East to Easter

I'll keep the Belize part of the story short - it was in the East, it was hot, it was very expensive, some guy started talking to us about bomb making on the bus. But it did give my butt some time to recuperate (and that's the last time you'll hear about my butt unless I hurt it again or I get specific requests from the audience).


From Belize we made our way back to Guatemala where the people are nice and the prices are nicer. We crossed the border and went to Tikal - a major Mayan site. We hiked around the park, surrounded by dozens of spider monkeys, some of which gave us the evil eye.


The huge Mayan temples poke through the jungle and provide great views. The sight of these pyramids basking in the sea of green was truly impressive. And if it looks somewhat familiar it's surely because:

1. You've already been there and have seen it yourself, or
2. You have some other friends who have been there and have already bothered you with their photos, or
3. You've watched the Star Wars movies which used Tikal as the site of the hidden rebel base.


In addition to visiting the site on our own we decided to join a "morning" tour of the park. A more appropriate name would be the "sh'at efes" tour (we had to wake up at 4:15). The idea behind the tour is to walk into the park while it's still dark, climb up one of the temples, and watch the sun rise. We did our part. The sun didn't. There was a nice, big, fluffy cloud which covered the sky and the sun so basically what we saw was a bunch of tourists sitting in silence waiting for the sun to rise.


After Tikal we stopped shortly in Flores and from there crossed the border into Mexico and our second major Mayan site - Palenque. The excavated part of Palenque is smaller than that of Tikal but it was still nice. And we did get to see the elusive Homo Americanus Borealis roaming around freely in big groups. In Tikal they were hidden by the jungle and their presence was not felt.


While in the area we also went to see a nice waterfall at Misol Ha (nothing to write home about so I won't write about it) and a nice nature reserve with lots of small falls and crystal blue pools bearing the original name Agua Azul ("blue water").


Easter was just around the corner so we took another bus to San Cristobal de las Casas. There was a brief mention of a spring festival there in the good book (i.e. the Footprint Mexico & Central America Handbook) so we decided it would be a nice place to spend Easter.

We were right :) But that's for the next post...