Month: May 2007

We rose before dawn today for a sunrise tour of Tikal. The organized tours are the only way to get into the park for the sunrise – it is closed to all other visitors. We and several other tour groups climbed up to the top of Templo IV for some great views. After the sunrise, our tour guide took us around the park to climb the temples and learn about the history of Tikal. We ended up seeing all the same sights that we saw yesterday, but it was nice to get some context this time around.

View of the sunrise from Templo IV

View from Templo IV

Howler monkeys up in the trees

We got to see the howler monkeys that we only heard last night. I took a video of the monkeys up in the trees to capture their unique growling sound:

I also saw a few spider monkeys (monos aranas en Espanol) and toucans.

We had planned to stay in Tikal two nights, but after our leisurely afternoon exploration yesterday and our sunrise tour this morning, we felt like we had done Tikal. Fortunately tours and transportation just seem to fall into your lap in this part of the world. Cesar, our sunrise tour guide, was taking a minibus full of people back to Flores at noon. He told us we could hop on for Q30 (about $4) per person. We figured we’d spend a night in Flores and try to find transit down to Coban (a six- or seven-hour bus ride) tomorrow. It turns out our minibus driver could get us another minibus down to Coban this very afternoon. We didn’t know much about the whole Guatemalan system of minibuses before we got here, but it seems they’re all connected and the operators all know each other.

So now, six hours later, we’re in Coban, we had no problem checking into our hotel a day early, and we’ve got a day trip booked for Semuc Champey tomorrow.

We hitched a morning ride over the Guatemalan border to Tikal with Mayawalk, the same outfit that took us to the ATM. We got into Tikal early enough that we were able to spend several hours exploring the park before dark (we had originally expected that we wouldn’t enter the park until tomorrow). We’ve also signed up for a sunrise tour tomorrow morning (4:45am!).

Every temple in the park can be climbed, and many of them involve rickety wooden staircases. We took advantage and got some fantastic views of the park. Kenny had a lot of fun photographing toucans, monkeys, and other wildlife, but the photos only came out so-so. We blame the equipment. ;)

Just as the sun was setting, I heard a loud growling noise. When I asked Kenny what he thought it was, he answered, “I don’t know, my stomach?” But then we heard it again, and again, from several different directions. We had heard that there were jaguars in the area, and started to grow concerned. The growls certainly sounded like they could have been uttered by very large cats. Eventually the growls became so frequent that we figured either (a) we were about to become jaguar prey or (b) we must be mistaken in our jaguar hypothesis. We found another tourist and asked her if she knew what the growling was. She laughed, and told us that they were not jaguars, but that she had made the same mistake we had. After consulting with her companion for the correct English name, she announced that the growls around us were coming from howler monkeys. You’d have to hear the sound to believe it, but we were shocked that a monkey could make such a sound. We looked up in the trees to see if we could spot any on our walk back to our hotel, but unfortunately they were very well hidden.

Our first temple sighting after entering the park

Kenny climbing on a temple

Me and Kenny and one of the Gran Plaza temples

In the Gran Plaza

Templo V involved a very high rickety ladder.

The view from Templo V

We took a bus from Belize City to San Ignacio, a small town near the Guatemalan border and a hub for adventure activities like caving, tubing, and rainforest canopy tours. We made the trek here mostly to check out Actun Tunichil Muknal, or “The Cave of the Stone Sepulchre,” which we’d heard was the must-see attraction in this part of the world. The cave was once featured in National Geographic Adventure Magazine, and next week the Discovery Channel will be here filming a special.

Often abbreviated ATM, the cave is 5km deep, and it leads to an inner chamber where the Mayans performed sacrificial rites over 1000 years ago. The trek there is an Indiana Jones-style adventure that starts with a short hike and several river crossings to reach the mouth of the cave. The cave is fed by a river, and its entrance is an hourglass-shaped opening with a deep pool of water below. At the entrance we donned helmets and headlamps, stowed away our valuables, got a quick safety talk, and hopped into the water. We spent the next 2 hours or so scrambling over rocks, wading, and often swimming through the dark cave. Our guide told us a bit about the geology of the cave, often pointing out interesting stalactites and stalagmites, and he also told us about the religious ceremonies that took place there.

When we reached the sacrificial chamber, we ditched our shoes and proceeded through with socks on, to avoid breaking any of the artifacts. The chamber contained hundreds of ceramic vessels that were once used in Mayan rituals. We also saw the remains of several skeletons, and our guide described for us in detail how the ritual sacrifices are believed to have been performed (I’ll spare you the details). The climax of the tour was the “Crystal Maiden,” the calcified skeleton of a young female sacrifice victim.

The tour was fantastic – definitely one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who visits Belize!

Kenny on the first river crossing

The entrance to the cave

Removing our shoes before entering the sacrificial chamber. Our guide gave me a temporary tattoo using a chunk of clay from the cave.

Scrambling through the rocks on the way to the inner chamber.

Remains of ancient Mayan pottery

The “Crystal Maiden”

I saw this banner in Belize City. I don’t know who the message is intended for (and I know nothing about Belizean politics), but it might not hurt if a neighbor to their north got a similar message…

We had been told that you could just roll into San Pedro and easily find a spot on a snorkeling boat for the next day, and that was true. The hostess at our hotel, Ruby’s, made a quick phone call last night and got us on a boat trip to the Hol Chan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray Alley this morning. For another couple of bucks, she rented us snorkeling gear. Hol Chan features the second-largest barrier reef in the world (if you can guess where the largest one is, you get a cookie).

Kenny and I purchased a waterproof case for our camera before the trip, and we were very excited to try it out. The problem with trying to photograph fish and rays and things is that they keep moving around. :)

Kenny on the boat

The reef

More reef

A pretty blue fish

Underwater traffic jam

A ray. We never figured out whether they were poisonous or not.