As round The end of May we were Officially in Guatemala now, we stayed on the small island of Flores. Flores is a quaint colonial town with cobble stone streets tightly packed onto a 2 square kilometer island. It is surrounded by clear warm fresh water that everyone from locals to tourists frequently dip into. Aside from the dubious electricity that seems to turn on and off at will, and strange flying earwigs that prefer to attack at meals times and in washrooms. Our alarm clock is the stiffening heat that fills the room after the electricity has cut out, our only source of relief from the heat. Although not even 100m from mainland attached by a single road, there is no access to fruit or vegetables on the island, there is cheese in the fridges a month passed dues date (and lets not forget about the many times the power goes out in a single day), so not much coking happened, only restaurant eating….and even than had its very very Rough patches.
The afternoon we arrived we organized ad early bird trip to Tikal - by early bird we mean the worm hasn’t come out of the whole yet – We talking 3am here people!!! In hindsight we should’ve just stayed up – giddy with lack of sleep the four of us plus our new Norwegian friends Anetta and Peter, all stumbled into the van at 3:20. We arrived at Tikal a little later than expected with a flat tire and while the other groups were driven all the way up to Temple 4, we had to sprint through the jungle – a good 3 km – to beat the sunrise. We made it to the top for a bit of the sunrise. We were at the top of a temple that was built for the King and his queen, a rise that pokes it head out of the jungle. Needless to say the Sunrise was incredible, well what we saw of it anyways, it was completely silent except for the odd opening of a water bottle, or the shutter of a camera trying to capture the impossible true beauty of what was laid before us. Slowly the Sun rose through layers of mist to reveal it’s true rapid speed of movement. The Forest slowly began to awaken with bird calls, monkeys howling and frog croaking. Soon the sun was consumed by the fog again and we continued in silence listening as more bizarre sounds came to life.
Tikal is the center point of all the Mayan ruins; it is the largest national park in Central America and it its day must have been the most spectacular place to see. Temple 4 peaks out the top of the rainforest into a network of 4000 buildings of which only 15% has been recovered from over-growth. Tikal means Temple of echoes or echo of the Mayan Spirits. We were apart of a group which seems silly, but Luis was not only the best but we head the week before a Dutch guys tried to do Tikal himself and was lost for 2 -3 days, they only found him because he ripped pages out of his Lonely planet…so we thought a guide was a great idea, and Luis…he was the cream of the Crop.
We were lead through the Jungle from Temple to temple but none was such a head rush as Temple 6. Almost completely restored to the top, you wonder why it isn’t funny until you get to the top and can’t imagine anything else apart from wanting to get safely to the ground. Before we get to that let’s talk about how to reach the top. Beside the stairs was a “wooden staircase” I’m sorry did I say stairs let me replace that with a series of ladders that has a small platforms now and then with a light tilt forwards. If you’re not scared of heights then clearly you have not been this high and steep and NOT strapped in!!! At the top the view is incredible but the adrenalin is debatable as to whether it was worth the climb and standing at the top. Even with our backs flat against the wall so close we could almost be apart of the wall, you still feel like you’re falling forwards. If you don’t suffer from Vertigo then trust us you will on the small wooden platform at the top. Coming down was no where near as bad as going up you were so focus on hanging on for dear life then you never really looked down.
We saw our fair share of wildlife monkeys swinging from branches, various birds (including Toucan Sam), some fuzzy animal related to the anteater and so many other things.A few hours later we returned to the Van and headed back to Flores. We stayed in Flores for a couple more days then after swimming lessons for Sonya and some relaxing time it was off to Antigua to begin Claire’s and my Spanish lessons.
Thanks for holding, the blogs will be up soon to hopefully be followed by Photos!
Cheers,
Simpson and Claire
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