Day 23 02.08.15
The motto of today definitely was “Welcome to the Jungle!” But lets start off chronologically.
We headed out from our hotel to drive to the Belizean border. Here we arrived with a large cue waiting in front of us.
The perks of travelling in a group definitely came to play here, as our group leader collected all our passports, went to the front of the line and got us all out of Belize, pretty much jumping the impressive cue that had formed of locals waiting to cross the border. All we had to pay was 37,50 Belizean dollars and out we were. Here we exchanged some money (not as dodgy as on the Belizean border from Mexico to Belize). Our luggage was loaded onto our bus and our tour guide checked us into Guatemala. Off we went to Tikal, which took us about 2,5 hours and we then reached the jungle. After paying the park fee of 150 Quetzales we drove through the jungle passing several signs telling us that there could be wild animals passing on the road.
Not the usual signs but ones showing snakes, jaguars, coatis and different birds. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any of these animals :) while we were driving down the road to our “hotel” / campsite.
We arrived there and were happy that all the people who didn’t have a “lover” or family with them would have their own tent, and all others would be sharing larger tents.
They were fully equipped – they even had a mattress, sheets, a pillow and blanket. It was definitely on the edge of glamping! (Toilets and showers were also really close by and clean, so it was a great glamping experience) We all got adjusted to our new “homes” and then met up for lunch in the restaurant that was just next to the tents. I just had some quick spaghetti bolognese, as I had seen too much rice and beans for the last couple of days and needed something different.
We met our tour guide to walk into the jungle with and set off to explore and hopefully find some of the animals that were promised to cross on our way there. The guide was great and explained everything in great detail. The sound of the jungle was fascinating as you could hear all different animals but couldn’t see them. The loud silence was very enchanting.
The first large tree we came across was the Ciabre tree. This tree is known as the Mayan tree of life. Its roots are over ground sitting on the limestone to access as much water as possible, seeing as the water table is about 600 metres below ground. As I wrote in my last blog post, the Mayans believe that there is a connection between the earth, the heavens and the underworld represented by trees. As you can see its branches spread out into the sky, and the lower part of the stem coming together with the roots is said to tell you the north, south, east and west.
We moved on to hear howler monkeys in the distance as well as several birds going on their usual business from the heart of the jungle far away from us. We reached our first temples and were quite amazed to be honest. Not from the structures (for that I have seen too many) but mainly for their placement. The Mayans built these pyramids and temples at the top of mountains or at least high up, flattening out vast amounts of land in the process. Tikal was a large city with temples and acropolises for kings as well as their living quarters and it is just one of the Mayans very important cities, being the centre of trade for them, be it for resources, be it for knowledge or be it their water distribution system.
As the water table is so low in Tikal, the Mayans realised that they needed a proper irrigation system for their surrounding crops to uphold a large civilisation of what is believed to have been up to 2 million people. They used the rocks from the jungle bed for their pyramids and used the “holes” that were left in the jungle bed as large water basins to catch rainwater and to pass that water on via small canals that were already present in the natural jungle water irrigation system to the crops in need of water. It is quite impressive to think that while building loads and loads of pyramids and temples on one site, they also managed to think about what was happening below and how they could sustain such a large population and their water supply.
As a matter of fact, there is a nice correlation between the Mayan civilisation aging and the environment of Tikal changing. People used to bury their ancestors in tombs in temples. After they were buried, new pyramids would be built on top of them to make room for new kings and new burials. This way some temples for example have three other temples that are built within them, that had to grow as Tikal was growing.
In terms of the kings, our guide told us that as soon as a king had passed the memorials and stones portraying their images would be defaced in order to let the soul of that king pass through to the heavens and to underline the new power the new king had over the dead and over the ancestors. It reminded me a bit of the pottery in the ATM cave that had been smashed to release the potteries souls or meanings. The defacing probably had a similar intention.
Furthermore, for all the star wars aficionados reading this, yes I did climb up to the temple where star wars was filmed. Thankfully someone informed me of this fact as I was standing on top of the temple :). Interesting to think that they carried all this camera equipment up the temple, as there isn’t that much room up there. The sight was incredible though. You could see so very far over the canopy and into the Guatemalan hills. Just really incredible.
On our way to the different pyramids and temples we saw a large range of different birds. For example the two types of Toucans (yes also the Froot Loops one, which the locals call the flying banana due to its yellow beak) as well as a hawk, some turkeys and some woodpeckers. It was a right game to see whose camera would zoom in closest to take the best picture. Unfortunately mine didn’t really...
Apart from the birds we also saw some spider monkeys. They were climbing about and playing with each other. At one point it got very hectic and the monkeys started jumping from tree to tree. Our guide wisely then pointed out that the spider monkeys tend to find their victims and deliberately pee on them. Locals say that to be peed on by a spider monkey is good luck. I’m not so sure about that :)… This time, no one got peed on.
There was one place that looked a lot like the jungle book and here there were lianas hanging about. Some even grew into a swing and were stable enough to hold my weight. Great fun swinging about like in the jungle book. We walked on from one temple to another and were told that the Mayans had walkways that were incredibly large. Incredibly large meaning about 80 metres wide and 2km long if not longer, all paved or cobbled and flattened out.
Interesting fact: Guatemala comes from the Spanish interpretation of the word Coactemalan. Coactemalan actually means the land of the trees in a Mayan dialect, which to be fair is very true as Tikal is a nature reserve with just very many trees. Especially remembering their focus on the tree of life.
After we walked on from the different temples we got to a collection of different ball courts for professional Mayan games, that apparently also contained locker rooms where these players could get dressed in their safety gear to then throw around a rubber ball into hoops. Very interesting to be walking around in Mayan stadiums.
As we moved on to the next temples we were told by our guide that the Mayans were so far in terms of their civilisation, that they were able to calculate how the shadows would behave on their pyramids. So for example during the sunset, the shadow of the one pyramid or temple will just about reach the first steps of the pyramid or temple standing opposite to it. In order to calculate this, their mathematical and architectural skills must have been very advanced.
We moved on to the next temple and climbed it. We then tried to watch the sunset from one of the adjacent acropolises. However, there were too many buildings in the way to truly be able to see it.
On our way back Gordon and I definitely saw a Tapir, at least something big caused large branches to break right next to where we were walking. We are sure that those noises were caused by minimum a tapir.
When we were back we took a shower and headed out for dinner. Dinner was at the same place where we had lunch, but this time I had some medallions with mustard sauce which unfortunately weren’t that great, but I combined them with some fellow travellers burger, and then they were alright. For desert some great crepes with nutella and then to top it off we enjoyed a grand bonfire (illegally) but still very nice, where we sat around the campfire and enjoyed the moment where we could all sit down and talk about this and that. After that everyone zipped up their tents and went to sleep. Thankfully the snoring was kept to a minimum at least for me.
