Survivors in Guatemala
Tikal,
Guatemala
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Flores
An early morning flight saw us gliding over miles and miles of Guatemalan jungle before we'd really woken up, but it was still an enjoyable flight, stimulated as we were by a healthy dose of fresh Guatemalan coffee. Some of the views were just incredible, as we passed over dozens of tiny mountain villages, with blankets of cloud lingering in the valleys between them.
Tikal airport was only small, but there were no shortage of shuttles lined up at Arrivals, so we hopped in one and headed for Flores, a nice little island town at the edge of a lake, connected by bridge to the mainland.
Our hotel room at the Mirador del Lago (Lake view) was decidedly modest in its presentation, but lived up to it's promise with a nice balcony overlooking the water, and also a massive fan, which tried its hardest to help with the heat, but we found the humidity here quite draining after the springtime feel of Antigua.
As a town, Flores was small, we walked right round the perimiter in about an hour, but quite pleasant. It felt very old, with winding cobbled streets, and lots of nice waterfront eateries. As evening came along, we went for a swim in the lake, joining a few local kids diving off a wooden jetty. The water was warm, and as the sun started to set I was struck by the feeling that this was a moment to savour.
After drying off, we sat at a lakeside bar for a swift cerveza, and got talking to rather strange a young lady from England, I shall call her Rebecca.
It started off on a sensible enough footing, swapping tales of where we'd all been so far, what we thought of different places, and handy hints of future things to do, the normal traveller-type conversations.
Rebecca had indeed travelled very widely, all round Central America, and had managed to extract herself from various tricky situations after hitch-hiking across borders, scuba diving with sharks etc. Then her life story started to thicken. She had lived for 2 years in Nepal, as an anthropologist learning a local dialect, which she found quite easy due to her previous language training, but then she moved to another village with ANOTHER dialect, which she then had to learn from scratch. We were impressed, and "wow"ed and "well I never"ed in all the right places. The Nepal posting, she said, was for her PhD thesis which she had just handed in at the 2 universities she was studying at. 2 universities? When we enquired further she replied with a dismissive "Oxford and Cambridge". She also told us that she had to do her research "under cover of teaching english" so that the locals didn't twig that they were being spied on.
She then went on to say that she was moving to South America to work with some NGOs. We remarked that we had just completed 2 months of volunteering in Venezuela with an NGO, but she didn't show any interest, or ask us which one, or anything else. She simply carried on to say that she was now going to become a "South American Specialist". By now I was starting to smell something a little fishy. "How does 2 years in Nepal make you a South American specialist?" I asked.
"No," she corrected me as though I had misunderstood "I was a Nepalese specialist, now I'm going to South America to become a South American specialist". She declined to expand any further on what a South American specialist is or does, and soon afterwards we gently made our excuses and said goodbye, then backed away making twirly signs round our ears when she looked the other way.
On our stroll back to the hotel we discussed. Had we just been speaking to a gifted lady of the world, or a bit of a loony with Baron Munchausen as a travelling companion? Who knows. I go for the latter, Andrea wasn't quite sure if it was all true, but certainly concurred that either way, she was very strange. Further suggestions on a postcard please.
That evening, we returned to the lakeside and had a gorgeous romantic dinner overlooking the water. Just perfect.
Tikal
Next morning we were off on an early shuttle to Tikal, gateway to the Mayans...
Our shuttle collected a French-Canadian guy who was working in London, and a Swiss girl, who didn't say much, but sat at the back of the bus. We chatted with the Canadian guy for a while, and eventually the German girl joined in for a while then said "I HATE the French-Canadian accent when they speak French, I think it sounds awful". Cue strange looks to each other, then an awkward silence for a while. Quite amusing, and we added her details to our "I-Spy Weird Travellers Handbook" (with a 5 point bonus for being Swiss).
Our shuttle dropped us at the entrance to the ruins, now a large national park, and we made our way to our 'lodge' a nice hotel inside the grounds. This was another wedding present, and was a treat indeed, with nice cabins, and an inviting swimming pool, which we noted for later, as first there were ruins to see...
The jungle was hot and humid, and we were glad of the canopy of shade as we followed the map to the various temples. Following a path through the jungle, we were very conscious of snakes, but again saw monkeys in the trees. The biggest treat for us however was seeing Coatis - little cute furry things, from the racoon family. We spotted one in the trees, and before long he'd been joined by about 10 more, a huge family just walking across our path, and snuffling around in the undergrowth, completely unpeturbed by our presence. They were very entertaining, with black and grey hooped tails, standing 2ft straight up into the air like periscopes, and we felt very honoured to have spent some time in their company.
The temples, when we eventually staggered through the heat to find them, were very impressive, and amazingly well preserved. Some of them had been restored, using the original techniques, and the ongoing maintenance effort meant that visitors were permitted to climb up to the tops of some of the temples. We saw the Central Plaza, the centre of the village, and the site of most of the ceremonial meetings that were held by the Mayans, and it was not difficult to imagine such ceremonies taking place here, a few centuries ago.
The tallest remaining temple, Temple IV was the star attraction, and we had booked a trip to it to watch the sunrise the following morning, so after a bit more wandering, we retired to the hotel to get away from the heat and chill out for the afternoon.
Alarms are never pleasant to hear, and at 4am, the sound was not a welcome one, but the thought of witnessing an epic sunrise provided sufficient motivation to get us up and out the front to meet our tour group of about 6 others.
After our Costa Rican snake experience, our torches were pointed very much downwards as we trudged through the pitch-black jungle to reach the temple. As we got to Temple IV, the blackness was beginning to lift, and I was quite nervous with anticipation as we climbed the wooden stairway to the top.
Despite the sapping heat during the day, it was decidedly nippy at this hour, and we sat at the top and shivered as a cacophony of animal noises rang out from every direction as the jungle started to wake up. Birds squawked, monkeys barked, even the odd big cat roared as they all got up, yawned and set about making their first cup of coffee.
As the darkness began to lift, the view from the top was astounding, miles and miles of the green carpet of jungle canopy stretched out to the horizon in every direction, and the tops of the temples reaching up through them, only the very tops managing to poke above the trees. Despite the unusual setting, the scene was familiar, having appeared in Star Wars (Episode IV).
After absorbing the view for a long while, taking a few photos and humming lots of Star Wars themes, we adjourned to the slightly less inspiring, but equally enjoyable hotel pool for a bit of intensive loafing before catching a bus back to Flores.
