Day 7--Tikal National Park, Guatamala

When we arrived at the Guatemalan border, we trooped out of our Belizean van and into the Customs office. Ernesto gave us back our passports (he had gone ahead with all of them, and we waited in line to get into Guatemala. Then we jumped on a new bus with a new Guatemalan driver.

Two hours later we pulled into Tikal National Park and met the guide (Juan) who would lead us through the forest to the Tikal Mayan monuments.

I should back up a bit.

There had been relentless, epic rain the day before, and the trip to Tikal was no exception. It was still raining hard when we got to the Park, where we had our first glimpse of the tents we were to sleep in that night. But in the meantime, we were to stash our suitcases at the restaurant/hotel lobby (picture a little forest hotel) and take only what needed in our backpacks for the long hike through the jungle. Including flashlight for the walk back after dark!

Pouring rain—off we all set.  Since the rain had been falling for days, the paths were puddles or slick limestone and stone.

On we walked. On it rained. Occasionally, we came upon a ruin. Some were and some were not Fully excavated. Juan actually could translate some of the glyphs and he was very informative. Sorry, you can’t really see the glyphs, but this stone (photo below), at the North Acropolis, refers to the Crocodile King and was translated by Juan. I was glad we could all crowd around him, ( I could follow his explanation) because,with a wet hood over my head and glasses covered with raindrops, unless I was right beside him, I missed a lot of what he said walking along.

Yellow-lored parrot

I cannot stress enough how much it was raining. Everything we were wearing or carrying, including rainproof jackets, was soaked.

We came out into a clearing and into a whole Mayan city. Rain or not, this is an amazing site. Rob and I climbed a couple of the temples—including the tallest, which we were told appears as Yavin 4 in Star Wars, Episode 4, A New Hope. This would not have been possible for me except for the fact that stairs (lots and lots and lots of stairs) have been erected at the back for access. Even so.....

I will attach a map we got, because I cannot do it justice in photos.

This Rain God picture (below)is from the Web, because Rob’s picture is unclear, due to reconstruction scaffolding. It was unearthed (ironically) when the structure above it collapsed after 8 epic days of rain.

Many of the temples or buildings have been excavated, mapped and then recovered because of the expense of maintaining them. So, many appear as mounds and many more are fully excavated.

I need to finish this and send, as we are going on a sunset cruise shortly.

More later.

Back to the day:  By the time we had all climbed up and down from Temple IV, it was beginning to be twilight so we set off back to the park entrance with Juan in the lead. Yes, dear friends, it was STILL pouring.

We slipped and slid along the limestone trail through puddles we couldn’t see (refer back to the hood, the rain on the glasses yada yada . . . below) tripping on tree roots, stumbling on stone steps we hadn’t noticed (OK, it was mostly me, but still . . .) and then it was pitch black so we had to dig out our flashlights to light the way.

It was some walk back, let me tell you, and we were all beyond drenched as we headed for tents (with our feet pointed backwards) that had been set up for us. Now, we were all expecting to camp this one night, but Ernesto had said that if there were extenuating circumstances—like if it rained buckets and flooded us out—he would make other arrangements.

You can imagine that as the bedraggled group of us slogged along the trail in the dark, we were all hoping alternate plans were afoot, but once back, Ernesto said the tents were dry inside and expected us to take our miserable wet selves into them.

The youngest of us decided to upgrade to a room at the lodge, then more and more of us thought that sounded better than the tent option (us included) and in the end, only two slept outside.

We had electricity, hot showers, warm, DRY bed so decided to forgive ourselves for caving in

In the morning, the sun was out and so were the birds, but we had to load the bus at 7 a.m. - Drat! However, we did spot a Yellow -Lored Parrot, several Ocellated Turkeys and a juvenile Brown Jay. Then it was off to Cay Caulker—a half day trip.

Oscellated Turkey

Oscellated Turkeys enjoying the puddles near the bus

Juvenile Brown Jay