Tikal - Guatemala

We took the ‘Spanish’ rather than the ‘English’ option for our guided group tour of Tikal ruins, primarily because the ‘English’ group was full of monkeys (and not the kind of monkeys we were hoping to see). Our minibus was scheduled to pick us up from our hotel in Flores at 4.30am for the 90minute drive to the ruin site. When the bus finally arrived at 5:15am, due to one of the monkeys having slept past their alarm, we decided that it would be best if we kept us much distance as possible between us and said monkeys.

Our guide was Raul, a proud Guatemalteco who was full of interesting facts and figures about Mayan history and the construction and destruction of the Mayan empire. He also spoke very quickly and used many colloquialisms, which meant that I wasn’t entirely confident that I interpreted all of the facts and figures with complete clarity. So, depending on what was or wasn‘t lost in translation, we learnt that either:

a) The Mayans used to deliver ‘volunteer’ sacrificial children and women to the God of Corn by drugging them with an hallucinogenic plant, removing their hearts with a stone whilst they lay on the altar, and placing the heart on the very top of a stone temple, or;
b) The Mayans were the first to invent deodorant, with one of their kings called Rexona (hence the modern-day brand).

And

a) The Mayans constructed the city of Tikal and the enormous stone pyramids without any metal tools, any horses or the use of the wheel - ie. they cut the stones blocks with other stones and dragged the huge blocks on top of each other using sheer manpower. Pretty impressive! Or;
b) The Mayans would have huge hardware stores where they could go and get their stone blocks cut to
size, with free home delivery.

And
a) The Mayans were amazing astronomers, who, like the ancient Egyptians, built their pyramids in alignment with the stars and used them to measure precise distances and equations. When the sun rises, the peak of the main temple casts a perfect shadow to the base of the main worshipping temple. They built several temples with over 50km of dense jungle in between, yet the top of the temples line up exactly with each other to form a mirror image of constellations such as Orion’s belt. Or;
b) Orion was a Mayan dude, who had a nice belt.

Despite what we did or didn’t understand from the tour, we had a great day in the steamy jungle, climbing up and down the Mayan ruins and enjoying the view from the very top of the temples.

We didn’t see any more monkeys, except this one:

The good news from Raul is that the world is not going to end on 21st December 2012, despite the Mayan calendar ending on this date. What the Mayans predicted will happen when their calendar ends is the start of a new world - one free from famine, war, and disease. And, Raul hoped with a grin, a world where Guatemala would finally win a FIFA World Cup title.