Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Tikal, Mayan ruins in the jungle

We were sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere waiting for a bus.  That morning we had been in Belize, and we hoped to get to Tikal at some point, but every bus that passed us wasn’t going there.   Each of them helpfully suggested a time that one might come, each time suggested was different.   Eventually a minibus stopped on it’s way to Tikal and we hopped in.  We quickly realised this was not a local minibus, this was a tour on it’s way from Flores to Tikal.  The guide was, however, relatively interesting pointing things out along the way.  He also offered to let us join the tour (there were two other people), for a price of course.  Having just come from Belize where an amazing guide educated us on caves and Mayans, we decided it would be worth it.  We were looking forward to learning more about the buildings and the people who built them.  


This guide, however, was not in the same league as the guide in Belize.  We quickly began to suspect he was making up half of what he was saying, and the bits that were true often related to his own life.  For example, the exact bedding that he has at home.  Fascinating stuff.  Not willing to suffer through the promised four hour tour, we left him with his original tour group and explored the site ourselves.  Tikal is special not just for the size and enormity of the temples and palaces, but because it is still enshrouded in jungle.  We seemed to be constantly pointing out monkeys to each other.  We also came across a massive group of coati, with many different litters as there seemed to be coati of every size.  We stayed near the site and watched monkeys play in the trees outside our room.  It feels more like it may have been when the Mayans inhabited the buildings, the jungle encroaching and a constant part of their lives.

No comments: