Booked 4:30am pickup for Tikal; it was raining and I standee at the street corner under a bulb, the only bright spot for 45min, didn’t see a tour bus stop or pass. Tried several times, finally got somebody on the call who claimed the driver didn’t see me (really?). He promised to pick me up at 5:30am for 6am tour instead. I’m back to the street corner. The driver was late but at least ‘found’ me this time. After an early flight and overnight bus, 3 days in a row short of sleep, what I need the least is a waste of sleep. I told myself to be ‘kind’ and think ‘positively’ (well, it’s raining so no sunrise anyway and the rain stopped when we got to Tikal.)
The day turned out a lot better. We had a wonderful guide L who is not only knowledgeable about the Mayan history but grew up here. He pointed to us ‘flying banana’ toucan, howler monkey, coatimundis…and used a thin string of leave to lure a huge spider out of the cave. He showed several ‘magic’ trees: ‘wow’ (see ‘Arbol de Vida’ post), all spice/ herbal remedy, onion-smell seed, and the coolest, he made ‘chewing gum’ out of a seed juice…another wow!
A cloudy day made it cooler to walk around Tikal and perhaps the rain deterred some visitors to make the national park less crowded. Compared to Machu Picchu, Tikal is even more impressive on the scale (what’s shown is only 15%, it’s estimated over 4000 buildings and 1 million Mayans lived here about 2000 years ago) and construction skill (plaster made of burned and powdered limestone to build around stone armatures) yet more tranquilo (relaxed) for the visit.
I enjoyed Tikal and I’m glad to be on the 6am tour, an extended (almost doubled time) ecological, archaeological education by L. 塞翁失馬焉知非福Good or Bad luck? Not on face value~