El Remate and Tikal
Trip Start
May 31, 2007
1
23
25
Trip End
Ongoing
Tikal, Guatemala
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
I meet Jamie, Lacey, Jen and Tom here and we stay one night before going to the pyramids the next day.
Tikal..
Towering above the rainforest, Tikal is possibly the most magnificent of all Maya ruins. The site is dominated by five enormous temples, steep-sided pyramids that rise up to 60m from the forest floor, while around them are literally thousands of other structures, many half-strangled by giant roots and still hidden beneath mounds of earth. The site itself is deep in the jungle of the Parque Nacional Tikal, a protected area of some 370 square kilometres, on the edge of the even larger Maya Biosphere Reserve. The trees around the ruins are home to hundreds of species including howler and spider monkeys, toucans and parakeets. The sheer scale of the place is overwhelming, and its atmosphere spellbinding. Whether you can spare as little as an hour or as long as a week, it's always worth the trip.
We spend the day walking around the ruins and being told of the great civilisation that once lived here.
After Tikal we head to the Caves of Lanquin and the waterfall and pools of Semuc Champey.
