Its Thurdsay here now and I have no idea what # day it is since I have been here. Merry Christmas to all ... Its been a hectic , chaotic, and absolutely amazing past few days starting with a Sunday overnight 10 hour bus ride to reach Tikal ( one of the mayan ruins in Guatemala). Lucky me I got the seat right at the front of this doule decker bus ... meaning i was right up against a huge window that allowed me to see clearly the flashing lights of cars coming right at us as we wound through the highways, needless to say I was panicked. I resorted to my eye cover and ipod to calm my nerves and help me get some shut eye. The next time woke was when a guy came right next to me looking at my bags screaming ¨frutas , frutas ! ¨ at first i thought he was selling fruits but it turns out he was asking me if i was smuggling fruits ! I said no to both .
5:30 am we arrive at our destination ( an hour earlier than planned ) and in complete darkness. The bus pulls over and tells us this is our destination , Flores. I look around and see NOTHING , nothing but a lake and some small lit up hotel. I wanted to tell the guy there is a mistake , there is nothing here, but i was too consumed with getting shoved off of the bus and grabbing my bag before the bus took off. So here I am swarmed by men taxi drivers asking me where i want to go and i had no idea. We finally jumped in a shuttle with two other americans (who had been there since 4:30) and patiently waited another hour before we began moving. An hour later the sun had come up and we were in El Remante, a small town in between Flores and Tikal. We checked into the first hotel we saw which was decent except no hot water, then grabbed some breakfast and tried to catch up on a few hours of much needed rest . Now let me just say this place is VERY different from Antigua, it is extremely HOT, lots of mosquitoes, and its a jungle town ! At about 2pm we got ready and headed out on the calle to locate a shuttle that would take us to Tikal on Christmas eve, finally found one and were on our way.
Tikal is one of the oldest mayan cities hidden deep in a jungle where animals and animal sounds are quite abundant. we walked through the jungle and i prayed we didnt get lost, i got eaten alive, and then we came upon our first temple , temple 3, and WOW ! WOW, WOW ! It was amazing and it was supposed to be the smaller one of the group. These temples towered about 40 - 60 meters and looked majestic in a not so fancy way. There was a ghostly energy that surrounded the park that these mayans ( 2.1 meters in size with intentional cone heads ) wandered. We continued our walk around the park and came upon the other temples and actually climbed up temple 4 ( 70 meters up high ! ) the view at the top, absolutely breathtaking, its no wonder these mayans had such power , they built these towering temples and sat up at the top to achieve a higher conciousness as well as look over their city.
Christmas morning started at 3 am , at this point we had about 6 hours of sleep over the past 48 hours, but the sunrise tour is too amazing to miss. We get up early pack our stuff, and wait for our shuttle to pick us up at 4am. We reach the park in complete darkness and thank god for our flashlights, we make our way once again to temple four this time with about 75 other people. We ALL climb up the 70 meters and sit upon the steps of the temple and wait. The view was the grand temple ( jaguar temple) as well a couple of other temples in the center of the park. Patiently waiting we began to see the light slowly emerge , and with it the jungle began to awaken, howler monkeys howled like a pack of lions, birds made calls I had never heard before. Slowly the sky began to turn colors and the black clouds became white. Finally we see the tip of the sun and it slowly rises right behind the grand temple... and that was Christmas , like I had never seen it before, a gift of nature.
adios
ritu
5:30 am we arrive at our destination ( an hour earlier than planned ) and in complete darkness. The bus pulls over and tells us this is our destination , Flores. I look around and see NOTHING , nothing but a lake and some small lit up hotel. I wanted to tell the guy there is a mistake , there is nothing here, but i was too consumed with getting shoved off of the bus and grabbing my bag before the bus took off. So here I am swarmed by men taxi drivers asking me where i want to go and i had no idea. We finally jumped in a shuttle with two other americans (who had been there since 4:30) and patiently waited another hour before we began moving. An hour later the sun had come up and we were in El Remante, a small town in between Flores and Tikal. We checked into the first hotel we saw which was decent except no hot water, then grabbed some breakfast and tried to catch up on a few hours of much needed rest . Now let me just say this place is VERY different from Antigua, it is extremely HOT, lots of mosquitoes, and its a jungle town ! At about 2pm we got ready and headed out on the calle to locate a shuttle that would take us to Tikal on Christmas eve, finally found one and were on our way.
Tikal is one of the oldest mayan cities hidden deep in a jungle where animals and animal sounds are quite abundant. we walked through the jungle and i prayed we didnt get lost, i got eaten alive, and then we came upon our first temple , temple 3, and WOW ! WOW, WOW ! It was amazing and it was supposed to be the smaller one of the group. These temples towered about 40 - 60 meters and looked majestic in a not so fancy way. There was a ghostly energy that surrounded the park that these mayans ( 2.1 meters in size with intentional cone heads ) wandered. We continued our walk around the park and came upon the other temples and actually climbed up temple 4 ( 70 meters up high ! ) the view at the top, absolutely breathtaking, its no wonder these mayans had such power , they built these towering temples and sat up at the top to achieve a higher conciousness as well as look over their city.
Christmas morning started at 3 am , at this point we had about 6 hours of sleep over the past 48 hours, but the sunrise tour is too amazing to miss. We get up early pack our stuff, and wait for our shuttle to pick us up at 4am. We reach the park in complete darkness and thank god for our flashlights, we make our way once again to temple four this time with about 75 other people. We ALL climb up the 70 meters and sit upon the steps of the temple and wait. The view was the grand temple ( jaguar temple) as well a couple of other temples in the center of the park. Patiently waiting we began to see the light slowly emerge , and with it the jungle began to awaken, howler monkeys howled like a pack of lions, birds made calls I had never heard before. Slowly the sky began to turn colors and the black clouds became white. Finally we see the tip of the sun and it slowly rises right behind the grand temple... and that was Christmas , like I had never seen it before, a gift of nature.
adios
ritu
