Tikal ruins

Today we took the 4:30am bus to the Tikal ruins which are about 45mins outside of Flores, Guatemala (and of course by 4:30 I mean that it left at 5:30 Guatemala time and we circled around the city for and hour stuffing our small bus with more and more people). Once we got there, the bus made a quick stop at the tourism office which doubled as a restaurant. Once again, I was baffled by the lack of organization, business acumen or really any sort of plan that the Guatemalan people have. They clearly knew that the tour buses stop there every morning on their way to the ruins and yet they only had two people working. The guy taking the orders would send the order back to the other guy and then you would proceed to wait 40 minutes to get the wrong order and for them to forget that you had ordered coffee. The way they run things is a disaster; they could make much more money from tourists if they could get it together, but it doesn't seem to bother them in the least.

Once we made it into the ruins, we went on a guided four hour tour. Our guide was very knowledgeable and we saw the first 4 ruins with him (about a four mile walk to the fourth ruin). Bear in mind, that it is still hot as hell and so humid that you are constantly wet and you'll get a good picture of how it is to climb 22 flights of stairs with sweat pouring down your face (we looked so sexy). The ruins were amazing to see. They are Mayan ruins (800BC-900AD). We learned a lot about how the Mayans constructed the temples with the idea that the sun would hit them at different points every 90 days (to keep consistent with the 4 seasons in their calendar) and that every part of their construction was done with some numerical equation in mind to represent the days or months of their calendar year.

The area that the Mayans built their temple was in the middle of the jungle but in order to create the limestone they used to build the temples, they needed to burn a lot of wood which led to dense deforestation. Without the trees, there was less rain and they ended up with drought. Once the droughts set in, they decided they needed to step up their sacrifices to the gods and that's when they began human sacrifice. Contrary to what is often portrayed in the movies, these sacrifices were people who were willing to die in service to the gods, not slaves or people that were killed against their will. The circular stones with the grave stone looking rock behind them were used for the sacrifices.

Only 20% of the ruins have been uncovered; the other 80% are still covered by plant over growth. The Guatemalans are trying to restore the temples since some of the limestone has been eroded by rain using limestone from the same quarries the Mayans used.

We continued to explore the ruins even after our tour had ended, which led us on a bit of a trek through the jungle. Since we were no longer in a large group, we encountered a lot more animals including a whole pack of coatimundi!

After we returned to Flores, we sorted out our travel plans to semuc champey using the Los Amigos hostel travel guides. They are actually extremely helpful and we were able to book our bus trip and hostel stay in a matter of minutes. For the rest of the day we walked around Flores and grabbed dinner at La Luna. We ordered chorizo and cheese expecting tortillas and cheesy chorizo to put in them, but as usual, we got something completely different. We have to stop believing that food will be like it is in America!

Traveling so far has been about what I expected. The bus rides have actually been fairly easy to coordinate which was really the only thing I was worried about with our travel. I will say that it is a much different back packing experience being in our late 20's than it is for the backpackers we run into who are 18-23. We no longer have the desire to get shitfaced every night- I can't even imagine a hangover in this heat and humidity...I'd literally kill myself. There was a girl on our Tikal tour who had to lie down every time we stopped walking to check out a ruin because she was so hungover- not my idea of a good time. In addition to that, Alyssa and I had saved up some money for this trip so although we are being thrifty, we certainly don't balk at a hostel stay of $15 USD per night. We have run into many younger travelers who were very upset about those prices and were looking for cheaper rates. But if we were 19 we'd probably be fine with sleeping in a hammock for $5USD (ok, maybe not Alyssa, lol). I'm glad to be doing this at my age though, I think I will have a greater appreciation for things through more sober glasses (don't get me wrong, I haven't become a nun, we drink every day but just not to the point where I'm blacked out in some club dancing to 50 cent, although I'm sure that will happen T some point ;)).

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