Tikal National park is one of the main reasons why Flores is a destination on the backpacker’s trail. This UNESCO World Heritage Site was once one the greatest and most important cities of the Mayan empire. The structures date back from 4th century BC until 4th century when the Teotihuacan came and kicked the Mayan’s arses. The site eventually became completely abandoned by the 10th century.
Source: my interpretation of Wikipedia
There were a selection of tours run by the hostel going to
Tikal at various times of the day; sunrise, midday and sunset. Since the Mayan culture was heavily
influenced by the rise and fall of the sun it only made since to go for the
sunrise or sunset tour and we chose the sunrise tour following recommendations. It sounded good, seeing the sun rise over the
ancients temples and all that but this did mean we would have to get up at 2:00
in the morning.
2:00... an unearthly time that nobody should have to
endure. I hadn’t managed to get much
sleep that night. The fact that I didn’t
leave the hostel bar until 1:00 might have been a factor. There is always something going on in the bar
every night and you feel like you are missing out if you have an early
night. Myles didn’t go to bed at all;
his logic was since it was such an early start he might as well make a night of
it. I can’t operate like that; I need at
least some sleep otherwise I become emotionally unstable.
The 2 and a half hour bus journey to Tikal was like any
other bus journey; fairly comfortable but not quite comfortable enough to fall
sleep. As soon as I began to nod off the
bus would go over a pothole and my head would collide with the bus window. The tiredness soon wore off when we arrived
at the national park. Getting off the
bus, looking up at the starry night sky and breathing in the late night air
just filled me with energy. There was a
certain buzz about this place.
The tour guide led us through the entrance to the park, past
a few security guards who were sat around a candle lit table playing cards and
into the jungle. The only light to
illuminate the path in front of us was from people’s phones and the lamp off my
camera.
Noises in the night
The jungle was very still and quiet though the quietness
didn’t last long. An eerily roar broke
the silence, it was coming from somewhere behind us.
It didn’t sound like any animal I have ever heard
before. The only way I could describe
the sound was it was like some kind of dinosaur. Another roar broke the silence; this one was
much closer and came from just above us to the left. What the hell was making this noise? Another roar came directly behind us followed
by another just to our left. We were
walking through the jungle in the pitch black with strange roars coming from all
around us and no idea what was out there.
It was a very surreal moment. I
felt like I was in some kind of horror film and that our tour group was going
to be picked off one by one by some pack of strange monsters and dragged into
the darkness. Naturally Myles was going
to be the first one to be picked off.
The guide explained that the sounds were coming from howler
monkeys in the trees who make this sound in the morning when they first wake
up. The reason why this sound reminded
me of dinosaurs was because it was used heavily in Jurassic Park. I think the guide deliberately didn’t tell us
they were just howler monkeys at the start because he enjoyed watching us being
confused and slightly freaked out for a few minutes.
After a short walk we arrived at some wooden steps, these steps
would lead us to the top of one of the temples where we would sit and watch the
sunrise. As we ascended up into the
darkness and into the tree canopy the howler monkey calls got louder.
We sat down on the worn stone steps; in front of us was a
black abyss. Gradually the black began
to change to deep blue. Large shadowy
silhouettes began to emerge from the darkness; these must have been the other
temples. Soon the sky was a deep orange
colour and a brilliant red sun surfaced next to one of the temples in the
foreground. It was a spectacular sight.
Perished
A tour guide appeared from behind us and started explaining
the history of Tikal. The rest of the
morning was made up of wandering around the ruins whilst the tour guide went
into detail about the temples and the Mayan civilization. Unfortunately by this point sleep deprivation
had very much caught up with me. I was
so tired that even standing up straight was becoming a struggle, let alone
listening to the tour guide.
Some of the interesting facts the guide told us that I do
remember were that Tikal used to be a large and very busy city made up of
hundreds of buildings. This came as a
bit of a surprise to me looking over what was left of this city, it was just a
few temples in the jungle... It was hard
to imagine that these temples were just the taller buildings and that in its
prime hundreds of smaller buildings would have surrounded the temples. The temples were all that was left, the
remnants of a great civilization that disappeared many sunrises ago.
It made me wonder, we as a modern and developed civilization
haven’t been around very long, not compared to other civilizations of the
past. And like all civilizations of the
past will ours one day collapse and perish?
Maybe one day in the future tourists will walk the ruins of our cities
and talk about the people who once lived many sunrises ago...
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| The view from the temple just before sunrise, it was something special. |
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