The boarder crossing from Belize to Guatemala was a lot less stressful than our last crossing. We got a stamp, paid a clearly laid out and standard fee (£15 per person) and crossed into Guatemala. It was pretty uneventful apart from the lady in front of us, who was taking a turkey across the border in a tied up bag, the turkey had a hole for its head and was quite content watching the crossing procedure. That was until the woman dumped the bag on the floor to get her passport, then all hell broke loose and it was like watching the turkey version of Dancing on Ice as the bird tried and failed to regain footing in a rolling bag.
After that excitement the rest of the day was just a long journey to our hostel in Flores. Once the bus dropped us off we were guilt-tripped into going into the bus company’s shop to check out their prices for trips to Tikal. We had already decided we wouldn’t buy them there and would check prices elsewhere, but our indifference to their sales pitch was taken as us driving a hard bargain and they followed us out of the shop and offered us a reduced price with an English guide and hostel pick up thrown in so we agreed to pay $100 GTQ (£10) per person for the hour drive and an all day guide.
We got picked up at 4:30 am and got the park at about 6 am, we were again lucky that either because its the off-season, the recent eruption has scared off travellers or just because we got there so early, that the park was really quiet. Our guide was quite interesting, he had originally grown up in Tikal before locals were re-homed once it became a national park. He showed us lots of birds, insects and plants special to the region, we saw woodpeckers, monkeys, jumping spiders and at one point he stuck some grass down a hole in a log and pulled out a tarantula! Which we all got to stroke and the bravest amounts us got to hold (after reassurance they aren’t deadly!). We were also shown different herbs and plants along the way, one plant stank like chicken soup with too much pepper and garlic, I thought the guide was joking at first and that the smell must be coming from a café until I picked up a flower, it reeked. We also tried some of a plant that tasted a bit like mixed herbs, although I have no idea what it was.
The ruins them selves are very impressive and as always have about a billion steps to get to the top (temples are up to 70 m high). The main square had 4 structures to represent the 4 seasons and each of them had a different number of steps to represent days of the calendars and then these steps are set into layers that represent moon cycles and on and on it goes. There is just so much detail in these huge buildings it makes them even more impressive, they were built in such a way that the sun hits them in a certain way during the solstice, and in the mornings shadows of the buildings look like a snake making its way to the ground. One section is designed so that when you clap it echos back sounding like a Tolkien (a bird indigenous to the region). The complexity of these huge buildings is just crazy, and it’s even more mind blowing when you think that it was done over a thousand years ago!
There were also sacrificial altars scattered about, we asked if it was seen as a privilege to be sacrificed or if someone was chosen as a victim when the Gods were not happy and, apparently, it was considered an honour. They would have not only have been chosen from birth to be sacrificed later in life but the parents would also purposely get pregnant at certain times so the chosen one would be the correct age to be sacrificed for specific events! It’s still not know why the city was abandoned, it was left deserted for 500 years before the Spanish came to the region, by then it was so overgrown it went unnoticed. Only whispers of the city where known until in 1853, when a Guatemalan man collecting gum from the rubber trees noticed the ruins and alerted a newspaper and the site gained interest and was investigated. Even today it takes a team of 30 to daily remove vegetation off of the buildings to stop them being reclaimed by the jungle, our guide told us to uncover a temple takes a team of 20 about 7 years and around 2 million pounds!
After 5 hours of walking around, the park started to get busy so we headed home grabbed some lunch (burritos and a drink for £3?! Don’t mind if I do.) and plan our next stop. Tonight we’ll be getting the night bus at 9 pm to arrive in Antigua tomorrow morning around 8 am.
As always I’ll keep you all updated.
Lots of love,
Alice x