..Flores / Tikal, Guatemala..

It seems to be getting better each day! I woke up at 2:45A.M. today to get on a bus for Tikal. Tikal is probably the biggest and most extensively excavated Mayan City State ever found. It has thousands of buildings and seven huge temple / pyramids. I was hoping that waking up was worth the visit to the ancient city so my story begins here:
The bus finally came at 3:15 A.M. and I was joined by 3 guys from Colorado and Margarite & Barbara from Germany. We all slept on the bus, which took an hour to get to Tikal. Once we got there (it was pitch black) we had to carry our water and lights (mind you it was those lights that go on a bandana on your forehead like Indiana Jones!). About 5 minutes into our walk or HIKE, we encountered a Tarantula!! I had a laugh attack at 4:00 A.M. because Margerite said it was a fake tarantula and that the hole was dug up by the Guatemalan guy taking us through the ruins and the jungle. She was sure the guide just wanted to scare us but we actually saw the spider.. It truly was a huge tarantula.
This place is about 100 square km so you can imagine the size of this place and it was all by foot! I´m TIRED (I hiked all 7 pyramids to the top) and I´m once again taking off tonight for Antigua, Guatemala. Anyway, back to my story, as we continued to walk, it would rain on and off so the mud was just everywhere and we were all slipping and falling. Thank God I wore all black! After about 30 minutes, we arrived at the first of the seven temples. We had to climb the damn pyramid at 5:00A.M. so we could see the sun rise over the jungle so we had to hurry. It was so intense after we got to the top and felt incredible, and I mean incredible, fresh air just blowing against us up above the trees and the clouds literally. Everyone was in such awe and amazement that there was this eerie silence the whole time just waiting for the sun to come up. I got in trouble for lighting a cigarette but that was not the biggest of the incidents on top of temple 1.. In that silence, someone farted sooooooooo loud that Margerite and I could not stop laughing but it was that ´high school´laughter where you feel you can´t make any noise so it makes you laugh even more and the laughter comes out of your eyes as tears. Well, that was the funniest thing on this trip so far! I laughed till my stomach hurt. Back to the subject of sunrises, the fog was so thick from the humidity and the drizzle that the sun risen or not, we could not see a thing. Our guide ended up deciding to take us down the temple and tell us about the different cultures around the world and how they built pyramids so similarly and how they always used the stars as guides. At that moment, there were hoardes and I mean hoardes of an animal called pisote (pee-SOH-tay for english speakers) I had never ever seen or knew existed. It´s bigger than a raccoon but smaller than a sloth and they live on trees but climb down to play. The problem is they have retractable claws and can very possibly carry rabies although I doubt it since they live in the jungle and rarely come into contact with the ´civilized´world. It took us about 5 or 6 hours to walk around the whole park and throughout the whole morning / afternoon we visited every part of a mayan town within Tikal. Inside those areas, in living quarters, kitchens, temples and play yards we saw Spider Monkeys, beautiful birds, some sort of colorful Turkey, and thank God, no snakes, pumas, jaguars or poisonous frogs. I did, however, slip twice. Once was trying to see a huge carved face limestone) and the big fall happened when I peeked into a crevasse in one of the temple walls and saw crawling ant like insects on a pear of some sorts. Well I obviously was not wearing my glasses because the ants were really bees and the pear was the beehive.. I felt sooooo stupid because they all swarmed toward me and I ran like the Devil! The problem was that I was on the edge of a temple (a small one about 10 feet high) and slipped down the unexcavated side (the jungle takes over the pyramids every so often so the fall wasn´t that bad). I did not break any bones (only a few scratches on both arms) and my camera did not even get a scratch!! That was my main concern!! Anyway, it was an adventure filled day which I will never forget. I then took the bus back to Flores from Tikal at about 11:00A.M. and got to Flores an hour later. I decided to walk around town and take pictures. The town is beautiful! It is a small island in a lake linked to Santa Elena (a town) by a man made causeway. Flores has to be one of the most colorful towns I have ever visited. It kind of looks like Old San Juan but the difference is that the government paints Old San Juan to make it look attractive for tourists. Here, each person paints their house whichever color they want and since Maya´s are known for LOVING psychodelic colors in every form and shape from art to clothing to buildings (the bases of the pyramids in Tikal used to be bright orange when Tikal was in its heyday between 700-800A.D.) so it undoubtedly gives the town the happy feeling it constantly exudes. I´m now at the hostel getting ready to take a shower and take a nap on a hammock for about 3 hours. My bus for Antigua leaves tonight at 10:30P.M. and arrives in Guatemala City at 6:00A.M. I then transfer and arrive in Antigua at 7:30A.M. I will try to update some more again once I am settled and take enough pictures and have enough to write about. You´ll hear some more in a few days. Until then!