lunch at one of the cheap comedores (restaurants). At 3pm we headed in to the site, if you purchase a ticket after 3pm it is valid for the next day as well.
As we passed through the ticket office the trail entered the dark jungle, soon we heard the now familiar sound of the howlers at it again. No matter how many times you hear a howler monkey its always a creepy sound. Along the path were mounds of ruins covered with vegetation. We passed several smaller temples before rounding a corner and coming upon the Grand Plaza. “Wow, it is pretty damn impressive”, were my first words. To our right was Templo I, 44 metres high it is an amazing structure. Directly across the plaza is Templo II, which lost its roof comb but is still an impressive 38 metres high. Since a few people tumbled to their deaths you can no longer climb Templo I but number II has some rickety wooden steps to the top. Jordana is quite afraid of heights so I knew this was going to be fun. It didn’t help that the steps were rickety, did I already mention that? Yeah, they weren’t exactly Guatemalan craftsmanship at its finest. From the top we had spectacular views of the jungle and the surrounding temples. We climbed down safely and made our way up the north accropolis. As we climbed Jordana turned to me, “shhh, stop. Look up there.” An entire troop of spider monkeys were swinging across the tree branches, occasionally stopping to check us out.
We moved from the grand plaza to the far end of the central site, the walk through the jungle was incredible. Sorry, but the overuse of superlatives is required when describing Tikal, its that good. Eventually we arrived at Templo IV, built on a hillside and currently under reconstruction. At 64m high this is the highest temple at Tikal and the second highest in the Mayan world. The tallest is. El Tigre at El Mirador, located in a very remote region 60kn north of here. Temple IV was built in 711 by King Moon Double Comb. From the top it seems we can see all of Guatemala and all the way to Belize. Green treetops as far as the eye can see, only interrupted by the odd temple poking out from the forest. With the late afternoon sun, parakeets darting from tree to tree, monkeys howling and the friendly racoon like coatis watching us from the edge of the temple, all seemed perfect from here. What a beautiful and peaceful place. All was perfect until some loud French tourist decided to join us and couldn’t keep their mouths shut. That’s when we figured it was time to climb down and move on to the El Mundo Perido or Lost World.
We were stopped on our way down by another troop of spider monkeys as they crossed our path on the way to their dusk feeding. I was excited about El Mundo Perido, I mean a ruins called the lost world must be damn cool. The sun was quickly setting and with it the rest of the tourists seemed to depart. The lost world area consists of 38 structures surrounded by dense jungle, it was us and one other couple there. It really did feel like the lost world. Jordana and searched out which temple would be best to climb and watch the sun set from. We picked one, climbed it and then realized it was to short to see the sunset over the treetops. No matter, we stayed up there as darkness fell and listen to the incredible sounds of the jungle. The birdlife here is something I have never seen nor heard before. Birds sang sounds I never thought existed.
While the sunset was brilliant we soon realized that it was now dark and we were about 2km away from our hotel. Did I mention its thick jungle out here? I had thankfully brought along my flashlight and we had some light for the walk back. We met an American college teacher about a quarter of the way who looked followed us as he had no light.
Eventually in the darkness we reached our hotel and quickly changed into our swimming gear. Ahhh what a great feeling to have a cool swim after a day of hot walking around Tikal. The pool was set back from the hotel and surrounded by the jungle. The sky was crystal clear and the stars were as bright as we have ever seen. An absolutely perfect end to the day.
Michael Coroneos