Hello to all from Guatemala! We have had an incredible weekend at Tikal, and I am sad to have left.

There is really no way to describe the park without being there yourself. Since this internet station doesn´t seem to be able to handle any sort of images, I will have to my best without photos... There are over 4000 massive ruins scattered throughout a 16 square kilometer park, with countless more unexcavated sites in the surrounding valleys. Five main pyramids protrude far above the jungle canopy, while countelss other, smaller structures occupy every square inch of the site.

From the top of Temple 4, a seemingly unpenetrable canopy of trees extends for miles in all directions, with four other massive stone temples seeming to grow from the treetops on the horizon. From the top of el templo del mundo perdido, a truncated pyramid almost 60 meters in height, you can watch as the sun slowly drops below the treeline. I have only seen a sunset like that one other time in my life, on a boat in the Atlantic ocean.

We slept in hammocks at the entrance to the park, protected to an extent by mosquito nets and the layers of deet on our skin. Every morning at 4:30 the howler monkeys would begin to scream at such deafening volumes that on my first night I shot out of my hammock, thinking there had been some sort of terrible accident or mass murder taking place right next to where I was sleeping.

I think the most amazing thing about the place was the solitude and remoteness. It was such a massive city - 100,000 peope in its heyday around 900AD - that even with the morning rush of tourists you could easily find an isolated pyramid all for yourself. In the afternoons, as the tour busses left, only those sleeping in the park remained, and the entire city was like a private playground. We met some amazing people there as well, both local and from all over the world. Last night as we watched the colors changing on the pyramids in the grand plaza from the top of Temple IV, the Guatemalan family who had made us omelettes for breakfast came up to enjoy the view and the early evening calm. So Chad, myself, a fellow traveler named Daniel and this family all sat in a row on the topmost step of the pyramid, watching the monkeys swing from the tree limbs below us and telling each other stories as best we could until dusk set in and we began the 70 meter descent back to the ground.

We got back to Flores around two o´clock this afternoon and found we had missed our bus by ten minutes, so tonight we are here once again before heading off for Panxachel in the morning. From there we will take a two hour boat ride on el Rio de la Pasion to El Ceibal, a remote Mayan ruin site, before catching a final bus to Coban, a medium sized town about two hours north of Guatemala City.

I am not able to upload my own photos, so here are a few of Tikal from the internet:















This is an aerial view of the grand plaza at Tikal.

















And here is the view from the top of Temple IV. From left to right is Temple I, II, and II. Unseen are the countless other temples and structures hidden beneath the jungle canopy.

This computer seems to be having many troubles, so I am going to call it quits here. I miss everyone and will see them in just nine weeks!