Tikal

I finally made it to Tikal. It is an amazing place. Totally worth the 15 hour bus trip (even with my friend sitting next to me puking most of the way and the driver running over a duck!). My host mom came along on the trip, and it was totally fun to hang out with her outside of Xela.

We stayed in Flores which is a small island town in Lake Peten Itza. Our first day in Flores we took a boat to visit a small museum run by a totally adorable and strange little man. He showed us relics from Tikal and other Mayan sites along with his collection of antique record players and a giant radio his dad built in the 40s. My favorite part of the tour was the way he referred to anything dated B.C. as "before the Jesus."

After the museum, we hiked to a nice lookout point for a great view of the lake and of Flores. Our next stop was a secluded point on the lake for swimming. The shore was rocky, but the water was absolutely fantastic for swimming - crystal clear and warm! We were then treated to a view of the sunset from our boat!

We left our hotel at 3:30 on Saturday morning to get to the Tikal ruins in time to watch the sunrise. We hiked in the dark through the jungle to the base of Temple IV, then climbed to the top to take our place for the show. At the request of the guides, everyone was still and silent on top of the temple. We were sitting above the trees watching the tops of the other temples appear in the changing colors of the sunrise. We could hear the deep growl of the holwer monkeys, the screeches of the spider monkeys, and the songs of birds soaring above everything. We were even treated to two toucans resting in the branches of a tree in front of the temple.

Once the sun was bright and the other tour groups had left, our guide began sharing his knowledge of Tikal and the jungle surrounding it. We climbed other temples, toured living quarters, a ball court, sacrificial sites, saw two types of monkeys and tons of birds, and learned about the natural medicines from the plants in the area. The man was amazing. Even after listening to him for 8 hours, I wanted to hear more. Anything I think of saying to describe the experience just sounds silly. I will just leave it at amazing. Stay tuned for the pics!

After heading back to Flores for showers and food, a few of us went swimming again. There was a bar on a dock near our hotel, so my host mom went with us to drink coffee while we jumped off the dock to swim. There were several kids who lived near the dock who joined us. They were really cute. I forgot the word for "dive" so I tried asking the kids. I got two responses: "fall on your head" and "jump on your head." My host mom gave me the correct word, but from then on out we referred to diving in the way the kids taught us.

We left two hours earlier than planned the next morning in order to get a head start on any election day traffic or problems. However, when we got to a river crossing barely outside of Flores, the ferry was broken and there was no other way across. The ferry was really a raft with an outboard motor attached to one side, but it worked on the way there and was our only option for getting back without having to go five hours out of the way. It is hard to say, but it seemed a bit suspect on an election day with a lot of people trying to cross the river to vote, but who knows. After sitting and waiting for two hours, our tour guide took a boat accross and threatened to call the tourist police (guys with black socks, sandals, and machine guns?) if they didn{t find someone to fix the motor. I do not know if it was coincidence or not, but soon after someone figured out that they could tie two small boats to the sides of the ferry. The steering was a bit iffy, but it worked and we were on our way.

We arrived in Xela around 11 p.m. Judith and I were both exhausted, but totally giddy after such an amazing trip. One more time: Tikal was amazing.