Well I´ll be a monkeys Uncle...

The day we arrived here in Flores we were told that the President was going to be at Tikal the following day, so therefore, it was closed. Well this was fine with us as after so much hectic travelling, a day of chilling out, laundry and casually meandering around this little island would be perfect. So thats just what we did, with nothing too unusual happening, just us enjoying our vacation! That was until we got our laundry back..... less a pair of my pants! This lead to a very interesting conversation in Spanish (I don´t speak Spanish!), trying to see if they had cropped up at the Laundrette since we had left. Well the lady there, despite the language barrier, clearly did not like the suggestion that she had misplaced my undies, so Jen and I were sent back with our tails between our legs, me down to only 3 pairs of ¨calsones¨! To top off the evening, we also found out that the President was not at Tikal that day but was going to be there the following day, yesterday, when we were planning to go.... another day in Flores it was, it could be worse!

We decided that we should do something with this extra day here, so after breakfast we headed towards the natural caves, Actun Kan, just a couple of kilometers away. The caves themselves were cool, but nothing compared to the Carlsbad Caverns in AZ that we had seen on our cross-country adventure just a month prior. We did get to see a bat though! In fact, it was the walk to the caves that was rather eye-opening.

As we left the main roads of Santa Elana, 2Km from the hostel, on the way to the caves, we found ourselves in what wcan be described as a village settlement in the Jungle. There were horses, pigs, chickens and dogs roaming the muddy road that was lined with timber and tin shacks that stretched into the jungle foliage of the small valley that we were walking through. It really was quite the experience and the inhabitants were certainly interested in the 2 white folks walking through. As odd as it sounds, the main form of transport here is the tuk-tuk, and we were definately in the minority of foreign travellers walking anywhere.

That evening, we did establish that Tikal was infact open today, but the sunrise tour stopped the day we got here - a combination of newly discovered laws (possibly a lack of bribes!) and bad weather, so we booked ourselves in for the 5am departure and settled in for an early night. Come 5:30 this morning we were on our way to the ruins, tired but excited.

It became apparant on this hour long trip that the Guatemalans are very happy to let their livestock run free everywhere. The bus was constantly having to weave past horses, turkeys, pigs, dogs, goats and children to make its way along the winding roads! In fact, on the return journey, we saw a dog just lying on the floor in the middle of the road, traffic whizzing past in both directions! But we did arrive safely to Tikal, ready for our tour. Cesar, our guide, was great, and within minutes we were gazing at turkey like animals belonging to the peacock family, toucans and hearing all the sounds of the jungle. Cesar was fascinating to listen to as he clearly had a love for the area and also spoke great English! The first ruins we came across were in the main plaza, including some great masks and carvings, but it was not until we reached Temple V that we were really blown away.

Temple V is the 2nd biggest pyramid at Tikal and it is beautiful. And it is also very steep! But even steeper are the stairs you have to take to get up to the top. To prevent damage to the stones, a wooden staircase hyas been erected next to the actual steps. I use the word ¨staircase¨ very loosely, as really it is a series of ladders! Jen and I were first to ascend and when we finally got to the top, out of breath already, we became even more breathless. The view was amazing, the temples sticking out of the miles and miles of jungle in every direction. But the strongest sensation of all was the one to stick as close to the wall as possible, not look down and hold on to anything we could! It was even worse when it came to getting down.... again Jen and I were first to attempt the descent, without looking down, we had to do so in the same way we came up, just like a ladder, as the steps were so damn steep. We practically kissed the ground as we returned to earth!

The rest of the tour was wonderful, we saw spider monkeys several times and were able to clinb temple IV, the tallest on the site, except this time up much more managable flights of steps - the view, however, was even better! This was at the end of our tour and Jen and I decided to explore a little futher on our own and headed down a road our map indicated lead to some more temples. We had gone quite far but still no ruins, or signposts, and out of nowhere there was a VERY large rustle in the jungle next to us. Our pace quickened as we had visions of a jaguar tracking us! Within no time we stumbled across the next set, and thankfully, more people and this lead us back to the entrance!! As we returned for the shuttle back we also came across an entire pack of racoons crossing the path... of course by the time I got the camera out there where only a few stragglers left!

On the return journey an observation about the Guatemalan people became very clear to me. They love their weapons! The guys clearing the sides of the road don´t have strimmers or weed-whackers, let alone a lawn mower, but just go at it with machetes.... very efficiently I might add too! Anybody in the security business here, whether for a bank or a parking lot, has a stockless shotgun and the Police are something else! Giant automatic rifles, no matter if they are in a small town, a city, or just kicking it in the back of a pick up! But what made all this clear to me was what we saw today..... in a small village at the side of the road, there was a cop standing next to a shanty hut, in his hand was one of the scariest pieces of artillery I have laid my eyes on! (Chris, you´ll appreciate this!) He had a stockless shotgun, with a collapsable stock attached, a magazine so big that one would only expect to see it on a cartoon AK-47, and to top it all off a silencer the size of my forearm attached to it!!! What was this guy expecting to encounter in the tiny Guatemalan village!!

Anyway... we did make it back with no firearm contact and were greeted back at Los Amigos by the resident parrots accompanying us for lunch, and a new addition to the family.... a turkey, that has spent most of this afternoon staring at the mirror, clucking and pecking at itself!

We leave here tomorrow, back on the road, to Semuc Champey to experience the natural beauty of a limestone bridge and swimming holes! From there we shall go on to Antigua and Lake Atitilan, after which we shall head back to the East to Rio Dulce and take a river tour to Livingston. From there into Honduras.

At least thats the plan, we will see!!

Till next time... Adios.