More Birding Tikal area
From the jungles of Guatemala
From San Ignacio we took a taxi to the Guatemala - Belize border town of Benque and then to the Border posts, separated by a river bridge.
According to the guidebook it was OK to change money with one of the many money changers right at the border. We did so and there was also a young man that happened to have a taxi that could take us places we wanted to go in Guatemala.
(Word of warning!!!! We read in the guidebook that you would have to pay an exit tax as you left Belize, but save your receipt because you might get a discount as you left Belize again. Not so--as we found out when we flew out of Belize on a later date.)
We crossed the border with no problems and let ourselves be convinced by the young man to let him take us all the way to Tikal. This is a personal call. We have a lot of luggage because we are carrying our cooking stuff and it was hot and on and on with those excuses. BUT, he did stop several times to let us buy wine, fruit, vegetables and other supplies. One nice thing about Guatemala, the wine is MUCH cheaper than in Belize.
We got to Tikal around lunchtime. They had tents to rent and so we rented one. The tents are on a concrete platform and all close together, European style. They come with a large air mattress, double in the one we were in. We fixed ourselves lunch from the supplies we had brought while we waited for our tent to become available. We put our things in our tent and decided to go for a walk.
According to the guidebook, if you enter Tikal after 3:00 pm you can use that ticket again for the next day. This proved to be true. The price to enter Tikal has gone up since the book was published--150 quetzales a person.
On our first trip into Tiakl we walked to the Central Acropolis. The ruins are different than the ones we experienced in Mexico. These are still very much in a jungle setting. There are nice pathways, some left from the original Mayan walkways and others created to allow you to move from one area to the other. There are lots of trees overhead and so you are not in the direct sun. Don't worry, it is still warm because of the humidity.
The ruins are quite interesting to look at. We climbed up (not one of the big temples) and enjoyed the view. We decided to head on back to the Jaguar Inn because it was getting toward sunset.
On our way out of the park we were rewarded with a pizote sighting. This is an animal that looks like a cross between an anteater and racoon. According to some of the references we have looked up, this is a coatimudi. We were also entertained by spider and howler monkeys as we made our way through thhe park.
We were staying in a tent on the grounds of the Jaguar Inn one of the three that are right next to the park. As far as we could tell, it was the only one with tents. There is a campground nearby with covered palapa spaces for tents and hammocks with mosquito nets that you could rent with toilet/shower blocks. The Jaguar Inn has a toilet shower block for the tents. The Jaguar Inn uses generators for most of their electricity so it was on in the morning, varied times, around lunch, and then from about 5ish until 9:00 or l0:00 depending on the crowd. Much to the amazement of some of the waiters we cooked our meals with our hotplate in the area outside of the general outside eating area. We would have cooked more of our meals but we discovered to our dismay that our stove we had brought had developed some problems and was leaking fuel and was not useable.
The next day we spent the entire day in Tikal from around 9:30 until 3:30. We did the entire outside perimetaer of the ruins beginning with the ecological trail marked on the map at the entrance. This allowed you to wander through the jungle and read in Spanish some of the various plants and their uses. Boy are we getting good at getting the gist of what is being said. We walked through the entire complex of Tikal except for one of the temples that is off to itself.
It was great fun walking from one area to the next. We ate lunch under a canopy of trees and then took a short nap. We didn't climb to the top of any of the ruins. I didn't feel up to the large steps going down. As we left the ruins we also saw what we belive was an agouiti. We did see a great number of birds but the next story will cover them.
In the evening we visited with other travelers from Great Britain, Minnesota, Germany and other places around the globe.
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