Living For An Adventure: The Mayan Ruins of TIKAL

2/17/15
hot and still

On February 5, we took off on another bus ride to Flores, in the northern part of Guatemala. It was a 4 hour trip with unfortunately many stops along the way. We have finally realized that all bus rides are not non-stop. We ended up in the bustling town of Santa Elena, much bigger than the Rio Dulce. There is a huge lake there, Lago Peten Itza and a causeway that goes over to the island city of, Flores. Flores is the capital of the "state" of Peten. It is a quaint colonial town with cobbled streets.

We spent the night in a small boutique hotel where we had a spacious suite...what were we thinking? After dropping off our things we walked around one side of the island along the shore. Now, this particular lake is the only lake in the world where the white bass is found....ohhh our son-in-law would love this! After eating some nachos and a few beverages to go along with them, we ended up at another restaurant and had the aforementioned, white bass. It was OK, but I have to admit I am more of a salt water fish person.

The next day we traveled to Tikal in a collectivo...this is a van that is packed with people, they put as many as possible in...so thank god the ride was less than an hour. We arrived at the park and were then dropped off at the Jungle Lodge, only hotel that is within the park.

Jaguar crossing

The chances of seeing a jaguar are slim to nothing, so we at least got a great view of the White Nosed Coati. We also saw and heard Mexican Black Howler Monkeys and Spider Monkeys. There were all sorts of birds in the park but a raucous
flock of toucans was pretty exciting, too.

Tony our guide

The park is huge, as you can imagine and just was so amazing to see. The temples at Tikal are very tall and this seems to be the architecture throughout this site and what Tikal is known for. Whereas, Copan is known for it's beautiful steleas and cravings. On our last morning we did the "sunrise tour" and met our group at the main dinning hall at 4:00am. After a short talk on Temple 1...Temple of the Sun, we were off for an hour trek in the dark. When we arrived we then had to climb stairway after stairway to the top of the temple where many people had seated themselves on more steps to the very top of the temple. And, then there we all waited in silence for the morning to begin. We were very lucky that the weather was perfect to see the sun rise off in the distance above the jungle canopy. As it got lighter and lighter, then the jungle came alive. Troups of howler monkeys
in all directions started their morning calls. Birds, of all kinds, became visible flying over the tree tops. It was stunning and somewhat surreal. So Charlie got to check off an item from his bucket list today.