Tika Tika Tikal

The drive to the Mayan Ruins of Tikal takes 2 days from Antigua – going across hills, jungle, some plains and rivers to the other side of the country. Rather than being a waste, our overnight stop was a highlight.
A hot waterfall.
A hotwaterfall you ask? Indeed. As if by magic, there is a spot where two rivers converge – the one plunging into the other at a waterfall. The plunging one, happens to have some volcanic activity above it, so it heats up before it plunges creating a magical combination of a hot waterfall above a cool river. We got there on a busy-ish Sunday afternoon for a swim but the next morning, before we left, we had it all to ourselves. We couldn’t quite think of a word to describe it but Mike’s exclamation of ‘yoooeeeeeee’ pretty much sums it up.

A steaming hot waterfall
Onwards and northwards…
Cath (after visiting Tikal): ‘When you said we were going to see ruins at Tikal, I just thought there was maybe one building that we’d drive up to and take some photos of. It was nothing like that.’

Temple 2 or 3
Indeed, it was not. Tikal is huge. If you walk the outer loop of the ruins, you will cover about 16km. There are over 150 uncovered buildings, some of them reaching over 70m in height as well many mounds still covered and acres of jungle in between. A special thing about having your house on your back is that you get to camp in the park- while most people have to stay in the nearest town an hour away or pay pricey hotel rates for the one hotel in the park, we could camp literally right in the thick of the jungle – bugs, wild turkeys, monkeys and all. As big as the ruins are, they are totally dwarfed by the jungle surrounding it spanning 576km² and the best place to take all this in, is from the top of Temple 4 (they have this really creative temple-naming system there).
So that’s where we started, with a sunrise tour, starting at 4am by torchlight. We walked through the jungle and ruins and stopped at the central plaza where our guide demonstrated how the echoes of his claps sound like the call of a queztal (Guatemala’s colourful & endangered national bird) if you stand in certain spots (sounds weird but it really was incredible) and we looked up at the enormous buildings surrounded by the light of a million stars in complete awe. We don’t have a photo of this but it will be imprinted on our memories forever – standing in the dark surrounded by stars and 1000 year old buildings looming over us.

The Central Plaza

Slightly disappointing sunrise
The sunrise was a bit of a downer as it the clouds converged just before the sun rose and we weren’t able to see anything. Slightly disappointed, we returned back to our camp for breakfast and a snooze before heading back to the park for the afternoon session (we’d barely seen any of the park in the morning). We wouldn’t remain disappointed for long.

In the afternoon, we walked all around the outer bits of the park barely encountering another soul – it’s one of the incredibly special things about Tikal – there must be 1000s of visitors to the park every day and yet, it is easy to lose them all and be completely alone while strolling through the jungle, gazing at enormous trees, monkeys, parrots, insects and, of course, 1500 year old feats of Mayan imagination & ingenuity. It must be one of the few tourist spots in the world where this is possible. But the highlight came at the end of our stroll, we decided to walk up to Temple 4 again, this time for sunset. The clouds had lifted completely and we could see right across the ruins, way off into the jungley distance. The jungle glowed bright green in the late afternoon sun, a toucan flew across and perched on a tree in the distance and, if that wasn’t enough, a rainbow appeared with the mythical pot of gold at the Central Plaza. There was no one else there, just a peaceful jungle and us marvelling for at least an hour at what lay beneath. So, while gazing at this little piece of heaven, we took out our flask and had a cup of tea in memory of a good friend who loved exploring and tea and always wanted to visit Tikal but was never able to.


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