Tikal Temples With Pablo The Best Guide Ever
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
15
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Tikal,
Guatemala
Friday, October 19, 2007
First day in Guatemala. More people. Hotter! There is a population of 14 million people here, alot for a country this size. There were wild boars and pigs crossing the road and we later noticed cows, many chickens, horses, dogs and children walking freely all over the unpaved and paved roads, not kept in any kind of fenced yard. People were all out and about enjoying family life. There is cowboy type people cruising around and i saw horses tied up to poles out the front of houses like in an old country and western. Basketball is popular. We love the simple way of life here. People are polite, mild mannered, gentle and unhurried and although poor, they seem to have a happy existence which sits strangely with the horror stories of civil war and criminal violence we had heard. Peace has come to Guatemala. Some on the road tell us of Guatemala being their favorite country in Central America, apart from The City of course. People's small homes are grouped in compounds with several members of one extended family.
It is bloody hot as hell here in Guatemala.
Tikal. We stowed our packs at the restaurant and after looking at a complicated map and Spanish signage at the entrance hunted around for an English speaking guide who eventually came to us in the form of Pablo, the best guide in the world. We just scored him after he had missed his bus home for the day. We were his only tour for the day and paid him $US50 which is alot considering the monthly wage average is $140 per month for a Guatemalan worker. Pablo was gentle and moved at a leisurely pace around the 10km2 of ruins showing us shortcuts too. He spoke perfect English, looked like a Guatemalan rapper with piercings and was very smart. He knew all about his country, the Mayas, animals, plants...... everything. Pablo cut all the crap and bollocks and answered all the random questions we had for him about the Mayans and their culture. This was the guy we had been waiting for to answer those questions and dispel myths for us. The tour with him was intimate and long and we had to concentrate throughout although it was easy to do because it was all so interesting to us. He carried drawings, a compass, diagrams and books with him to help us to understand everything and tailored the tour to suit our interests which included the cosmic, astronomy, calendar and mathematical parts of the sites. We saw the Mayan sacred Tree Of Life, the "Ceiba " tree which represents the Mayan pathways to the underground, terrestrial plane and the sky, where the soul transcends to the stars. So are caves and volcanoes. Most of the trees were covered in air plants and had huge buttress type roots. The towering pyramids poke above the jungle's canopy to catch the sun. Spider monkeys and their babies swing noisily, eat breadnuts and dance fluidly through branches of ancient trees as birds call and chatter. All the animals and birds seem very exotic to us.The jungle smells of earth and vegetation. Water is life! Howler monkeys roar in the distance. We also saw a white tailed raccoon and a silver fox. All the plans and trees are massive and seem oversized. We saw a couple of Spanish boys on some kind of pilgrimage who had a contact juggling ball and were wearing Elf clothing..... very cute and very skinny from life on the road. Much excavation and remodelling of temples is being done and workers are hanging off scaffolding in very hot conditions. We climbed to the top of one of the temples to catch a magnificent view over the others in the site. This view had been used in the original Star Wars movie and the Mayan civil wars were called "Star Wars" as they waited until stars aligned and waged wars against other kingdoms at just the right time to increases their chances of winning. There was an area called the Grand Plaza where the Jaguar God/Ruler lived and all the Ruler's extravagent royal tombs were. This ruler had also built a temple facing his in honour of his dead wife. On the solstice at sunrise, the shadows of the two temples meet each other. This is where they found many artifacts. A small ball court existed where Gladiators bred for this occasion fought for the Ruler. We saw trees where chewing gum sap had been extracted and a mayma boba fruit which is a medicine for healing kidneys. Abandonment of this city was due to a 40 year drought caused by a certain type of global warming effecting this region of the world. Some of the temples were built using very complex mathematical equations, aligning with the stars and being set out to monitor the Earths rotations around the sun using shadows and patterns to chart the weather and seasons. . This was important to the economy which was based on agriculture. These experiments and other scientific explanations were not given to the common masses who believed that the Ruler of the kingdom, the physical king whom they built temples for, was god, the medicine men, magikal and the real secrets were kept amongst the elite. Religion controlled the masses here as it does over and over again. Later, Christianity was imposed and took over the culture. It was interesting to know that all these ruins we have been looking at were linked by trading routes and rivers and huge civil wars were raged over trade, specifically over a black glass which comes from volcanoes.
September 23, 2012 marks the end of the Mayan calendar and the new cycle will begin called the end of the fifth humanity. This is not the sensationalised science fiction type ending many are talking about but a new cycle which will phase in over many years. The world and climate is changing so quickly anyway and i am sure 2012 and the Mayan calendar is not the cause of it.
Just as we were leaving Tikal, a boy carrying a machine gun in full army kit stuck his head in the van window to practise his English with Nadine. On the way to Flores in this van Pablo had hooked us up with, there were 19 people in our van and we felt the cruch of humanity. Our bags went on top. I saw a niteclub called "Diskoteka Bum Bum" among many various other things.
No more ruins for awhile and alot to ponder over where we have been. We are in Flores on an island which we reached by a hectic ride in a red three wheel tut tut? type vehicle over a bridge and we leave for Chi Chi tomorrow after working out the bus system. Starving for some street food, we are off. We are staying in El Perigrino, a cute hotel with a rooftop terrace and hot water we hope.
