Semena Santa: "Andrea, I'm just not sure how long you want to look at a bunch of rocks for."

When planning for this trip I asked numerous people for advice.  Their advice included: spend a day and a half in Tikal, wear long pants, lots of bug spray and comfortable shoes.  Upon suggesting a day and a half to the daddio he responded with "Andrea, I'm just not sure how long you want to look at a bunch of rocks for."  So that was it, it was going to be one day.  And I was determined I was going to spend the entire day there . . .

Temple 1 from behind.

(When looking at the ruins in my pictures try to imagine them painted bright vibrant colors as that is how they were when the empire ruled.  They take on a whole new immensity! It's almost unbelievable.)

Temple 2.

I did however take some of the other advice:  comfortable shoes and bug spray.  I skipped the one on the pants as it was 42C the day before (and ended up hitting 44C + humidity that day) and I wasn't going to wear pants and risk overheating.  The day began at 4:30 am as we awaited our shuttle outside the hotel.  It was already hot at 4:30 am so choosing shorts over pants was definately a wise decision.

The Daddio and I at the Great Plaza.

Daddio!

The shuttle ride was fine except for the uninformed passengers who thought their ticket included the 150Q admission to the park, but it actually only included the ride and the tour guide.  Being the good Canadians that we are Ian and I ended up lending 2 Norweigan girls 200Q.  It remains to be seen whether the money will be returned or not. (They actually came to our hotel later that day and paid us back, I was actually shocked.  I thought for sure we would never see that 200Q again.)

Daddio again . . .

Giant face carved in one of the ruins.

The tour was really awesome and included discussions of halucinogens and the end of the world in 2012.  The park is getting ready for another Y2K craze.  Apparently at the millenium the park was insane, people could barely walk it was so packed.  I will make sure not to return during this time.  Talk about fear of crowds!

From the top of Temple 2: Big-I filming the vastness of the park.

(To the left are many sacrifice alters where jaguar skins allow with food and humans were left for the gods.  Here is where the drugs come into play the people did not know they were about to be sacrificed as they were given halucinogens and paralytics before the sacrifice.  False fact:  In the movie Apocalypto they show sacrifices from the top of the temples, this was never the case sacrifices were only made on the sacrificial alters.)

The stairs up Temple 2.  We thought they were pretty scary . . . until we climbed temple 5.

 

The tour was great but the day was very very hot!  So after the four and a half hour tour we decided it was enought and caught the first shuttle back to our air conditioned hotel.  I think the choice to do one day over two was wise because I am pretty sure I will not be able to walk tomorrow.  (I was actually sore for 2 days afterwards.)

The view of of the Plaza from Temple 5.

The stairs up Temple 5 . . . it was pretty much like climbing a ladder 50 m in the air . . . man was my heart beating! (It's actually starting to race a little thinking about it!)

Temple 5 . . . thank god I don't have a fear of heights otherwise I am sure I would have recurring nightmares of this Temple.

 

All in all I loved Peten. The lake was wonderful, Flores is an awesome town, and Tikal was absolutely amazing.  I will definately try and return some day as I am sure there are many things we missed only spending two days here.

The view from Temple 4 . . . the tallest of the Temples, it stands 60 m and is only partially uncovered.  All you can really see is jungle coming every way around this Temple except you can see the top sticking out from the trees from the other temples it is pretty amazing.

The Daddio and Ian on top of Temple 4.  (The climb up this one wasn't quite as scary as the others so the men were able to do it!)

Looking over the edge of Temple 4 . . . you can't see the ground!

Temple 4 from the base . . . you can see they are still working on this pyramid.  Our tour guide said this was the pyramid from the Star Wars Movies or Star Trek or some star movie I have never seen.

Off to Belize tomorrow.  Sharks here I come!

I heard a lot about the howler monkeys before coming and to watch out for them because they steal.  Sadly we didn't see too many monkeys but here was one having a little lunch.

This Toucan was actually on of the coolest parts of the trip.  The other groups tour guide actually heard this Toucan while sitting on the bench in the park and jumped up and was like come guys a flying banana and started running this way and that way listing to the flying bananas call and scoped it out in a tree across the park and let us use his binoculars to find it . . . he also took this photo through his binoculars!  It was so amazing to see someone do that!

One last fact:  Maya actually means "I don't understand you" . . . It was what the people at the Mayan Yucatan said to the Spanish when they arrived!