9-10-08 (Written from memory on 9-20-08)

9-10-08
(Written from memory on 9-20-08)
Originally, we had asked the manager of the Trek Stop, Tino, about putting together a trip to Tikal. The package he put together with us was pretty expensive, and didn't seem to offer much either. From what he described, he would pretty much be dropping us off at the border, and once we got across, we'd be hooking up with a Guatemalan guide that he trusted to take us the rest of the way on show us Tikal. The prospect of being abandoned at the border to just figure things out for ourselves didn't really sit well with us. When we were doing the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave tour on 9-09, we talked to the Hun Chi’ik guys about if they offered Tikal tours, which they said they did. Since we had been happy with the two tours we had already done through Hun Chi’ik, it was an easy decision to go with them for Tikal also.

We left Trek Stop at about 7am the morning of 9-10, and were happy to find that Rudy was our Hun Chi’ik guide for the day again. He had been an awesome guide for cave tubing, so we knew a fun day was in store. I hadn't realized before that we were only 3 miles away from the border of Guatemala at the Trek Stop. So, after a 5 minute drive to the border, we experienced how different it is to cross a border other than in the United States. It was kind of scary how easy it was to do this. The worst part about the experience was that the country of Belize charges you $37.50 (American) to leave the country (we would have to pay this again at the airport when heading back to the US on 9-14). To actually get across the border, Rudy asked Adam and I for our passports, and took them to the counter necessary to get them stamped at. The security there didn't even need to see us, but just wanted to make sure our passports were stamped. It's crazy how different this is handled than in the US.

After getting across the border, we exchanged about $10 each into Guatemalan currency ($7 Guatemalan for every $1 US), and I stopped at a tiny convenience store to get a bottle of water. The girl working the cash register couldn't have been more than 10 years old, which was a bit of a shock.

At this point we get on the road and drive for about an hour or so to a gas station/gift shop that has the cleanest bathrooms I've ever seen at a gas station.

Rudy once again teaching us about nature while driving through Guatemala:


This gas station/gift shop appears to be the place where you find a guide that actually works at Tikal to take us on a tour. We let Rudy handle this and look at the local crafts the store has to offer. A few minutes later, we meet Pinky, who is our guide for our tour through Tikal. After talking with Pinky for a few minutes, I discover something a bit disturbing. Though he has been a guide at Tikal for over 2 years, this is only the second time he's ever given the tour in English.

As the day progresses, it becomes clearer and clearer that Pinky is a horrible guide. I know that language was definitely a factor in the difficulty of giving us a tour, but I think he was pretty lazy as well. The temples of Tikal are spread over a very large area, so there was a lot of hiking done throughout the day. We would constantly pass other groups with other guides who seemed to have interesting stories about things we were passing, yet Pinky had almost no stories, and we would just walk from place to place. There were a couple temples we saw people climbing up that Pinky was attempting to just walk by. Fortunately Adam asked if we could go up these temples, which Pinky said if we wanted to we could, but he wasn't joining us.

A rare instance of Pinky pointing something out to Adam:



The one temple he actually did join us as we scaled it was the biggest one at Tikal.


For these large temples, you don't actually climb up the stone stairs that make up the building. In the past they allowed people to, but there were too many instances of people tripping, falling, and unfortunately dying, that they no longer allow it. To still allow people to go up these massive structures, they have built wooden stair cases to take you from the bottom to the top. At the foot of this staircase, we saw one of the coolest things we did all day, which were two small tribes of howler monkeys in different trees screaming at each other. I snapped a number of pictures, and even got some video of this.





View from the highest ruin in Tikal:





Though Pinky was a terrible guide, we were lucky to have Rudy with us. Even though he did not work at Tikal, he seemed very knowledgeable about the place, and Mayan culture in general (possibly because there is another set of Mayan ruins, Xunantunich, very close to St. Ignasio that Hun Chi’ik also does tours of). He told us interesting facts about how Mayans constructed their villages of temples in a circle formation for acoustical reasons. In this formation, a member of royalty at the top of a 200 foot tall temple could address the village on the ground, as well as the village folks talk back to the royalty at the top of the temple, and both parties could hear each other perfectly. He also told us about a sporting event that sounded like an early version of soccer (or football, if you will) where you could only use your knees and elbows to hit the ball, and the goal was more like a goal you would find in a whirleyball court, almost like a basketball backboard with a hole cut into the center that you had to get the ball through to score. What was interesting about the game is that originally, it was a religious thing, and the winning team would get sacrificed (they believe in reincarnation, so being sacrificed was actually an honor for them). As time passed, the game became more for entertainment value, and eventually it switched so that the losing team were the ones sacrificed for entertainment value. Yet another fascinating thing Rudy shared with us was that a number of the paths we were walking on to get from temple to temple, though now covered in plant growth, used to be made out of a specific type of rock (the type, I cannot recall) that was capable of reflecting light. This was done so that even when the sun went down, the light from the moon reflected off the path, lighting it up and helping visibility. I couldn't believe that for such an early civilization, the Mayans were very clever in how they lived and constructed their society.

Rudy telling us a story while sitting on a ruin Pinky didn't feel like climbing with us:


More Tikal photos and video I like:

You can actually walk in and out of the structures in this picture below:


And we did!!!


Resting on a Mayan bed in a temple we could go in:




Near a concession stand, someone who I'm not sure actually worked at Tikal was passing around a tarantula for people to hold. Adam jumped at this opportunity:


The picture I took:



After the tour, we went to the restaurant they had on site, and enjoyed an authentic Guatemalan meal (which was pretty similar to the style of food in Belize honestly). After that, we headed back to Belize, getting back to the Trek Stop at about 2:30 in the afternoon I think (or maybe it was 3:30). Since we had spare time on our hands, we walked down the road to Succotz, and planned on checking out Xunantunich. Unfortunately, the little crank-boat ferry that gets you across the river to get to the ruins had closed early for the day due to a holiday (which I can't remember what it was). So we head back to Trek Stop, and check out the butterfly garden they have on site there, which ended up being very cool. I took a number of pictures in the enclosure, as well as a little video tour of the place.











Eventually we got hungry, and walked into Succotz for dinner, only to find that they were only serving Nachos, and rice and beans. I'm not sure if this was because they were out of everything else, or if this was possibly for the holiday that was going on. We ordered one of each, and it ended up being a pretty decent meal. Rice and beans apparently includes chicken, which definitely helped. After the meal, we were told there was live music going on in town, so we followed the noise until we found where things were setup in a cool little open-aired shelter/gazebo type place. Unfortunately, in Belize the definition of live music is having a DJ spin music, which neither of us were particularly interested in. So, at this point, we went back to Trek Stop, and packed our stuff up for the move to San Pedro the next morning before calling it a night.