Rest Day - Tikal

Tikal is the largest and oldest Mayan city which was inhabited between 600BC and 900AD - at its peak there were over 100,000 citizens. The temples - which resemble pyramids - were built to calculate the equinox and solstice, and they used the 360 plus 5 day calendar as well as a 260 day ceremonial calendar. Archaeologists have uncovered over 3,000 structure but have identified a further 6,000 uncovered.

Catharine opts for the sunrise tour of the Tikal ruins. The porter comes and checks I am awake at 3.30am. We trek off into the jungle with our guide. It is pitch black and quite slippy underfoot but the heavy rain per the forecast doesn’t arrive. The sky is a bit cloudy but the moon is clear and there are loads of visible stars in the sky.
We climb to the top of the largest of the temples about 45 minutes before sunrise and sit in silence waiting for the sun to rise. Once everyone has stopped fidgeting it is amazing listening to the jungle slowly come alive as the sun rises. The Howler monkeys make a tremendous racket which echoes round the jungle canopy below and sounds like the roar of a dinosaur. Slowly the peaks of other temples take shape as the sky turns orange and the moon disappears. Weird to think that people would have sat in the same place more than 1,300 years ago…..
We then toured round the plaza before it got busy - we are staying in the national park hotel so there are very few people in the park for the sunrise tour. 3 of us girls did handstands in front of another of the temples !
We saw some spider monkeys and a skunk like animal (see picture).
Was starving by the time we got to have breakfast about 9am and had a late morning nap after doing the laundry (make shift laundry line hung in room!).
Relaxing lunch and sitting by the pool - fully covered (and in the shade) to prevent any mosquito bitesRead more