The Mayan ruins of Tikal
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2005
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110
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Trip End
May 26, 2008
Tikal National Park,
Guatemala
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Flores has a brilliant hostel called Los Amigos that organises treks to tikal and the surrounding jungles.
The main reason to visit Flores and the northern department of Guatemala is the ruins of Tikal.
There are a few options to visit the ruins and not being one for tours and big tour groups i looked around for something a little more personal but in the end opted for the grand sunrise tour. A bunch of us from the hostel decided to go together and for 150 quetzales which is about 33 us dollars, we woke at 3am and walked onto a bus with at least 50 other tourists. Riding in darkness for an hour and a halve we arrived at the entrance to tikal. A crazy energetic guide who called himself cesa took our group of 50 on an early morning trek through teh jungle, past massive ceiba trees and slowly up a hill where, with the help of the approaching dawn, we could workout huge temple roaring above us. We approached one called temple 4 and climbed a wooden staircase that had been setup to prevent tourist from climbing all over the structure.
The stairs took us to the top of the temple where we were greeted to an amazing view of scaffolding and mist, not to mention the 200 tourists sitting and staring into the foggy east, waiting for the sunrise.
It was around 5:30am when we squeezed into a spot on the cold steps of the temple. the tour guide roared at everyone to be quiet and listen to teh sounds of the jungle, and he was right, the scary roar of howler monkeys could be heard way in the thick jungle below. as the light grew, so did the fog and we had to use our imagination to workout what could be out there. Toucans flew past and many small tweeting birds. Eventually at around 630, the mist cleared enough to reveal 3 temples towering above the trees. With that, we snapped some photos and followed the crazy Cesa on a whirlwind tour of the ruins.
Luckily he only stuck around until 830 and we were free to explore on our own. the first thing i did was retrace our steps, back to temple 4, where the ruins were used as background scenery of the Rebel base on Yavin 4 in the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Its the scene where Chewbacca gets in one of those walkers and shoots down the door allowing Han and the Princess to enter the temple, shutting down the shields for the deathstar.
The ruins of tikal are the largest in the mayan civilisation consisting of 7 grand temples and hundreds of unexcavated structures. Tikal had no water other than what was collected from rainwater and stored in underground storage facilities. Reliance upon seasonal rainfall may have contributed to teh downfall of this Mayan site, but nobody really knows. Our guide speculated on a few ideas but there is not all that much known about the Mayans.
I spent another few hours running around the jungle, crawling through Mayan ruins and finally when it grew insanely hot, i caught the bus back to flores.
Tomorrow im heading to Belize to dive the famous Blue Hole...
