The Mayan Ruins

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Our second day in Belize, we woke up at 6 am to catch a 7:30 am bus tour to Tikal in Guatamala. We ate breakfast and before we knew it, our tour guide was waiting for us.

Max, our guide, drove us back to Eva’s (a local restaurant in San Ignacios, Belize) where we met up with the rest of the group. We switched vans and were on our way to see the Mayan ruins.

In our tour bus, there were two couples from Idaho (one was an alfalfa farmer and the other was a manufacturer of horse equipment), an interracial couple from Denver (the woman was a lawyer and the man a physicians assistant), and a young Polish man who had an Internet advertising firm in Poland.

Away we went, along paved roads that should have been unpaved because of all the potholes, then across unpaved roads that stirred up so much dust, you could barely breath. We rode through villages of Belize through the border of Guatamala. At the border, we all had to get out of the van and walk across. What a weird feeling! (I started to think about all the people who came through Ellis Island from Europe.)

After we were cleared, we all got back into the van for a two hour trip to Tikal. Along the way, there were chickens crossing, cattle blocking the road and even children playing with their dogs on the side of the roads. We passed by small huts that held families of five, little shacks that sold Pepsi and Fanta and we passed a number of churches and schools.

At around 11:30 am, we arrived in Tikal, one of the largest Mayan cities with more than 150,000 inhabitants. Tikal is one of the world’s most amazing wonders.

The Mayans built their temples and their villages out of limestone and clay and when I was sitting in the center of the city, it brought chills down my spine thinking that people lived here and worked here more than 2000 years ago.

As I sat there, I closed my eyes and could imagine children running and the hustle and bustle of daily okactivity.

Touring through Tikal was neat. What wasn’t so neat was the tour guide. He was so annoying. Did you ever meet someone who just did not stop talking? That was our tour guide!

He just kept stopping along our three mile walk through the jungle to talk about trees, or various types of monkeys or just something that we weren’t interested in. The people from Idaho kept him going! They kept asking question after question! (After the tour was finished and we were back in the hotel, I could still hear his voice haunting me!)

Through the jungle, all you heard were hollar monkeys! They sounded like lions, tigers and bears all in one and right nearby! The sound was very scary! (Later I learned that in the Movie, Jurasic Park, they used the Hollar monkeys screams as the T Rex.)

By the time the tour was over at 3 pm, we were all starving. We had lunch in a quaint little open aired restaurant in the park. We had steak and chicken but the taste was nothing to remember. It was barely edible, but it didn’t matter, the day was special and the best part, we shared it with the kids!

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