The wonder of Tikal

My sister and her boyfriend headed back to Wisconsin last night, but ooh what a four days we had together. For such a short visit, i planned 'guatemala on speed' for them and i think they enjoyed themselves greatly. My favorite part of the trip was Saturday, when we jumped on a plane at 6am and took a 30 min flight to northern guatemala in the district of Peten to the Mayan city of Tikal. The we only saw about 20% of the city on a five hour hike through the jungle...but man absolutley incredible.

The most intense was climbing a 10 story ladder (litearlly) at a 78 degree inline up Temple V. Climbing it was scary as hell, but the whole time i was thinking, okay...once i get to the top i'll be okay becuase i can relax and enjoy the view before i tremble back down this rickety wooden ladder. Boy was i wrong. In the zone, with kelly behind me and jon behind her- i got to the top and stood up i looked to my right and saw not a landing to stand and walk around, but two wooden board that were no more than 2 feet wide for you to walk along. I immeditely sat down and looked over at the rest of the trembling tourists realzing that this was probalby one of the most unsafe and stupidest things that people around here do for fun.


Kelly and Jon reached the top, and kelly had a panic attack and was kelly at me sentences that made no sense and almsot kicked jon in the face on accident as she had no control over what her mouth was saying or her limbs were doing. She immedielty went back down the ladder with jon..as i chose to stay at the top alone. I decided i'll never be here again in my life so i was going to block out the fact that nothing except this wodden board that was last replaced who knows when and enjoy the view of the entire peten jungle and the peaks of the other towers coming up and out of trees. It was an incredible view worth the climb.... but i don't think i'd ever do it again.


Later on hike i learned that many people die climbing the temples. The last one happened three weeks ago- turist, young women, one foot slipped and she fell from step 69 to step 39. The steps are so steep that you don't hit all the steps .....and you fall a loooong way down before you hit anything. I'm convinced that on some of them you could jump outfrom the top of one and miss all of the structure completley. EEEKKKS.

Incredible day, incredibly hot (around 90 all day with 85 % humidity!), incredible history....man.