Our time in Antigua didn`t turn out to be quite as hectic as we thought it was going to be as the day that we had planned to go to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan, I woke up with a really bad migrainey type headache so we spent another couple of days mooching around Antigua, not doing very much except visiting the Bagel Barn who did fantastic cups of tea – really tasty and really big!
On the Saturday, we had a hideously early start at 3:30 in the morning to go to Tikal, a big Maya site in the north of Guatemala. After umming and ahhing for ages, we had decided that with the time we have left, it was most sensible to do a two day trip from Antigua which entailed flying there, having a tour, staying the night and flying back the next day…OK, OK, we couldn`t face the 14 hour bus journey either!
So, the bus arrived at 4:00 to take us to the airport in Guatemala. We arrived at the airport and we went to get off but the driver asked us where we were going and when we told him, he said we had to wait a minute. After dropping somebody off who actually did want to go to the airport, he took us to the airline office for our flight…which was a bit like any other office in the middle of an industrial park. However, all was well and we checked in quickly and waited for our flight at 6:30.
It took about an hour to fly to Flores, which is the nearest town to Tikal and then another hour by bus to drive to the site…all of that and it was only 9:30! We had a bit of trouble locating our guide at the airport when we arrived in Flores but apart from that, it was all very smooth. We were in the biggest group we`ve ever been in on a tour of somewhere but it was actually OK.
Tikal is a very impressive site, with some huge temples. The guide said that temple 4, the tallest, is 70m tall. We spent a lot of time climbing up and down the huge steps of the various structures…very achey legs for a couple of days afterwards! We can`t really tell you a great deal about the history of the site as our guide was a very friendly guy but not all that great when it came to guiding! There are basically four huge temples with lots of smaller ones, including an observatory and various other temples dedicated to astronomy and things. There were four temples in front of the observatory, which the sun lines up with at the equinoxes and solstices. It`s amazing how much these ancient civilisations knew about astronomy. Digressing a bit, we`ve been reading a book called `Caribbean´, which is about the Caribbean from hundreds and hundreds of years ago and a Mayan priest in that predicted the sun`s eclipses well into the future, i.e. up to the present day and beyond. I don`t know how much truth lies in that but considering the amount of knowledge they seemed to have about astronomy, it wouldn`t surprise me. They also predicted that the world will end in 2012 so if you`ve got any lifetime ambitions…
Anyway, back to Tikal. Although it is an impressive site in terms of sheer size, we actually found that we preferred Copan because you could see more of the detail there. There is very little that we saw at Tikal in terms of carvings etc., although it could have been partly down to the fact that our guide didn`t point things out. We spent about three and a half hours walking around and climbing up the temples before going for lunch. We had got talking to a few people from the group who were really nice – Claire, a maths teacher from Stockton; Olivia, a librarian from Kansas; Inge from Vienna and a couple of blokes from the US whose names we didn`t get but they provided some entertainment. One was recording sounds the whole day long because he apparently does some sort of experimental music and the other one had been working in the peace corps in Guatemala for two years.
After lunch, we left the others and went to our hotel with Olivia and Inge as the rest were returning to Antigua the same day. We had thought that we would need more time than just a few hours to see the ruins but as it turned out, we saw most of what we wanted to see and were a bit nervous about going to the more remote areas as we`d heard horror stories of muggings and even murders! So we didn`t actually go back into the ruins!
We had a really nice room – one of the nicest we`ve stayed in! It was a nice surprise cos we were staying in the cheapest one of the three hotels on the site according to our guidebook. It did have intermittent electricity though. We spent the afternoon doing not very much and then met Olivia and Inge for dinner.
The next morning, we visited the two museums on the site. The first one had stelae (big statues/tablet stones) and the second one had various artefacts that had been found during uncovering the site. Some of the masks and things were quite cool. We spent the rest of the morning sat in a café having a drink and then lunch before being picked up at 2:00 by the bus to take us to the airport. Nothing exceptional happened on the way back to Antigua and we arrived back at about 6:30.
The next morning, we had to get up at 6:30 to get a bus to Panajachel, from where we were catching another bus to San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico the next day. When the bus arrived, we were told that we were going to be going via Chichicastentango, which is where there is a big market on Thursdays and Sundays (unfortunately we missed that) as there were only two of us in the bus and there were another couple who wanted to go to Panajachel too. It wasn`t too bad though and was quite a pleasant drive.
When we got to Panajachel, we found a little town with hundreds of artesan stalls! We went for a wander down by the lake but unfortunately, it was quite cloudy and hazy and we couldn`t really see very much! We then went to do a bit of shopping, which was great! The only bad thing was that you get hassled a lot by people selling things there and because they are obviously quite poor, I ended up buying quite a lot to support them just a little bit.
The next morning was another early start – 5:30 to get the bus to San Cristobal! We were a bit worried about taking a minibus for an 8 hour journey as they`re generally quite cramped but there were only six of us so we could spread ourselves out a bit. I can`t tell you a great deal about the journey to the border as I fell asleep but apparently I missed some pretty countryside.
The border crossing was fairly straightforward, although we found out that we had to pay about 10 pounds for our tourist card, which was a bit annoying. It wasn`t a backhander either, it was all official and we had to pay it at the bank, which we did a couple of days later in San Cristobal. We changed minibuses at the border and had a very spacious one, which was a bit of luxury. The journey wasn´t particularly spectacular and we arrived in San Cristobal at about 4:00.
We found a really nice little hostel and then went for a wander around the town, which is about all we did for the day after as well! It´s a really nice old colonial town with a friendly atmosphere. We both really liked it there and I´d love to say more but we really didn´t do very much there!
Yesterday (Thursday), we got a bus to Palenque, which took about five hours. I know we seem to go on about buses quite a lot but this one deserves a mention as we were back to Argentinian type buses! Very comfy, very spacious and they showed films! Excellent! We arrived in Palenque at about 4:00, found a hotel and wandered around the shops a little bit.
This morning we went to see the ruins here in Palenque, which we really liked. We decided against the guided tour as it was really expensive but they had a little guide book for sale for 50p so we bought one of those instead. It was a really nice site, with lots of the buildings having been restored. We spent a couple of hours wandering around and climbing up the various temples. There were also some really cool wall carvings in a few of the temples that were still partly seeable. Palenque was once the centre of the Maya world, I think and the importance of the site is obvious from visiting it. It also has a couple of famous tombs, including that of Pakal II, whose tomb had lots of jade in it, including a beautiful jade mask. Sort of the Tutenkhamun (I know I´ve spelt that wrong!) of the Maya world. Unfortunately, the temple the tomb was found in is off-limits now. The only bad thing about the site was the heat! It´s so hot here!
We returned to Palenque town and did a bit of shopping before sloping back to our room to take refuge under the fan for a bit. And that brings us up to date! Tomorrow we´re moving on again, to Merida, from where we hope to visit yet more Maya ruins at Uxmal! I haven´t read this back but I´ve got a feeling that may have been a bit of a boring entry so I do apologise and will try to be more on form next time! Until then….bye bye!
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