Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
A Year Away
Wow, I was so on top of things for the first couple weeks of traveling. Then I totally dropped the ball as far as blogging goes. :) Its ok though because I{ve only done one really big important fantastic thing. (Before I go on, there is no apostrophe on this keyboard, it comes out like this: { just so you know.)
Ok, last time I wrote I was in Coban. When I left, I caught a bus up farther north to Tikal, where there are massive Mayan ruins, but I{ll get to that. First, about 15 minutes outside of Coban the temperature started rising and rising, and if the van we were in even slowed down everybody inside started sweating like mad. Also on the way I had my first experience with a Guatemalan ferry. :) We had to cross about 200m worth of river, so our van, plus a gasoline truck and about 20 foot passengers crowded onto what was a little dock, just barely big enough to fit everyone on, and just drifted our way across. I{m really curious as to how that thing even stayed afloat.
When we got up to Flores, which is the city that everyone stays at when they{re on their way to Tikal, I caught a room at Los Amigos Hostel with a girl from New Zealand and a French couple, all of whom I met on the van up.
Ok, now let me rave for a minute about this hostel, as it{s the best I{ve EVER stayed at in all of Guatemala and Europe. I threw my stuff in my room, grabbed my book and chilled in one of their numerous hammocks for the rest of the evening. (I didn{t feel bad about staying there because there was really NOTHING to do in Flores. It{s just a jumping off point really) Now the main part of the hostel, where everyone hangs out feels like a jungle. There are plants growing all over, and the lights are nicely dimmed an there are animals! There were more little lizards crawling all over the walls, (I seriously need to stop taking pictures of lizards. But they{re so cute!) there was a litte pond where three turtles lived, there were a couple birds in a large cage and also two bright green parrots that flew around the building of their own accord. Oh. And two dogs. Ooh, even cooler, they had their own in-hostel restaurant. That in itself wasn}t special because a lot of places do, but this one was cheap, had huge portions and was just. so. good. Oh man. But their coup de grace was their drinks. You could get these huge fish bowl style fruit smoothies (called Licuados) for like 15Q. That comes out to about 2$ for a drink that in the states, would be at least 7 or 8. I could have lived in that hostel for a week, just eating, drinking and reading in a hammock. *sigh* Ok, I{m done with that.
The next day I caught another van up to Tikal, another hour and a half away. It takes about 15-20 minutes to get from the entrance to the first Mayan Pyramid, but, as usual, it took me a bit longer because I kept seeing interesting insects, and stopping to listen to the howler monkeys calling back and forth to each other. I{m seeing so many things here in Guate that I{ve only seen on the Discovery Channel that its almost unreal. The first thing I found after no more than five minutes was a virtual RIVER of ants about 4 feet wide winding around through the edge of the rainforest. And in the middle of them I saw the first of many bright neon orange centipedes that I was to find constantly throughout the day.
So here I am walking through the jungle when I come to this little clearing where there is (inevitably) a group of about 20 asian tourists all exclaiming and pointing and snapping pictures of something in the trees. I looked up expecting to see a jaguar or something exciting, but it was a turkey. Yes. A turkey. About 30 feet up and floundering about in the branches. :) By the end of the day I saw a couple flocks of wild turkeys wandering about the jungle and the roads. So I watch the bird for a bit, then turn around and directly behind me is the back of a gigantic Mayan Pyramid. Oh man it was incredible. I walked around it to the front and found myself in the middle of the Grand Plaza, with a Pyramid on each side and blocks of stone with glyphs and pictures carved on them. It was absolutely beautiful. I climbed to the top of one of the pyramids and sat down to read in my guidebook a bit about the history of Tikal. Yes, reading about Tikal while on top of a pyramid. Excellent.
Next I wandered down another path where my map said there was another pyramid and I was almost past it when I reallized it was right next to me. I didn{t notice because it was completely covered in jungle greenery. The next pyramid was like that too, with entire trees growing out of the sides. Again, I saw a couple ahead of me looking up and pointing and following their gaze I saw a group of spider monkeys slowly swinging their way from one tree to the other and off into the foliage. Oh man, that right there just MADE MY DAY. I saw monkeys! And not sad ones in cages like at the zoo, but real live wild monkeys. Oh yeah.
A little way farther on was Temple IV, the highest of all the Temples in Tikal, most of which is covered by jungle, but there are stairs up to the very top where you can look out over the jungle and see the tops of the other taller pyramids. There is also where you can go to see the sun rise, but this time of year there is too much fog in the morning. I spent a good 30-40 minutes up there at the top, just hanging out, writing and enjoying the jungle. And the insects. (I will never get over the bugs I find here.) So I was sitting at the top, looking down at the tops of the trees beneath my feet when I see more monkeys swinging around. Now when I see something cool I get excited and this time I reach over and smack the guy next to me to show him. And before you ask, no, I didn{t know him. Oops. Its a good thing he had a sense of humor and appreciated monkeys. :) Geez, if we{d have been any closer to the edge he would have gone over. Eesh.
In the part of the park called El Mundo Perdido there is the only pyramid that you climb that doesn{t have a ladder to use. You actually climb the pyramid the way it was built. And the way it was built was steep and unevenly. But it had a great view. That was the best part of the park in my opinion, that pyramid.
So the guy I smacked earlier turned out to be a German named Yan, and we struck out together to find Temple VI, which was supposedly about a 45 minute walk away. Now the second we get out of range of the main park and all other human contact, it starts to rain, rainforest style. Which is to say, hard. Wow. We were drenched in about 2 minutes, even with the trees covering us. We made it about halfway to the Temple before deciding to turn back. The upside of this was that all the rainforest frogs came out of their hiding places and hopped around for my amusement. :)
So by the time we got out of there, I had spent a good five hours chillin in a rainforest and climbing Mayan Temples. I{d say that{s a good day.
- comments