Ruined

Tikal Photos (30)
Palenque Photos (19)

Tikal
Leaving behind the chilly Xela nights, I took a two bus combo overnight to El Remate, traversing most of Guatemala. There I hung out in the jungle with a beautiful lake view of Lago Peten Itza, then went and visited the nearby Mayan ruins of Tikal. The early departure time of 5:30 am was worth the experience of walking through the ruins while the jungle woke up, nearly vacant of humans besides a handful of us peacefully enjoying the experience. Spider monkeys fed in the trees, and the howls of howler monkeys reverberated among the trees. Birds began their singing, and while the human traces of Tikal may slowly be withering away with time, what a jungle morning in Tikal a thousand years before was like was not at all hard to imagine.

L - Sunrise view from atop Temple IV; R - Temple I Silhouette

Tikal was a very impressive sight to explore. While many ruins remain covered by jungle, many of the main structures have been cleared of their jungle overgrowth. Most of the areas between ruins, however, remain overrun by the relentless growth save for the walking paths. It adds quite a mysterious element to the experience, and it was hard to picture what the place would have looked like with around 100,000 Mayans living in it. Some temples could be climbed via timber stair cases, though none were open to climbing on the main stone steps. Still, the views were priceless, however you arrived, and I enjoyed wandering between the trees and stone ruins for the day.

L - Temple I and part of the Grand Plaza; R - The ascent of Temple V

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
In Tikal a childhood dream came true in a way. When I was four years old and I first saw Star Wars, A New Hope, I knew that when I grew up, I would be a Jedi and a X-Wing fighter pilot. When reality and fantasy started to become clearer as I grew older, the dream changed and eventually faded away...UNTIL!, climbing the steps of Temple IV of Tikal a cloudy morning in December, 2008, I looked out acrossed the jungle canopy and thought, "Huh, that looks a lot like the rebel base on Yavin IV, where the Millenium Falcon landed after its daring escape from the clutches of Darth Vader on the Death Star, delivering the crucial plans of the Galactic Empire's new super weapon, revealing a potential weakness in the space station's plan which Luke Skywalker was then able to exploit by using the Force and a little help from his friends." If you couldn't tell from the last sentence, I was (am...) quite the fan. Who would have thought that some day I would be where George Lucas once shot a brief frame of maybe 5 seconds, and recognize it immediately as some world of Star Wars? Though I thought I felt the Force a few times, no fallen tree branches flew up off the ground into my hands, and I couldn't Jedi mind trick my friends into buying me any food. Oh well. Here is the photo comparison:

Palenque
After Tikal a full day journey got me across the border into Mexico, and set up to see the ruins of Palenque the next day. Palenque didn't have the towering temples of Tikal, but the complex was of a more elaborate design, and I think I would have rather lived in Palenque than in Tikal, in one of those wild what if questions that can never come true. Here are a couple pictures, but check out the link for more photos on both of the sites.