A New Year in The Lost World
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2011
1
29
57
Trip End
Ongoing
Tikal, Petén, Guatemala
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Tikal is one of the largest archaeological sites of the Mayan civilisation and dates back as far as the 4th century BC. The city covers an area greater than 16 square kilometres that includes about 3000 structures, which are now mostly hidden in Guatemala’s lowland Peten jungle. It was rediscovered by archaeologists in the 19th century.
When we arrived at our bungalow at 10.30am, the other guys on the tour, two grey-haired 50-something hippies, one from Sydney, one from Switzerland, started smoking a joint, talking about phsycadelic cacti, the benefits of Peruvian herbal purges for self-discovery and the activity of a tiny ant carrying a leaf across the patio
Instead of charging for one ticket for one day’s entry into the park, the government has cleverly broken down the entrance fees into three categories: 6am-8am is Q100, 8am-6pm is Q150, 6pm – 8pm is Q100. It’s a complete wrought. To avoid paying 3 times we spent our first afternoon by the pool. The benefit of doing it our way though is that only a handful of people enter the park for sunrise and sunset as it requires staying on site and there are a limited number of rooms available.
Walking into the park late in the afternoon was a very ‘other worldly’ experience. It seems to be uninterrupted jungle, then you turn a bend and there is a huge stone structure right in front of you. The 'stumbled into a mysterious lost world' vibe was slightly damaged when we came across a film crew making a video clip for a famous Guatemalan singer called Ricardo Aljona, who had taken over one of the temples for a sunset helicopter fly by shot.
As we were perched on top of 70m high temple VI to watch the sun drop below the jungle canopy and temples that tower above it, the helicopter circled in the sky. It was half breathtaking, half ‘Apocalypse Now’. In the main plaza a group of Mayans had begun a solstice ceremony with a huge bonfire at the base of the Jaguar Temple. We were lucky to see this, and with the ruins in the background, it was spectacular. We left our own offerings of money, leaves and cigarettes and left the park under cover of darkness and the bright starry sky.
Daniel, an American brain surgeon of Hawaiian-Japanese decent was also part of our tour. He was offered a torch for the night walk, but because it was a ‘lamp’ rather than a ‘flash light’ and rather bulky, he refused because he didn’t want to carry it around. Then he spent most of the time trying not to trip over the path and his own feet...with limited success. I hope he is better with his hands, and his judgement, in the operating room.
The next morning we had a 4am start. Emma and I had to walk in the dark to the hotel foyer through the jungle, with a canopy full of howler monkeys screeching right above our heads. The sound of the howler monkey was used as the sound effect for the T-rex in Jaurassic Park. I think that gives some indication of how scary it was – eeek!
When we entered the park in the morning a group of Mayans from the previous night were also making their way to temple VI for sunrise, the dawn of their new year, the last year of the current cycle. Our resident hippie Peter distributed incense and set up a little altar of crystals at the top. Then he started playing tunes on his ‘bush saxaphone’. Everyone thought this was hilarious.
A little Mayan family started talking to Emma on the top of the temple too. She wanted a photo of them, they wanted photo of her. It was lovely. Later in the morning when we were back down in the plaza there was another photo shoot with both of us. The mother had a shot with us, then there were family photos, then all the boys had individual portraits with us. When they left the mother kissed us both goodbye and gave us a Mayan blessing. It was really special.
(We couldn’t help thinking, though, that all those boys would go home to their mates and say: ‘You’ll never guess what happen to me on New Years - I met these two blonde Australain girls and…What? You don’t believe me? ...here look at these photos!!" Hahaha.)
