Dec. 20-Morning in Tikal & beyond

During the night we woke up to this incredible noise! It seemed monstrous. It was something between a gigantic whirring sound, like a mighty engine trying to start, and a great wind trying to get through a space that is too small. An Englander we met the next morning (Hi Becky) said it reminded her of the sounds the dinosaurs made on the movie Jurassic Park (the scary ones at night). I think it sounded like the space machine going full force on the movie Contact (maybe we watch too many movies!) but this amazing sound woke us up from a dead sleep at about 3:30 in the morning. It was really the sound of Howler Monkeys (which I'm glad the tour book warned us about or I would have been scared out of my wits) stirring in the trees around our resort. I can't imagine the explorers here who would have heard that from their canvas tents or less...how brave they must have been.

At 5:30am we were supposed to get a wake up call so we could meet our guide at 6am for our morning sunrise tour. At 5:50 Aaron rolled over and checked his watch...and then we were off in a run, trying to wake tired 3 year olds and get cranky bodies dressed was accomplished but Mom & Dad were both a little frazzled as we got to our meeting point at 6:15 (only 15 mins late but late none the less). So instead of hiking the 30 mins across the park to our vantage point we hopped in the back of a pick-up and had a brisk bumpy ride to help wake us up!
We climbed 199 wooden steps (very sturdy with handrails...rare in Guatemala) and sat atop Temple IV in Tikal to watch the sunrise.
This is what we saw.
Even though our view was only fog, listening to the jungle awaken was great. After about an hour just sitting and soaking it all in (except for a call to Mom & Dad VB from the top of the temple...our guide, Samuel, had his phone) Samuel took us around the park showing us the sights for the morning. We saw...
Massena Trogon (Slaty Tailed Trogon)
Collared Aracaris
Unique Trees (called a hugging tree...see why?)
This tree had bark with medicinal properties like witch hazel.
This one is for all you tree huggers out there! (Like a palm tree with spikes & they were very sharp!)
Ruins trying to fight their way out through the encroaching jungle.
We climbed some pyramids & it was pretty cool.
The final temple we ended up at was Temple V. It is the 2nd highest and has steps that would even make my parents steps at their house seem wide (this is about a 70 degree angle you are climbing up...crazy how steep this was.) We didn't climb it but Greg went back in the afternoon and did it. We said "Adios" to Samuel (who had became Lily's big buddy) and headed back to our lodgings for a late breakfast and packing up our rooms around 10ish and then headed back into the jungle to see what we could see before we had to leave for our next destination.
This is a tree stump that started out as a seed lodged in one of the ancient stones and then grew until it cracked the giant circular stone in half.
We climbed to the top of Temple IV where we had been seated that morning and the sight was amazing.
This view is actually seen at the end of Star Wars (the first movie).
It was incredible sitting up there above the jungle...how it must have looked back when the Mayan civilization flourish...because they think there was no vegetation...what a sight that must have been.
This is a look back at Temple IV from the trail we headed out on.
This is where we were seated to see the view from the top of Temple IV.
As we left some spider monkeys played in the tops of the trees. Just a one of the many we saw during our days in Tikal. They were just really hard to photograph.
As we headed out to our final destination, Finca Ixobel in Poptun, Guatemala we were in great spirits because of the fantastic sights the Lord provided us with. More on that in the next blog!
If you would like more information about Tikal I found this cool interactive website about it...http://www.destination360.com/tikal.htm. Enjoy!