7: into the jungle

rodent evidence

We had a great night´s sleep in the jungle lodge, only disturbed by the smelly French people in the room next door who insisted on smoking strong cigarettes in their room (perhaps not realising that the ceiling was open so it just came straight into ours?). After dinner we decided to open the second bar of fruit and nut that I´d brought Clare from London, only to find that a tiny little mousey mouth had been enjoying it first. We ate it anyway, because we´re nails.

I had marvelled at the handmade roof, crafted from branches of palm, and how it so successfully kept the rain out, until Clare told me about a bug that ´drops from the palm roof, bites you, and then kills you twenty years later´. It seemed fitting that she was the one with a scorpion in her shorts that morning. If you will tell tales, Clare!

We ended up being driven from the Lacandon lodge to the border by a Lacandon chap in his car, as there was not enough room in the colectivo bus they had scheduled to pick us up in. Along the side of the roads, Birds of Paradise were growing in the bush like weeds; literally thousands of them. I told the Lacandon man that at home these flowers were very expensive and he laughed and said that here they were weeds.

It was chaos at the border post, with a noisy bus full of Mexicans clamouring in front of the desk while their tour guide shouted them instructions which they ignored. We finally got to the window and got our exits stamped, and boarded the same sort of boat we had taken to Yaxchilan.

It was a nice journey down the muddy river, whizzing past the jungles and riverside villages, and after some time we arrived at a muddy bank filled with Guatemalans offering to change currencies. We jumped on another bus for the ride to the border post for this side. As I reached into my bag for my passport, a stowaway cockroach scuttled out, which made me shriek. The bus continued along the bumpy road to the tiny island town of Flores, in the north of Guatemala. We stopped in a larger town nearby to get cash out; Clare already had enough to keep her going so I jumped out. It had just started to rain, and sadly the cash machine didn´t work. With some other bus tourists with me, we headed up the road to the next bank in the increasingly heavy shower. This machine didn´t work either. By this stage our bus had disappeared somewhere further up the road, presumably in the hope of finding us, and the rain was washing down the road like a river. We finally found a machine that worked, and I got back on the bus totally and completely soaked through, my rain jacket being helpfully packed in my backpack which was stored safe and dry on top of the bus.

the lake at Flores

On our arrival in Flores a young French couple behind us, on hearing we were planning on going to a particular hostel, inititated a race by running up the hill to try and get there before us. Clare and the boy literally ran up the hill but Clare had the upperhand in that she knew where she was going, and his moment´s hesitation at the corner of the road cost them dearly, for the tiny private room would be ours. Los Amigos, the hostel, had fantastic veggie food (I made up for the lack of meat by eating prawns - why do they count as veggie?) in a cosy restaurant next to a hammocked area where they showed various documentaries on a big screen. After dinner I changed out of my wet clothes to enjoy a cold shower, and warmed up with a drink.

The following day we booked on to the next trip to Tikal, a major Mayan site nearby, and wandered around town, looking at some of the stuff on sale in the artesan market, the best stuff being the hand carved and polished wood. I bought a small jungle badger.

don´t go in the water

Our pickup for Tikal was at 4.30 the next morning, and after dozing in the bus for an hour or so we arrived at the site just before 6am. After being warned about the crocodiles in the water, our guide took us into the main plaza, and we stood in the damp grass looking at the temples shrouded in the mist of the morning. There were lots of bees buzzing about in the grass, and although they seemed harmless their presence made me nervous, after my unexplained allergic reaction in the Virgin Islands a couple of years ago (and Mum being allergic to bees).

Temple I and the Great Plaza

The site is massive. It is listed as one of the most powerful kingdoms and one of the largest sites of the pre-Colombian Mayan civilisation. The city itself covers an area of over 6 square miles, and there is a further residential area reaching out another 20 square miles. Many of the buildings are still claimed by the jungle and have not been explored, and you might walk past buildings not even realising they were there.

grey fox

The guide took us round each section and then allowed us time to explore by ourselves, so we clambered up the various steps that were allowed to take photos, and came across a small gray fox, who didn´t seem too bothered by us. There were lots of animals and birds about; an (apparently rare) orange breasted falcon sat on the top of Temple I surveying its kingdom and ignoring the other birds that were bothered by its presence, and we saw a couple of cheeky jungle badgers who tried to nick our sandwiches, as well as toucans and monkeys. Actually they´re not called jungle badgers at all, they´re called Coatis, but for the purposes of a past joke than only my brother Ben and my cousin Matt will understand, to me they´ll always be jungle badgers.

a jungle badger

sweating at the top of temple IV

Tikal was stunning, and huge. We climbed as many of the temples as we were allowed, although only I climbed temple V due to its very steep stairs, as I´ve discovered I´m apparently fearless of rapidly plunging from a great height whereas Clare it seems is a bit more sensible. We did however both climb the tallest temple in the complex, temple IV, and the view from the top was amazing. There were lots of spider monkeys in the trees right in front of us, leaping about as if we weren´t there watching them.

 After the tour was over we followed the more remote trail to the temple of the inscriptions, but the monkeys and toucans and insects were what made the journey worthwhile. Clare was a little nervous of walking down this trail on our own but it didn´t stop me stopping to photograph a small beetle hauling its tiny but precious load of dung across the path, and latter tagging it online as Helen Rawlinson.