Tikal at Dawn

The birds were coming alive as dawn broke over the jungle. Mist hung low around the pyramids. The howler monkeys were awake, bright eyed, etc – at least I assumed so because I could hear them roaring through the jungle. Felt like we were lost on the set for Jurassic Park. Even though we didn´t expect to see much until the mist cleared, we headed for Temple IV to watch the sun finish rising. The mist was still heavy when we reached the top, where we had our breakfast of protein bars, which are not as romantic as stale pastries like we had in Teotihuacan. We waited for some time for the mist to clear. After 45 min we gave up. Couldn´t see anything, so we moved on to other sections of the huge spread out Mayan city.

Darren kept trying to get shots of the birds, but they were too high in the canopy. We walked up and down pyramids until my knees started to creak. I Finally left the climbing to Darren. The ruins were awesome. Tikal blew Chichen Iza and Teotihuacan out of the water. It was so worth two nights on a bus, a night in a hammock, and evil birds from hell.

 

The first of the day trippers (30 people) were coming in as we left. Up until that point there were only a handful of visitors spread across the enormous site. Our heels were dragging as we came out of the park four hrs later. We grabbed lunch at a comidor and got our bags. We caught the shuttle to El Ramate, which is a little town half way back to Flores. I love riding on the local mini buses (colectivos). Most people don’t talk a lot, but loads of interesting, friendly faces and usually some peppy music to go with the ride.