Tikal and the best laid plans...
So here I am at the Happy Fish, this time struggling with an off and on Internet connection, possibly caused by the morning of tropical storms. So who knows if this will ever see the light of day.
But first things first. Nate and I spent a pleasant day in Flores on the 31st, bumming around most of the day and heading out to Tikal in the late afternoon. We stopped so I could get lunch at Pollolandia, a division of Pollo Campero, the Guatemalan KFC. The drive was about an hour through the jungle to the park site and then another 15 minutes to the ticket booth and then a 20 minute hike through the jungle to the temples. Apparently they want to make sure you really want to see them…
The first sight of the Temple of the Jaguar looming up through the jungle is really impressive. The jungle isn´t cleared around the temples so you sort of stumble out of the trees and see this huge limestone construction. We climbed a couple of the temples and the steps are narrow (you can´t put your whole foot down on them) and high (each step is one and a half steps worth). It´s some work, especially when you consider that we are taller than your average Mayan so it was even more work for them.
We started with the Central Acropolis, two temples across from each other with the royal living quarters (they presume) on one side and some ceremonial site on the other. As with most ancient sites, we aren´t entirely sure what this was all for. All we really know is that there are over 40,000 structures (most still buried) that served as a gathering/living place for more than 90,000 people over 1,800 years. How´s that for a round up of relevant statistics? And it was discovered and rebuilt by numerous people over the last couple hundred years. I find this disappointing – in that you know that you aren´t looking at the real thing but rather a reconstruction – but humidity, moss and climbing vines are hell on limestone. I doubt they would be anything other than moss covered lumps of stone by now without some help.
The one big temple we climbed was Temple 5 – or 4? I think it was five. They have barricaded the steps to protect them and set up a series of ladders up the side of the temple. There were 7 ladders, each about 15-20 feet high, by Nate´s estimation (I´m horrible about gauging distance). All I know is it was HIGH and I had to keep breathing deeply and not looking down or thinking about things like getting foot caught in a rung and plummeting to my steep quick death. However, the view at the temple comb over the tops of the jungle trees was worth it. We stayed up there and watched the sun set over the jungle on the last day of the year, watched the monkeys come out to play and then walked back in the half dark accompanied by close warm wet humidity and the sounds of birds, parrots and cicadas. All we needed was red dirt and I´d be right back in Lomalinda.
And that was the last nice thing to happen to me for some time.
Two words. Food poisoning.
Stupid pollolandia…
I remember very little about the rest of that evening or most of the next day. I dragged myself out to the balcony for the fireworks at midnight on the 31st and went to bed half way through. We ditched our plans for a sunrise at Tikal as I could neither keep water down nor envision myself climbing an 8-10 story temple without something bad happening. It´s a traveler-in-the-third-world rite of passage and I´ve dodged this bullet for a long time, so it was just amusing that it happened to be on new year´s eve. 2006 wasn´t done with me yet, I guess. So instead of Tikal, we drove to Rio Dulce and got on a boat.
More about that in my next post.
Feliz Año Nuevo a todos!
But first things first. Nate and I spent a pleasant day in Flores on the 31st, bumming around most of the day and heading out to Tikal in the late afternoon. We stopped so I could get lunch at Pollolandia, a division of Pollo Campero, the Guatemalan KFC. The drive was about an hour through the jungle to the park site and then another 15 minutes to the ticket booth and then a 20 minute hike through the jungle to the temples. Apparently they want to make sure you really want to see them…
The first sight of the Temple of the Jaguar looming up through the jungle is really impressive. The jungle isn´t cleared around the temples so you sort of stumble out of the trees and see this huge limestone construction. We climbed a couple of the temples and the steps are narrow (you can´t put your whole foot down on them) and high (each step is one and a half steps worth). It´s some work, especially when you consider that we are taller than your average Mayan so it was even more work for them.
We started with the Central Acropolis, two temples across from each other with the royal living quarters (they presume) on one side and some ceremonial site on the other. As with most ancient sites, we aren´t entirely sure what this was all for. All we really know is that there are over 40,000 structures (most still buried) that served as a gathering/living place for more than 90,000 people over 1,800 years. How´s that for a round up of relevant statistics? And it was discovered and rebuilt by numerous people over the last couple hundred years. I find this disappointing – in that you know that you aren´t looking at the real thing but rather a reconstruction – but humidity, moss and climbing vines are hell on limestone. I doubt they would be anything other than moss covered lumps of stone by now without some help.
The one big temple we climbed was Temple 5 – or 4? I think it was five. They have barricaded the steps to protect them and set up a series of ladders up the side of the temple. There were 7 ladders, each about 15-20 feet high, by Nate´s estimation (I´m horrible about gauging distance). All I know is it was HIGH and I had to keep breathing deeply and not looking down or thinking about things like getting foot caught in a rung and plummeting to my steep quick death. However, the view at the temple comb over the tops of the jungle trees was worth it. We stayed up there and watched the sun set over the jungle on the last day of the year, watched the monkeys come out to play and then walked back in the half dark accompanied by close warm wet humidity and the sounds of birds, parrots and cicadas. All we needed was red dirt and I´d be right back in Lomalinda.
And that was the last nice thing to happen to me for some time.
Two words. Food poisoning.
Stupid pollolandia…
I remember very little about the rest of that evening or most of the next day. I dragged myself out to the balcony for the fireworks at midnight on the 31st and went to bed half way through. We ditched our plans for a sunrise at Tikal as I could neither keep water down nor envision myself climbing an 8-10 story temple without something bad happening. It´s a traveler-in-the-third-world rite of passage and I´ve dodged this bullet for a long time, so it was just amusing that it happened to be on new year´s eve. 2006 wasn´t done with me yet, I guess. So instead of Tikal, we drove to Rio Dulce and got on a boat.
More about that in my next post.
Feliz Año Nuevo a todos!
posted by KBARRETT at 3:07 PM
2 Comments:
so, i hate to tell you this, but i think you caught the flu bug from lil p as you like to refer to her. i also puked the new year in and mom just called to say she was feeling fluish. so there...i also thought i was food poisoning, but i had a slight fever and i don't think that goes along with food poisoning. well, happy 2006 to us...maybe 2007 will treat us better! have fun!
well, you seem to have got what i got as well...the flu...from lil p probably. i also puked the new year in and thought it was food poisoning, but after the slight fever, i was pretty sure it was the flu. mom called me today and told me she felt fluish...so there. thank you very much! happy 2006 to us...maybe 2007 will treat us better! have fun!
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