Tikal (oh yes - and Flores), Coban and Semuc Champey

Tikal and Flores

Leaving Livingston, we took a boat back to Rio Dulce then a bus to Flores. Flores is an island in lake Peten Itza, connected to the mainland and its sister city of Santa Elena by a 500m long bridge. The whole island is a 10 minute walk across and it is packed with tourist places and hotels though a few locals do live there.

Flores's main function is to serve as a jumping point to Tikal, the lost city of the Maya (one of many lost cities - they seemed to have been going through cultural amnesia during the first millenium).

We took the 5am bus to get there at opening time. Tikal is huge and takes a long time to see. The first site that greeted us getting off the bus is this:



Note that while this looks very similar to some ancient drawings and carvings of vultures, it is not a statue. It seems that when the sun starts to rise, the local vultures stand on the trees, open their wings wide and welcome the sun. They seem to be drying the night's dew off of them.

We took a guide to show us the site. He walked us through the main attractions, and showed us the local wildlife. At this point I should describe Tikal to you:

Tikal was first inhabited around 300BC. The local Maya people became a bigger civilization sometime in the early centuries AD, forming a large kingdom with ties to the toltec tribes in central Mexico. They created huge 'pyramids', ceremonial centers, that were used in holidays by the king and priests. The place is huge, a full city, though the population lived elsewhere in wooden houses that did not survive to this day.

I will spare you the litany of kings and wars that the guide spewed on us. What is important is what the area looks like now. The whole place is a tropical jungle. Seen from the air, or from the top of Templo IV, you see tropical rain forest with an ancient building poping out in some places:



Walking into the park, you start walking in a narrow trail under the tree canopy. After 15 minutes you come upon a strange hill, covered in moss and grass with a right-angle side. Only after walking around it do you realize this is a temple. The whole place looks like this. Most buildings are still covered, or else only the front has been exposed. You walk through the park and see many such strange hills.

True to its jungly nature, the place is full of wildlife. The list we say includes: toucans, tarantulas, spider monkeys, and exotic peacocks among others. The park has many more, including howler monkeys and jaguars but neither showed itself.

This is a baby tarantula, as t our guide put it:


The place is impressive for both its sheer size and its location. We went out for lunch, then went back in and caught glimpses of it in the rain. Below is a picture of a temple in the most densly built area:



Coban and Semuc Champey

The day after, we took the tourist 'bus' to Coban, a town situated at 1300m above sea level. For reference, Tikal and Flores are at about sea level. The ride was beatiful. Once we left the urban area surrounding Flores, the bus started climbing into the mountains. Everything around was green since there's ample rain in the whole region.

As we drove, the road started climbing up and endless mountains surrounded us. Villages were sprinkled along the road every once in a while. A village is any number of 1-20 "houses" literally built along the road. The villages have many fields of corn (mostly). In the lowlands, these are simply behind or next to the house. In the mountain regions, it's the same except that "behind" or "next to" might be up a steep vertical mountain side. This does not seem to matter much to the Mayans. They simply tend their vertical fields on whatever terrain they happen to fall. It's common to see mountains with one patch covered by forest and the other by a corn field.



It seems terraces were never invented in this region, though given the abundance of rain they might not have been necessary.

Along the way, especially near villages, you can meet any of the following animals playing in the middle of the road: chickens, dogs, cows, children. Our driver was going 100-120km /hr the whole way, so a system of avoiding collision had to be developed. Whenever rounding a curve or nearing a village or just spotting one of the "obstacles" along the road, he'd honk his horn once or twice. It seems everyone here has been conditioned to move off the road when a honk sounds. The only exception was one chicken that was pecking in the middle of the road. When the honk sounded, it moved off then came back to peck one more time. The driver narrowly avoided it, then turned to me and said "la cena" - dinner :)

Coban is a center for coffee and cardamom (hel) growth in the region, though we saw little of both. We took a tour the day after to go to a local beauty spot - Semuc Champey. This is a 2 hour ride through dirt rodes and down 1000m vertical meters to get to the spot.

The place is a gorgeous set of turqoise pools, feeding water to each other in a series of little waterfalls. Or at least, that's the book's description of the place. We came in after the heavy rains that have been falling the past few days. Our description is as follows:

The place is a gorgeous set of MUDDY-WATER pools, feeding MUD to each other in a series of little waterfalls.



The area is famous due to the pools and the reason for their existence. The local river, a strong one, flows into the ground at the spot where the pools start, then comes out 200m later. The pools are fed from a side stream of the main river and are basically situated on top of a stone bridge over the river.

This is where the water flows underground:


Tune in next time for - Antigua (=the ancient), fabled city of many churches.