Epi Hi Adventures: Tikal National Park

By far the coolest place in Guatemala...
Tikal is in the north end of the country - in fact it is very close to Belize (in fact many Guatemalan's are quite upset that Belize is no longer part of Guatemala). We took a 50 minute plane ride from Guatemala City to get to Flores - then it's about another two hour drive from the park entrance.

Yep that's us - we had to go for the tourist picture!
This is known as the Twin Pyramid complex - each of the pyramids are oriented to a cardinal point.

As you walk through the park you'll see lots of mounds of dirt just like this one - except they are more ruins that just haven't been uncovered yet. The University of Pennsylvania was in charge of the majority of the restoration from 1956-1969.

It was a bit intimidating going down the stairs. The best part is that Mayan's are short - so these steps were all built for people with short legs. :) The stone alters are where they did their sacrifices. We were told that since this is a small temple there is a good chance only animals were sacrificed here...

Our guide Oliver grew up in this jungle - he told us stories of harvesting chicklet (gum) from the trees. He also showed us many plants that you could survive on including how to get water. The tree that's wrapped around the bigger tree shows direction - certain sections of it will only point south. I think the coolest thing was he showed us all-spice plants and we chewed on the leaves.

We just thought this tree was cool...

The steps on this end were rebuilt in the last 40 years or so - the middle section is what it looked like when it was found and then the other end are the older steps...
This is the base of Temple IV.

The view from Temple IV - which is the highest temple in Tikal at about 215 ft tall. They believe it was built in 745 B.C.

Scott was actually taking a picture of the scaffold - not me...

It was pretty cool sitting there thinking about the history that has taken place here - and how fortunate we are for the time and place we live in...

It looks like not only was it quite the work to build these temples - but also to work on digging them out without destroying them and then just fighting off the jungle from trying to take back over again.

Keep in mind all of these temples were built using slave labor - with no wheel, pulley system - no such thing as a level...

This is on Temple II aka Temple of the Masks or Faces. It was built around 700 A.D. in honor of the wife of Ah-Cacao - our guide called it the Queens Temple.

This is the North Acropolis, a "sacred place considered the cemetery of the rulers of Tikal. It's construction took more than 1000 years."

Temple I aka Great Jaguar Temple (to the left is the North Acropolis). Also built around 700 AD - Ah-Cacao's tomb chamber was found under the temple. The big grassy area is known as the Grand Plaza - and was the core of the city.

A different view of Temple I - from behind Temple II.

Top of Temple II - masks everywhere.

A dig they are finishing up - no activity going on the morning we were there. Our guide said his cousin worked this dig and as he was walking us through showed us a few of the areas he worked on as a kid.

I really wanted to check it out - even though this looks like another hill side it's yet another temple.

This temple was in the Seven Temples Plaza and our guide explained to us that it looked so different at each level because it was built and added onto over many years.

There are three hotels within the park - otherwise it's an hour or more away. They only have power on between 6 - 10 (both am & pm) - it was amazingly dark at night.

So we decided to take the sunrise tour - it ended up raining an foggy... As we were sitting there just trying to enjoy where we were all we could here were people whining - we decided that tourists are the same no matter what country your in...

A piece of artwork dedicated to Ah-Cacao - I guess a temple dedicated to him wasn't enough. The detail was impossible to get but our guide showed us all of the symbols - the Mayan culture was/is pretty amazing.

Went on a zip-line tour just outside the park.

The young man on the left is Albert - he spoke really good English but hadn't been to school for it - he'd taught himself by listening to tourists.

This is a cotuza (or paca in English)
- it reminded me of a R.O.U.S.
It was probably twice the size of a standard squirrel.

Spider monkey!
All of the guides told us to be careful when they are above us because they poop whenever they feel like it...
This one was in a group of about 10 monkeys and they had several babies with them.