The alarm went off at 2:30am for the hour long drive to Tikal for the Sunrise Tour. We could have stayed in accommodation at the edge of the park but it was four times the price of where we were in Flores and amenities were limited, even the electricity was only on for 3 hours in the evening.

The smallest shuttle van we had seen on our trip so far turned up and being first on board, we managed to take the best seats. While we were wondering if we might be the only people on the tour, it stopped to pick up a huge group. A group so big in fact that we were one seat short because the driver wanted the middle seat next to him free. The driver ignored the complaints of 4 people having to share 3 seats and set off on our journey. The free seat next to the driver wasn't actually for elbow room, it was to pick up yet another passenger. An overcrowded van taking a 1 hour journey starting at 3am doesn't make for a happy bus - we had good seats so we just kept our heads down.

At the Tikal site, about 30 of us from two shuttles were herded together for a walk to Temple IV. The Tikal site, unlike Chichen Itza in Mexico, is in an uncleared jungle. Whilst there are paths between the various temples and ruins, they make their way through thick jungle. Perhaps it was because it was dark, but the Howler Monkeys sounded uncannily loud and it's not a pleasant sound either, especially in the dark. The movie Jurassic Park used the noise of the Howler Monkey for the T-Rex, so that gives a wee bit of an idea of what we were hearing while we walked through the jungle in the dark.

We approached Temple IV as the sky began to lose it's inky blackness and climbed the wooden stairs to the stone steps at the top. There must have been about 70 there before us but we still managed to find some space to settle down and wait for the sun to come up. The tour is not just about watching the sunrise, it's also about listening to the jungle come alive and sadly, some people don't get that. The howling of the monkeys and the ever increasing birdsong could barely be heard over the chatter of bored tourists so David being David told everyone to "Be Quiet!!". Only one European couple required a special conversation to finally stop talking. With the human chatter stopped, the jungle turned up the volume a notch - more monkeys started howling and more birds joined the singing. With the noise reaching a crescendo, the sky brightened and the sun rose perfectly on the horizon. As the sun crept up higher, the jungle, where all the noise was coming from, became visible with some temples poking out above the tree tops. A number of people thanked David afterwards for asking everyone for quietness - it ensured they enjoyed the once in a lifetime, magical, experience of sound as well as sight.

We started our guided tour of the site shortly after the sunrise which was not a bad thing because it gets incredibly hot in Tikal. Our guide Donald aka Speedy Gonzales was really informative, not only about the history of the temples but of the people and the environment.

A few of the nuggets of information gleaned was that nobility differentiated themselves from peasants by strapping wooden boards to a baby's head so that the nose and forehead became flat. In addition to that, they would refocus the baby's eyes on a one central spot to make him 'cross eyed'. Peasants were shorter in general because of malnutrition and carrying heavy loads hanging from their foreheads. This caused their spine to compress and they would favour a hairstyle to hide the dent caused in their forehead. Even today, people still carry loads on their back with a strap on the forehead.

In four hours we only saw maybe 20% of the uncovered site - there is much more still to be uncovered in the vast area. It made a nice change to see the ruins in the jungle environment. Apart from having more shade between the various temples and ruins, there is so much more to see.

We saw parrots, tucans, turkeys and howler monkeys although no coatis. There were some interesting trees pointed out too - an avocado tree, a Horse Balls tree (monkeys eat the sticky fruit), and Hugging trees which wrap themselves around a host tree until it eventually dies. There were also some huge Ceiba trees which the Mayans saw as being the 'Tree of Life' and now is Guatemala's national tree.

By 10am the temperature had risen to 36c and we'd seen enough for one visit before getting too overwhelmed with the information and the beauty, and taken all the pictures we needed.