Tikal

During our visit with the Pierings, we had the pleasure of traveling to Tikal and exploring these ancient Mayan ruins that served as a dominating city from around 300 BC to 400 BCE. This visit involved many temple summits, wild animal sitings, and deep cultural and historical appreciation.


We had the pleasure of staying in a hotel within the Tikal National Reserve which allowed us walking distance to the entrance of the ruins. Being so close, Toby and I wanted to take advantage as much as possible and see the ruins extensively. Therefore we entered and investigated the park on 3 separate occasions for many hours at a time.


The Tikal ruins are spread out amongst the dense rain forest jungle, with temples popping up over the canopy in various spots. One of our favorite places was on top of Temple IV where we watched the sunset, sunrise, and rainstorms from this 70m tall structure. We had to climb some pretty shady ladder steps to reach the top and Brittany almost killed herself slipping on the wet stairs descending for the 3rd time. It was worth it though because Temple IV has a great position towering over the forest from where spotted the other temple peaks and Mundo Perdido.


We also climbed Temple II and the very scary and steep Temple V. Summitting Temple I (Jaguar Temple) is not permitted and neither is the largest Mundo Perdido structure due to recent falls, one resulting in death. Temple III is still buried and overgrown quite extensively and therefore is not accessible to climb. We did however, investigate many other structures in the plaza complexes and even crawled on ours hands up one building in Mundo Perdido in a torrential downpour one afternoon.


Animal sitings in the jungle included toucans, iridescent oscillated turkeys, a red-headed wood pecker, and leaf cutting and other varieties of ants. We also had multiple encounters with spider monkeys (one nearly pissed on Jerry...ha ha), but only heard the screams of howler monkeys. We spotted a gray fox climbing some ruins, got up very close to a coati, and saw some crocodiles.


Overall, it was a very spiritual and special time we spent within the park. Both evenings we stayed late until it closed and felt like we were the only ones wandering the grounds. This allowed us to spot more animals and appreciate the grandeur of these structures and an ancient culture. We are lucky Tikal has been preserved, reconstructed, and protected. Now tourists and scientists alike can visit these monuments and study the glyphs to learn what happened in this region so many years ago.